Unrelated to the title, but:
Today I did a rim swap on Nomu Lab Wheel #5
—the one with a PowerTap G3 hub and silver spokes.
Separately, I've also been fixing
the rear wheel of Nomu Lab Wheel #5 with a G3 hub and black spokes.
I bent a spoke when my shoe heel jabbed into it
during a clipless pedal catch-release mishap.
Anyway, wheel day again
(you know how it goes).
Built a front wheel with SMART ENVE's AD35 rim.
The rim height is 35mm, but there's currently no equivalent
in SES's off-the-shelf wheel lineup.
The current SES 3.4 Disc (late 2017 onwards)
has a 38mm front rim and 42mm rear rim,
which corresponds to just the front rim of the original SES 3.4 Disc—
the original had 35mm front and 45mm rear.
The other differences are:
The original had an external rim width of 26mm front / 24mm rear
and the rim wasn't tubeless-compatible,
while the current (second-generation) model has
27.5mm external rim width front and rear
and uses tubeless-ready rims.
The current SES 3.4's URL slug on the manufacturer's site
is new-ses-3-4/, but
removing the "new-" won't get you to the old model's page.
Chris King R45D (R45 disc version)
24 spokes, semi-CX sprint, laced 6×6 (3-cross both sides).
I haven't done the truing yet.
It came pre-tensioned and is dead-center.
In other words, it's in working condition right out of the box.
You might wonder why I built it 6×6 instead of 4×4 (2-cross),
well—ENVE's specs say "don't use 3-cross" (they recommend 2-cross),
so I deliberately went against that.
On the rim sidewall it says:
"Do not use with rim brakes" and "Lace with 3-cross."
The "NOT FOR" seems to apply to both, so
Prohibited uses (bulleted):
· Use with rim brakes
· Lacing with 3-cross
↑ That's how I read it.
But after some digging, I found English-speakers who
interpret it as "recommending 3-cross lacing"
(the person I found bought an original SES 3.4 Disc rim too).
The same warning appears on the outer rim circumference,
but since it's interrupted by the spoke holes,
if you only read the second half it looks like "use 3-cross lacing"—
which makes the whole thing confusing.
On ENVE's manufacturer site,
for each rim model they list several hubs ENVE recommends
(Chris King, DT, their own carbon hubs,
and Industry Nine hubs for MTB),
and they publish spoke length recommendations for each.
For rim-brake front wheels, they give radial-laced spoke lengths,
and for everything else, 2-cross (4-spoke) lengths.
But this doesn't mean "don't use any other lacing pattern."
ENVE's site has a page covering radial, 2-cross, and 3-cross lacing,
and while they mention that 3-cross is used in the SES 3.4 Disc,
both the original and current models are actually built 2-cross.
Apparently there were 3-cross cyclocross wheels at 32 spokes in the past,
but checking their current MTB complete wheels at 28 and 32 spokes,
they're all 2-cross.
ENVE's in-house staggered-flange hubs,
when laced 2-cross, create a pseudo-3-cross effect.
I've seen write-ups claiming "ENVE calls this 'virtual 3-cross'
with optimized spoke angles and such,"
but I couldn't find "virtual 3-cross" anywhere on ENVE's actual site.
This is just one person's take, not ENVE's position,
but an American flagged that 24-spoke 3-cross is problematic because
outpokes heads get covered by inpokes.
This hub is large-flange, so we avoid that issue,
but my usual 6-spoke builds on the non-drive side of Evo Lite hubs
do have spokes slightly overlapping—
and spoke replacement on that side takes a bit of finesse.
I've never seen spoke breakage from this, though, so no real problem
(with 28-spoke 8×8, complete overlap can happen,
and I have seen inpoke failures at the head on the outpoke side).
So, given that later models dropped the 3-cross warning
and ENVE's own hubs are essentially 3-cross anyway,
I deliberately built it 6×6 (3-cross both sides).
Compared to ENVE's off-the-shelf wheels,
the deformation on the anti-rotor mounting side is noticeably less,
but that's more from the asymmetric CX sprint lacing
than from the difference between 4×4 and 6×6.
The CX Sprint spokes can be re-worked to 4-spoke lengths,
so I'll re-lace it back to 4×4 (2-cross) as usual.
Not just ENVE, but rim manufacturers' in-house wheels
generally show pretty sloppy lacing practices.
Way too many shops aren't bothered by high-profile aero spokes
in 4×4 lacing without questioning it.
ZIPP and Reynolds sometimes do asymmetric lacing, though.
Today I did a rim swap on Nomu Lab Wheel #5
—the one with a PowerTap G3 hub and silver spokes.
Separately, I've also been fixing
the rear wheel of Nomu Lab Wheel #5 with a G3 hub and black spokes.
I bent a spoke when my shoe heel jabbed into it
during a clipless pedal catch-release mishap.
Anyway, wheel day again
(you know how it goes).
Built a front wheel with SMART ENVE's AD35 rim.
The rim height is 35mm, but there's currently no equivalent
in SES's off-the-shelf wheel lineup.
The current SES 3.4 Disc (late 2017 onwards)
has a 38mm front rim and 42mm rear rim,
which corresponds to just the front rim of the original SES 3.4 Disc—
the original had 35mm front and 45mm rear.
The other differences are:
The original had an external rim width of 26mm front / 24mm rear
and the rim wasn't tubeless-compatible,
while the current (second-generation) model has
27.5mm external rim width front and rear
and uses tubeless-ready rims.
The current SES 3.4's URL slug on the manufacturer's site
is new-ses-3-4/, but
removing the "new-" won't get you to the old model's page.
Chris King R45D (R45 disc version)
24 spokes, semi-CX sprint, laced 6×6 (3-cross both sides).
I haven't done the truing yet.
It came pre-tensioned and is dead-center.
In other words, it's in working condition right out of the box.
You might wonder why I built it 6×6 instead of 4×4 (2-cross),
well—ENVE's specs say "don't use 3-cross" (they recommend 2-cross),
so I deliberately went against that.
On the rim sidewall it says:
"Do not use with rim brakes" and "Lace with 3-cross."
The "NOT FOR" seems to apply to both, so
Prohibited uses (bulleted):
· Use with rim brakes
· Lacing with 3-cross
↑ That's how I read it.
But after some digging, I found English-speakers who
interpret it as "recommending 3-cross lacing"
(the person I found bought an original SES 3.4 Disc rim too).
The same warning appears on the outer rim circumference,
but since it's interrupted by the spoke holes,
if you only read the second half it looks like "use 3-cross lacing"—
which makes the whole thing confusing.
On ENVE's manufacturer site,
for each rim model they list several hubs ENVE recommends
(Chris King, DT, their own carbon hubs,
and Industry Nine hubs for MTB),
and they publish spoke length recommendations for each.
For rim-brake front wheels, they give radial-laced spoke lengths,
and for everything else, 2-cross (4-spoke) lengths.
But this doesn't mean "don't use any other lacing pattern."
ENVE's site has a page covering radial, 2-cross, and 3-cross lacing,
and while they mention that 3-cross is used in the SES 3.4 Disc,
both the original and current models are actually built 2-cross.
Apparently there were 3-cross cyclocross wheels at 32 spokes in the past,
but checking their current MTB complete wheels at 28 and 32 spokes,
they're all 2-cross.
ENVE's in-house staggered-flange hubs,
when laced 2-cross, create a pseudo-3-cross effect.
I've seen write-ups claiming "ENVE calls this 'virtual 3-cross'
with optimized spoke angles and such,"
but I couldn't find "virtual 3-cross" anywhere on ENVE's actual site.
This is just one person's take, not ENVE's position,
but an American flagged that 24-spoke 3-cross is problematic because
outpokes heads get covered by inpokes.
This hub is large-flange, so we avoid that issue,
but my usual 6-spoke builds on the non-drive side of Evo Lite hubs
do have spokes slightly overlapping—
and spoke replacement on that side takes a bit of finesse.
I've never seen spoke breakage from this, though, so no real problem
(with 28-spoke 8×8, complete overlap can happen,
and I have seen inpoke failures at the head on the outpoke side).
So, given that later models dropped the 3-cross warning
and ENVE's own hubs are essentially 3-cross anyway,
I deliberately built it 6×6 (3-cross both sides).
Compared to ENVE's off-the-shelf wheels,
the deformation on the anti-rotor mounting side is noticeably less,
but that's more from the asymmetric CX sprint lacing
than from the difference between 4×4 and 6×6.
The CX Sprint spokes can be re-worked to 4-spoke lengths,
so I'll re-lace it back to 4×4 (2-cross) as usual.
Not just ENVE, but rim manufacturers' in-house wheels
generally show pretty sloppy lacing practices.
Way too many shops aren't bothered by high-profile aero spokes
in 4×4 lacing without questioning it.
ZIPP and Reynolds sometimes do asymmetric lacing, though.