Another day, more wheels (and so on).
This is the rear wheel counterpart to yesterday's front wheel,
and I'm swapping out the hub for a different one here too.
Since the AL22W rim is a disc brake rim,
this officially becomes Nomu Lab Wheel #8,
so I've recategorized both yesterday's post and this one under "Nomu Lab Wheels."
But honestly, I built this wheel about two years ago on July 12, 2020,
and back then I wasn't calling it Nomu Lab Wheel #8.
I'm not bothering to go back and change that old post's category.
FH-M975, 32H, fully comp lacing, JIS four-six pattern, no wire bracing.
This customer is probably the person I've built the most wheels for
as an individual.
I've built so many for them that I've lost count,
so once I even asked something like,
"Are you really using all of these yourself?
(Or are you reselling them to friends or something?)"
They said they use them all themselves.
Well, not that I'd mind either way—reselling doesn't bother me and I'm fine with it.
For wheels that aren't competition-oriented,
they request no aero spokes, silver spoke color, and no wire bracing.
So when the previous hub setup didn't have bracing, I can often reuse the spokes.
The AL22W rim does come in an offset version,
but even when I build disc brake wheels, I often use the non-offset rim.
With shallow dish front wheels and such, when you do a left-right unequal-diameter build,
the right-side spokes get so tight they nearly snap from the tension.
That's why rims like DT's RR411db, which only come offset, actually become harder to build.
In the old days, semi-comp was the best option available,
but now if I go with semi-CX sprint,
the spoke weight distribution left-to-right is more balanced,
so the wheel won't be as ferociously tense as a semi-comp build.
The wheel I received this time has the condition of no aero spokes,
so it's fully comp.
Technically, for round-spoke left-right unequal-diameter builds,
there's also the option of Champ/Comp or Strong/Comp patterns.
Incidentally, Dura-Ace hubs don't accommodate Strong spokes through their flanges,
but XT does.
Since we're building fully comp and there's no bracing,
both wheels front and rear are built with offset rims.
That's what made the next rear wheel tricky.
The rear hub I'm using for the rebuild
is a Surly single-speed hub,
with the right side having a fixed gear mount,
and the left side having a 6-hole disc rotor mount.
Here's the thing with this rear hub: the flange on the disc rotor side
sits further inward. In other words, it's reverse-dished.
So if you build the offset rim in the normal way
with the rim holes offset to the left,
the left-right spoke tension difference actually increases.
And even flipping the rim won't make them perfectly equal either.
I'll go into more detail on this in the next post.
Just like the front wheel, I'm making sure that
the inpoke and outpoke orientation doesn't change with the hub swap.
Built it.
32H, fully comp, JIS four-six pattern, no bracing.
Someone might ask if a four-six pattern was really necessary,
but I prioritized spoke reuse.
Just like the front wheel, the new hub had larger flanges
and needed shorter spokes,
but the difference wasn't enough that the XT hub's 4-spoke freewheel side
could've been matched with a 6-spoke pattern on the Surly hub,
so we ended up with four-six.
↑ Wheel right side
↑ Wheel left side
I've oriented the offset rim the opposite way from a standard rear wheel.
As a result, while the right side is indeed higher tension,
the left-right difference comes out closer than
a typical rear wheel built with a freewheel hub using equal-diameter, equal-spoke-count lacing.
This is the rear wheel counterpart to yesterday's front wheel,
and I'm swapping out the hub for a different one here too.
Since the AL22W rim is a disc brake rim,
this officially becomes Nomu Lab Wheel #8,
so I've recategorized both yesterday's post and this one under "Nomu Lab Wheels."
But honestly, I built this wheel about two years ago on July 12, 2020,
and back then I wasn't calling it Nomu Lab Wheel #8.
I'm not bothering to go back and change that old post's category.
FH-M975, 32H, fully comp lacing, JIS four-six pattern, no wire bracing.
This customer is probably the person I've built the most wheels for
as an individual.
I've built so many for them that I've lost count,
so once I even asked something like,
"Are you really using all of these yourself?
(Or are you reselling them to friends or something?)"
They said they use them all themselves.
Well, not that I'd mind either way—reselling doesn't bother me and I'm fine with it.
For wheels that aren't competition-oriented,
they request no aero spokes, silver spoke color, and no wire bracing.
So when the previous hub setup didn't have bracing, I can often reuse the spokes.
The AL22W rim does come in an offset version,
but even when I build disc brake wheels, I often use the non-offset rim.
With shallow dish front wheels and such, when you do a left-right unequal-diameter build,
the right-side spokes get so tight they nearly snap from the tension.
That's why rims like DT's RR411db, which only come offset, actually become harder to build.
In the old days, semi-comp was the best option available,
but now if I go with semi-CX sprint,
the spoke weight distribution left-to-right is more balanced,
so the wheel won't be as ferociously tense as a semi-comp build.
The wheel I received this time has the condition of no aero spokes,
so it's fully comp.
Technically, for round-spoke left-right unequal-diameter builds,
there's also the option of Champ/Comp or Strong/Comp patterns.
Incidentally, Dura-Ace hubs don't accommodate Strong spokes through their flanges,
but XT does.
Since we're building fully comp and there's no bracing,
both wheels front and rear are built with offset rims.
That's what made the next rear wheel tricky.
The rear hub I'm using for the rebuild
is a Surly single-speed hub,
with the right side having a fixed gear mount,
and the left side having a 6-hole disc rotor mount.
Here's the thing with this rear hub: the flange on the disc rotor side
sits further inward. In other words, it's reverse-dished.
So if you build the offset rim in the normal way
with the rim holes offset to the left,
the left-right spoke tension difference actually increases.
And even flipping the rim won't make them perfectly equal either.
I'll go into more detail on this in the next post.
Just like the front wheel, I'm making sure that
the inpoke and outpoke orientation doesn't change with the hub swap.
Built it.
32H, fully comp, JIS four-six pattern, no bracing.
Someone might ask if a four-six pattern was really necessary,
but I prioritized spoke reuse.
Just like the front wheel, the new hub had larger flanges
and needed shorter spokes,
but the difference wasn't enough that the XT hub's 4-spoke freewheel side
could've been matched with a 6-spoke pattern on the Surly hub,
so we ended up with four-six.
↑ Wheel right side
↑ Wheel left side
I've oriented the offset rim the opposite way from a standard rear wheel.
As a result, while the right side is indeed higher tension,
the left-right difference comes out closer than
a typical rear wheel built with a freewheel hub using equal-diameter, equal-spoke-count lacing.