Another wheel day (and so on).
A customer dropped off a front wheel built with a Mavic GP4.
Since the rim had a sticker with the shop name on it,
I'm being considerate and blocking it out.
It's from the M-label era, and with GP4 the label color is purple.
Mavic rims from this era had different colors here depending on the model—GEL280 was light blue, GL330 was pink,
MACH2 CD2 (Mach Two CD Two) was yellow-green—
so you can tell them apart even from a distance.
This marking here states that the hard anodize electrolytic treatment
was performed at 650W,
but there are also versions of the same label that show 650V instead,
which tells us it was 1A,
though recently I found one with a marking that's neither W nor V.
I'll write about it in the next post. ← Once I write this, I can't back out.
The hub is an HB-7400 32H in Italian cross lacing,
The spokes are star stainless.
Not the generic term stainless, but "Stainless" as a product name.
There's also Starbright as a separate product,
which corresponds to stainless steel spokes in the general sense.
When the spoke head is a ★ mark, it's "Stainless," and
since these were genuinely true stainless from the old star spokes,
they didn't react to a magnet at all.
I also have the rear wheel built with the same rim on deposit,
and that one came with brass nipples, possibly because
it was built at a different time.
Since the front wheel was specifically built with brass nipples,
I thought it might be 15-gauge base, but it turned out to be 14-gauge base butted spokes
(since very few shops stock 15-gauge color aluminum nipples in abundance).
The spoke length was short,
but the CX22 rim I'm building next has a smaller inner diameter,
and the size difference isn't too extreme,
so it was possible to carefully disassemble this wheel, distinguish between the drive-side and non-drive-side spokes,
cut them to length, and reuse them.
Given that it was clearly assembled within a year,
and if the spokes had been true Starbright, I would have done that.
Built.
HB-7400 32H fully Campagnolo Italian cross lacing.
The rim weight is roughly the same, spoke specific gravity is roughly the same,
and the lacing method is the same, so the spoke quantity is also roughly the same.
The difference is that the customer will use this for cyclocross,
and due to the rim width and shape, the tire's contact surface is wider,
which means the brakes work better on this one.
A customer dropped off a front wheel built with a Mavic GP4.
Since the rim had a sticker with the shop name on it,
I'm being considerate and blocking it out.
It's from the M-label era, and with GP4 the label color is purple.
Mavic rims from this era had different colors here depending on the model—GEL280 was light blue, GL330 was pink,
MACH2 CD2 (Mach Two CD Two) was yellow-green—
so you can tell them apart even from a distance.
This marking here states that the hard anodize electrolytic treatment
was performed at 650W,
but there are also versions of the same label that show 650V instead,
which tells us it was 1A,
though recently I found one with a marking that's neither W nor V.
I'll write about it in the next post. ← Once I write this, I can't back out.
The hub is an HB-7400 32H in Italian cross lacing,
The spokes are star stainless.
Not the generic term stainless, but "Stainless" as a product name.
There's also Starbright as a separate product,
which corresponds to stainless steel spokes in the general sense.
When the spoke head is a ★ mark, it's "Stainless," and
since these were genuinely true stainless from the old star spokes,
they didn't react to a magnet at all.
I also have the rear wheel built with the same rim on deposit,
and that one came with brass nipples, possibly because
it was built at a different time.
Since the front wheel was specifically built with brass nipples,
I thought it might be 15-gauge base, but it turned out to be 14-gauge base butted spokes
(since very few shops stock 15-gauge color aluminum nipples in abundance).
The spoke length was short,
but the CX22 rim I'm building next has a smaller inner diameter,
and the size difference isn't too extreme,
so it was possible to carefully disassemble this wheel, distinguish between the drive-side and non-drive-side spokes,
cut them to length, and reuse them.
Given that it was clearly assembled within a year,
and if the spokes had been true Starbright, I would have done that.
Built.
HB-7400 32H fully Campagnolo Italian cross lacing.
The rim weight is roughly the same, spoke specific gravity is roughly the same,
and the lacing method is the same, so the spoke quantity is also roughly the same.
The difference is that the customer will use this for cyclocross,
and due to the rim width and shape, the tire's contact surface is wider,
which means the brakes work better on this one.