A customer dropped off the rear wheel from a Racing 1.
This is the original generation Racing 1 2WAY-FIT model.
Instead of evenly-spaced rim holes, it has rest-phase holes,
and instead of Neytai spokes,
it uses the same spokes as the Campagnolo Shamal Ultra—
the 2WAY-FIT was actually the first to adopt this,
and the subsequent WO and tubular models followed suit.
A customer took it to a certain shop for hub overhaul and truing,
and they twisted off 3 spokes and charged him for replacements.
They claimed "we believe it was metal fatigue,"
but that's complete nonsense.
I'll say upfront: I've adjusted every single nipple at our shop afterward,
and including potential problem ones, there wasn't a single seized nipple.
I even showed the customer the seized nipples left on the old rim from the recent Racing Zero rim replacement
and explained: "There are cases like the last stick in that Black Beard game (※) where no matter who touches it, it will definitely explode,
but this Racing 1 has absolutely none of those."
※The official name is "Kiki Ippatsu" (危機一発), not "Kiki Issatsu."
So, one spoke on the wheel that was brought in is broken,
and according to the customer, it snapped suddenly during riding.
They took it to that incompetent shop who charged them for 3 spokes out of their own screw-up,
and this time they said "the spoke fatigue is widespread; a complete spoke replacement is necessary,
and if we're fixing it, the rim will need replacing too."
And there it is—the standard go-to excuse of third-rate hack shops!
Why does everyone say the same thing? I genuinely don't get it.
When the customer first told me this, the wheel was still in a bag,
but I said to them "wait, let me guess. The spoke fracture happened
near the boundary between the round and flat sections on the nipple end,
and the broken cross-section should be two colors—dark and light, right?"
I predicted it before seeing it, and I was spot on.
In this case, when those hacks were playing around twisting off 3 spokes,
cracks developed in the spokes they twisted (supposedly attempting to straighten them),
and one snapped with a sharp crack during riding.
The cause of this fourth broken spoke lies entirely with that lousy shop.
So I replaced the broken spoke, marked it with tape,
and told the customer: "From here on, I'm absolutely not touching any nipple except the one on this taped spoke—watch me. This is critically important."
I did the truing by adjusting only the replacement spoke's nipple until that phase area wasn't the most run-out anymore.
There's minimal lateral runout, but zero major wobble.
And the preliminary center at that point was
↑this.
Since the lateral runout is minimal, from any phase
it's shifted equally toward the non-drive side.
This is more than what would occur with a Fulcrum out-of-box alignment,
and it's in the opposite direction from typical wear-related drift.
Accumulated over-tightening on the non-drive side caused this center offset,
they did fake truing work and finished without even putting a center gauge on it
（any gauge, no matter how crude, should catch this）.
They steal money doing this kind of hack work—easy money if you can get away with it.
After that I touched the other nipples too,
and showed the customer how I chased down the offset to within a paper thickness,
then took even that out completely.
Actually, during the work I happened to catch the paper-thickness-offset stage
and showed them that, so they could see the progression.
I forgot to photograph the final perfectly-centered result—my apologies.
↑the spoke cross-section.
The dark part looks black in the photo, but to the naked eye it's more subtle—
like dark granite in texture.
Retaken photo.
The dark part is the crack that had been spreading right up until the break,
and the light part is where it suddenly snapped completely.
I inspected all the spokes to see if any others showed twisting or straightening attempts,
but found nothing obvious to the eye.
Also, they claimed to have done a hub overhaul, but there was play in it.
There's not a single aspect of their work worth defending.
I asked the customer if I could name this lousy shop here, but they said no.
I almost told them I wouldn't repair the wheel unless they let me.
Writing what I can: it's an independently owned shop that split off from a chain,
located in Kyoto Prefecture.
Ugh, those bastards can go die.
Now the wheel build got delayed again.
I've got 4 component assembly jobs with actual deadlines,
and none of them are moving forward.
This is the original generation Racing 1 2WAY-FIT model.
Instead of evenly-spaced rim holes, it has rest-phase holes,
and instead of Neytai spokes,
it uses the same spokes as the Campagnolo Shamal Ultra—
the 2WAY-FIT was actually the first to adopt this,
and the subsequent WO and tubular models followed suit.
A customer took it to a certain shop for hub overhaul and truing,
and they twisted off 3 spokes and charged him for replacements.
They claimed "we believe it was metal fatigue,"
but that's complete nonsense.
I'll say upfront: I've adjusted every single nipple at our shop afterward,
and including potential problem ones, there wasn't a single seized nipple.
I even showed the customer the seized nipples left on the old rim from the recent Racing Zero rim replacement
and explained: "There are cases like the last stick in that Black Beard game (※) where no matter who touches it, it will definitely explode,
but this Racing 1 has absolutely none of those."
※The official name is "Kiki Ippatsu" (危機一発), not "Kiki Issatsu."
So, one spoke on the wheel that was brought in is broken,
and according to the customer, it snapped suddenly during riding.
They took it to that incompetent shop who charged them for 3 spokes out of their own screw-up,
and this time they said "the spoke fatigue is widespread; a complete spoke replacement is necessary,
and if we're fixing it, the rim will need replacing too."
And there it is—the standard go-to excuse of third-rate hack shops!
Why does everyone say the same thing? I genuinely don't get it.
When the customer first told me this, the wheel was still in a bag,
but I said to them "wait, let me guess. The spoke fracture happened
near the boundary between the round and flat sections on the nipple end,
and the broken cross-section should be two colors—dark and light, right?"
I predicted it before seeing it, and I was spot on.
In this case, when those hacks were playing around twisting off 3 spokes,
cracks developed in the spokes they twisted (supposedly attempting to straighten them),
and one snapped with a sharp crack during riding.
The cause of this fourth broken spoke lies entirely with that lousy shop.
So I replaced the broken spoke, marked it with tape,
and told the customer: "From here on, I'm absolutely not touching any nipple except the one on this taped spoke—watch me. This is critically important."
I did the truing by adjusting only the replacement spoke's nipple until that phase area wasn't the most run-out anymore.
There's minimal lateral runout, but zero major wobble.
And the preliminary center at that point was
↑this.
Since the lateral runout is minimal, from any phase
it's shifted equally toward the non-drive side.
This is more than what would occur with a Fulcrum out-of-box alignment,
and it's in the opposite direction from typical wear-related drift.
Accumulated over-tightening on the non-drive side caused this center offset,
they did fake truing work and finished without even putting a center gauge on it
（any gauge, no matter how crude, should catch this）.
They steal money doing this kind of hack work—easy money if you can get away with it.
After that I touched the other nipples too,
and showed the customer how I chased down the offset to within a paper thickness,
then took even that out completely.
Actually, during the work I happened to catch the paper-thickness-offset stage
and showed them that, so they could see the progression.
I forgot to photograph the final perfectly-centered result—my apologies.
↑the spoke cross-section.
The dark part looks black in the photo, but to the naked eye it's more subtle—
like dark granite in texture.
Retaken photo.
The dark part is the crack that had been spreading right up until the break,
and the light part is where it suddenly snapped completely.
I inspected all the spokes to see if any others showed twisting or straightening attempts,
but found nothing obvious to the eye.
Also, they claimed to have done a hub overhaul, but there was play in it.
There's not a single aspect of their work worth defending.
I asked the customer if I could name this lousy shop here, but they said no.
Writing what I can: it's an independently owned shop that split off from a chain,
located in Kyoto Prefecture.
Ugh, those bastards can go die.
Now the wheel build got delayed again.
I've got 4 component assembly jobs with actual deadlines,
and none of them are moving forward.