Another day with wheels (you know the drill).
A customer brought in a front wheel built with an ENVE 1-45 tubular rim.
It's got a Chris King R45 hub in 20H black CX-RAY with reverse radial lacing,
but they want me to rebuild it with a Toni (Toni Eevolite hub instead.
Since Chris King has a larger flange diameter, I can't reuse the spokes when rebuilding with the Eevolite hub.
It would be possible if it were the other way around.
But anyway, they want silver spokes for the rebuild,
so spoke reuse isn't an option regardless.
The hub bearing cone adjustment part had loosened completely and was biting into the axle,
causing such severe lateral play that the wheel was unusable.
We're not going to keep using this hub anyway, but
I adjusted the bearing play just to be safe.
At that point the centering was off by about one sheet of paper,
so it could be built as a wheel.
You sometimes see this with front wheels in radial lacing on rims without rim offset,
but this front wheel was built with reversed rim orientation.
To be precise, it wasn't intentionally done with reversed rim orientation—
it's just that it ended up that way from careless assembly.
There was one bent spoke.
While disassembling, I noticed something, so
I left 4 nipples next to the valve hole completely untightened
and removed everything else.
Extracting the nipples that were never loosened from the rim.
These rims have gone through four generations of internal nipples from EDGE to ENVE,
and this was built with the second-generation ones.
The first and second generation nipples have hexagonal gripping areas, but
only the first generation has a nylon insert on one side to prevent loosening,
so you can tell—even without thinking—which side goes to the outer diameter.
The third and fourth generations have square gripping areas,
shaped like an inverted universal nipple, so
you can't install them backwards.
But only the second generation has the possibility of being assembled backwards,
and the wheel before this rebuild
had the nipples installed in the wrong direction.
These nipples are about the same length as the threaded portion of a universal spoke.
The problem with getting the orientation wrong is that
you immediately hit the thread start, meaning
the spoke threads get completely used up,
which makes later truing adjustments impossible
or causes spoke breakage at the thread start.
The spoke end is protruding from the nipple, which is too much.
These nipples also have limited thread-seating depth,
so the acceptable spoke length range is quite tight even when used in the correct orientation.
The light blue residue is thread-locking compound from Wheelsmith.
↑Because the orientation is wrong, the thread-seating pocket is on the outer diameter side.
↑On the inner diameter side, it immediately hits the thread start, and
I think the spoke threads have been completely used up.
Since we're not reusing them, I cut off the spokes.
I put a marker tape right at the spoke end
and loosened it a bit
and flipped it over.
Just as I suspected, the spoke threads are completely used up.
With an aluminum nipple, you could probably push another rotation or so past the end,
but this one seems to be screwed in beyond even that.
These second-generation nipples were used on EDGE rims, not ENVE ones, so it's not impossible,
but the dates don't match up.
The ENVE sticker on the rim
was probably not original to the rim but rather
a separately sold sticker in white (available in various colors)
that was added later.
But that doesn't mean this is an EDGE-era rim with an ENVE sticker slapped on it—
The serial number is in the 116,000s, a 6-digit number,
so it's from even later in the ENVE period.
I have no idea why second-generation nipples were used.
I considered the possibility that nipples were reused from a cracked EDGE 1-45 rim
during a rim replacement, but
the rear wheel from the same era is also in for rebuild,
so that seems unlikely.
Also, the current owner isn't the original owner, so
I don't know what shop messed up
the nipple orientation and spoke length—
I can't say for certain.
Built.
Eevolite hub, 20H, silver CX-RAY with reverse radial lacing.
Usually when I use silver spokes I write just CX-RAY, not silver CX-RAY (same with semi-comp etc.),
but this time I emphasized the change from black
by writing silver CX-RAY.
↑The spoke that was bent
A customer brought in a front wheel built with an ENVE 1-45 tubular rim.
It's got a Chris King R45 hub in 20H black CX-RAY with reverse radial lacing,
but they want me to rebuild it with a Toni (Toni Eevolite hub instead.
Since Chris King has a larger flange diameter, I can't reuse the spokes when rebuilding with the Eevolite hub.
It would be possible if it were the other way around.
But anyway, they want silver spokes for the rebuild,
so spoke reuse isn't an option regardless.
The hub bearing cone adjustment part had loosened completely and was biting into the axle,
causing such severe lateral play that the wheel was unusable.
We're not going to keep using this hub anyway, but
I adjusted the bearing play just to be safe.
At that point the centering was off by about one sheet of paper,
so it could be built as a wheel.
You sometimes see this with front wheels in radial lacing on rims without rim offset,
but this front wheel was built with reversed rim orientation.
To be precise, it wasn't intentionally done with reversed rim orientation—
it's just that it ended up that way from careless assembly.
There was one bent spoke.
While disassembling, I noticed something, so
I left 4 nipples next to the valve hole completely untightened
and removed everything else.
Extracting the nipples that were never loosened from the rim.
These rims have gone through four generations of internal nipples from EDGE to ENVE,
and this was built with the second-generation ones.
The first and second generation nipples have hexagonal gripping areas, but
only the first generation has a nylon insert on one side to prevent loosening,
so you can tell—even without thinking—which side goes to the outer diameter.
The third and fourth generations have square gripping areas,
shaped like an inverted universal nipple, so
you can't install them backwards.
But only the second generation has the possibility of being assembled backwards,
and the wheel before this rebuild
had the nipples installed in the wrong direction.
These nipples are about the same length as the threaded portion of a universal spoke.
The problem with getting the orientation wrong is that
you immediately hit the thread start, meaning
the spoke threads get completely used up,
which makes later truing adjustments impossible
or causes spoke breakage at the thread start.
The spoke end is protruding from the nipple, which is too much.
These nipples also have limited thread-seating depth,
so the acceptable spoke length range is quite tight even when used in the correct orientation.
The light blue residue is thread-locking compound from Wheelsmith.
↑Because the orientation is wrong, the thread-seating pocket is on the outer diameter side.
↑On the inner diameter side, it immediately hits the thread start, and
I think the spoke threads have been completely used up.
Since we're not reusing them, I cut off the spokes.
I put a marker tape right at the spoke end
and loosened it a bit
and flipped it over.
Just as I suspected, the spoke threads are completely used up.
With an aluminum nipple, you could probably push another rotation or so past the end,
but this one seems to be screwed in beyond even that.
These second-generation nipples were used on EDGE rims, not ENVE ones, so it's not impossible,
but the dates don't match up.
The ENVE sticker on the rim
was probably not original to the rim but rather
a separately sold sticker in white (available in various colors)
that was added later.
But that doesn't mean this is an EDGE-era rim with an ENVE sticker slapped on it—
The serial number is in the 116,000s, a 6-digit number,
so it's from even later in the ENVE period.
I have no idea why second-generation nipples were used.
I considered the possibility that nipples were reused from a cracked EDGE 1-45 rim
during a rim replacement, but
the rear wheel from the same era is also in for rebuild,
so that seems unlikely.
Also, the current owner isn't the original owner, so
the nipple orientation and spoke length—
I can't say for certain.
Built.
Eevolite hub, 20H, silver CX-RAY with reverse radial lacing.
Usually when I use silver spokes I write just CX-RAY, not silver CX-RAY (same with semi-comp etc.),
but this time I emphasized the change from black
by writing silver CX-RAY.
↑The spoke that was bent