Another wheel day (and so on).
A customer left me a wheel that was built with an Araya Super Aero rim.
They wanted it rebuilt.
There are front and rear wheels, but today's the rear.
HB-7600 dual-sided rear hub, 28H, #15 plain Champion spokes.
66 JIS lacing.
The nipples are DT units with a 3.2mm flange width.
I called it the "vintage Super Aero" in the title because a reissue model came out recently (and is already discontinued).
The pet name for this rim is Super Aero, and that's what's written on the rim sticker,
but the catalog part number is SA-230.
This is a tubular rim, but there was also a clincher version.
When the Super Aero came out, it had the highest rim depth of any commercially available rim (probably),
so even at this rim depth it was treated as an aero rim.
The reissue part number is SA-730, clincher only,
and the SA-230 Super Aero sticker location has been replaced with SA-730 markings.
The SA-230 is so thin that if you squeeze the rim's sides hard, it flexes considerably,
and I've seen cut samples of it—
the side sections outside the braking surface were extremely thin.
The SA-730 weighs a claimed 545g,
so despite having the same rim depth and overall external dimensions, it's essentially a different product.
Since I'm taking it apart anyway, it doesn't really matter, but
it did have slight centering issues.
What bothered me more was that it was built so loosely
it seemed to fall below the minimum requirements for a functioning wheel.
This rim can't be tensioned like modern rims would be without problems,
but it can take more tension than the old Aero 1.
Built.
Sapim Aero Star Bright #14 spokes, 66 JIS lacing.
I'll cross-lace both sides later.
If this were a 36H hub,
there would be an NJS stamp on the center of the hub shell
indicating the hub's left-right attributes.
Since this is a dual-sided hub rather than single-sided,
there's no inherent feature determining the hub's left-right properties.
There might be markings if I pulled out the hub axle, but—
despite being dual-sided, it appears that previously
a cog was mounted on one side only,
↑mounting trace present
↑no mounting trace
If you're going to mount a cog on one side only,
I'd recommend using the side with the mounting trace as the right side.
Bonus
Sapim's current Aero Star Bright spokes have uniform non-butted section length regardless of spoke length,
and especially at the spoke head end,
the aero shaping starts right away—nice design.
When doing a fully bladed or fully reverse-bladed 2-cross lacing,
the final cross ends up very close to the hub flange, but
ideally that section wouldn't be round.
↑this is Bontrager,
↑this is Rolf Prima doing a fully bladed 1-cross, but
both use large flanges with opposing phase lacing and only 16H,
so with this lacing pattern the final cross ends up
a bit away from the hub flange.
When you do the same with a small flange and 32H, it looks like this.
This wheel doesn't even have aero spokes to begin with, though.
This is Sapim's vintage Aero Star Bright Type II,
it seems to use a manufacturing method of "multiple butted section lengths for dozens of spoke lengths,"
so the butted section length relative to spoke length—or rather, where the buttering begins—varies considerably,
and some end up looking rather awkward for something calling itself an aero spoke.
In contrast, the current Aero Star Bright is crafted with considerable care, as I see it,
but I still have no plans whatsoever to use it as my regular spoke.
A customer left me a wheel that was built with an Araya Super Aero rim.
They wanted it rebuilt.
There are front and rear wheels, but today's the rear.
HB-7600 dual-sided rear hub, 28H, #15 plain Champion spokes.
66 JIS lacing.
The nipples are DT units with a 3.2mm flange width.
I called it the "vintage Super Aero" in the title because a reissue model came out recently (and is already discontinued).
The pet name for this rim is Super Aero, and that's what's written on the rim sticker,
but the catalog part number is SA-230.
This is a tubular rim, but there was also a clincher version.
When the Super Aero came out, it had the highest rim depth of any commercially available rim (probably),
so even at this rim depth it was treated as an aero rim.
The reissue part number is SA-730, clincher only,
and the SA-230 Super Aero sticker location has been replaced with SA-730 markings.
The SA-230 is so thin that if you squeeze the rim's sides hard, it flexes considerably,
and I've seen cut samples of it—
the side sections outside the braking surface were extremely thin.
The SA-730 weighs a claimed 545g,
so despite having the same rim depth and overall external dimensions, it's essentially a different product.
Since I'm taking it apart anyway, it doesn't really matter, but
it did have slight centering issues.
What bothered me more was that it was built so loosely
it seemed to fall below the minimum requirements for a functioning wheel.
This rim can't be tensioned like modern rims would be without problems,
but it can take more tension than the old Aero 1.
Built.
Sapim Aero Star Bright #14 spokes, 66 JIS lacing.
I'll cross-lace both sides later.
If this were a 36H hub,
there would be an NJS stamp on the center of the hub shell
indicating the hub's left-right attributes.
Since this is a dual-sided hub rather than single-sided,
there's no inherent feature determining the hub's left-right properties.
There might be markings if I pulled out the hub axle, but—
despite being dual-sided, it appears that previously
a cog was mounted on one side only,
↑mounting trace present
↑no mounting trace
If you're going to mount a cog on one side only,
I'd recommend using the side with the mounting trace as the right side.
Bonus
Sapim's current Aero Star Bright spokes have uniform non-butted section length regardless of spoke length,
and especially at the spoke head end,
the aero shaping starts right away—nice design.
When doing a fully bladed or fully reverse-bladed 2-cross lacing,
the final cross ends up very close to the hub flange, but
ideally that section wouldn't be round.
↑this is Bontrager,
↑this is Rolf Prima doing a fully bladed 1-cross, but
both use large flanges with opposing phase lacing and only 16H,
so with this lacing pattern the final cross ends up
a bit away from the hub flange.
When you do the same with a small flange and 32H, it looks like this.
This wheel doesn't even have aero spokes to begin with, though.
This is Sapim's vintage Aero Star Bright Type II,
it seems to use a manufacturing method of "multiple butted section lengths for dozens of spoke lengths,"
so the butted section length relative to spoke length—or rather, where the buttering begins—varies considerably,
and some end up looking rather awkward for something calling itself an aero spoke.
In contrast, the current Aero Star Bright is crafted with considerable care, as I see it,
but I still have no plans whatsoever to use it as my regular spoke.