Another day with wheels (and so on...).
A customer dropped off a rear wheel from Elite Wheels (the bottle cage brand Elite is not related to this).
By the way, I've rebuilt the rear wheel before when asked to do a hub replacement work (→here).
The rim says ELITE on it, and
behind that is the number 38, which indicates the rim height.
It's technically a wide rim, but compared to today's wide rims with 23mm or 25mm internal widths, it's closer to a narrow rim with its internal width, and it's tubeless-ready.
The hub is a Novatec FS522SB straight spoke hub, 24H, built forced left-right 2-cross,
with equal diameter spokes on both sides—Pillar square aero spokes.
These are too loose, and the customer wants them sorted out.
I could just disassemble the non-drive side and swap in spokes with lower specific gravity, then re-lace them, but
I want to say "wheels" today, so I disassembled the whole thing.
This time the "crab light" didn't show up, but people sometimes ask me if that whole crab light routine is really necessary.
It is necessary.
If you search with the keyword I always yell in that sequence plus the rim brand name, I've set it up as an archive of actual rim weights.
To be included in that archive, I have to go through that whole procedure.
So this rim won't be included in that.
Well, since Elite wheels are uncommon, it'll be easy enough to find later if I need to look it up.
If it were ZIPP or ENVE, after a few years it would be hard to find without the crab light reference.
Since it doesn't hurt my interests, I'll write it down: the spoke lengths on this rear wheel were
281mm on the drive side and 285mm on the non-drive side.
These are difficult-to-obtain spoke dimensions from a specific gravity standpoint, but since there's room to cut 4mm, the 12 spokes on the non-drive side can be used as spare spokes for the drive side.
285mm × 12 spokes weighs 85.1g, so 85.1÷12÷285÷0.0257=0.968211...,
giving a spoke specific gravity of 96.8%.
That's slightly lighter than a 14-gauge plain spoke, and if I use CX-RAY on the non-drive side, it becomes semi-champi equivalent. If that half-champi distinctive bursting-tight feeling seems like overkill, nowadays there's also the option of CX Sprint on the non-drive side.
...I hesitated, but this time I went with CX-RAY.
It's built.
I'm using black CX-RAY straight spokes on the non-drive side.
I'll lace the spokes later.
Going back in the timeline before disassembling the wheel, the customer also wants me to stabilize a Vittoria tubeless-ready tire with almost no air loss.
This kind of open tubular-style clincher tire is tubeless-ready, so the bead doesn't seat easily, and while the sidewalls are supple, they're thin, so there's vigorous air permeability. Air leakage from the tire sidewall rather than the bead is significant.
That's why you need a strong sealant—Imegra isn't suitable for this.
With Finish Line, even if you put in over 100cc, it probably won't work.
Regarding the 50mm high rim in the linked article, I wrote that the bead hook shape seems to be outside ETRO dimensions, but with our noise-priority compressor, the Vittoria bead, which usually seats with difficulty, this time seated smoothly.
There's a logo on the rim side at the valve hole phase, and what's cut from the image above before compression is
↑this.
Next to the gear-shaped E, it says E30 (※), but
※It looks like 30, not 38 (the rim height)...
I'll retake the image and repost it later.
Update: It was E38.
Since this is the same logo as on the rim in the linked article (that one is E50), even though the large ELITE logo on the rim is different, it seems certain they're the same brand.
When I looked up "elite wheels," the logo on the manufacturer's current site matched this wheel's logo, so the rim in the linked article appears to use the old logo.
A customer dropped off a rear wheel from Elite Wheels (the bottle cage brand Elite is not related to this).
By the way, I've rebuilt the rear wheel before when asked to do a hub replacement work (→here).
The rim says ELITE on it, and
behind that is the number 38, which indicates the rim height.
It's technically a wide rim, but compared to today's wide rims with 23mm or 25mm internal widths, it's closer to a narrow rim with its internal width, and it's tubeless-ready.
The hub is a Novatec FS522SB straight spoke hub, 24H, built forced left-right 2-cross,
with equal diameter spokes on both sides—Pillar square aero spokes.
These are too loose, and the customer wants them sorted out.
I could just disassemble the non-drive side and swap in spokes with lower specific gravity, then re-lace them, but
I want to say "wheels" today, so I disassembled the whole thing.
This time the "crab light" didn't show up, but people sometimes ask me if that whole crab light routine is really necessary.
It is necessary.
If you search with the keyword I always yell in that sequence plus the rim brand name, I've set it up as an archive of actual rim weights.
To be included in that archive, I have to go through that whole procedure.
So this rim won't be included in that.
Well, since Elite wheels are uncommon, it'll be easy enough to find later if I need to look it up.
If it were ZIPP or ENVE, after a few years it would be hard to find without the crab light reference.
Since it doesn't hurt my interests, I'll write it down: the spoke lengths on this rear wheel were
281mm on the drive side and 285mm on the non-drive side.
These are difficult-to-obtain spoke dimensions from a specific gravity standpoint, but since there's room to cut 4mm, the 12 spokes on the non-drive side can be used as spare spokes for the drive side.
285mm × 12 spokes weighs 85.1g, so 85.1÷12÷285÷0.0257=0.968211...,
giving a spoke specific gravity of 96.8%.
That's slightly lighter than a 14-gauge plain spoke, and if I use CX-RAY on the non-drive side, it becomes semi-champi equivalent. If that half-champi distinctive bursting-tight feeling seems like overkill, nowadays there's also the option of CX Sprint on the non-drive side.
...I hesitated, but this time I went with CX-RAY.
It's built.
I'm using black CX-RAY straight spokes on the non-drive side.
I'll lace the spokes later.
Going back in the timeline before disassembling the wheel, the customer also wants me to stabilize a Vittoria tubeless-ready tire with almost no air loss.
This kind of open tubular-style clincher tire is tubeless-ready, so the bead doesn't seat easily, and while the sidewalls are supple, they're thin, so there's vigorous air permeability. Air leakage from the tire sidewall rather than the bead is significant.
That's why you need a strong sealant—Imegra isn't suitable for this.
With Finish Line, even if you put in over 100cc, it probably won't work.
Regarding the 50mm high rim in the linked article, I wrote that the bead hook shape seems to be outside ETRO dimensions, but with our noise-priority compressor, the Vittoria bead, which usually seats with difficulty, this time seated smoothly.
There's a logo on the rim side at the valve hole phase, and what's cut from the image above before compression is
↑this.
Next to the gear-shaped E, it says E30 (※), but
※It looks like 30, not 38 (the rim height)...
I'll retake the image and repost it later.
Update: It was E38.
Since this is the same logo as on the rim in the linked article (that one is E50), even though the large ELITE logo on the rim is different, it seems certain they're the same brand.
When I looked up "elite wheels," the logo on the manufacturer's current site matched this wheel's logo, so the rim in the linked article appears to use the old logo.