A customer brought in a rear wheel with a Smart Envi System (SES) 6.7
WO rim for us to service.
The wheel was making noise, so they took it to a nearby shop first,
but when that didn't solve it, they brought it to us.
I can't say which shop that was—promised the customer I wouldn't—but
there's another customer (technically) who lives practically next door
to that shop, yet aside from online purchases from overseas,
only comes to our actual storefront,
so I've heard plenty of stories about their mishaps.
The image above is after the work.
After truing, I did a full lacing on both sides.
All-black spokes in Italian four-cross lacing—
since it's a fixed-cup hub, there's no need to flip it left and right,
so Italian lacing works fine.
It's a fixed-cup hub, but there are no flats on the hub shell.
According to that shop, they told the customer the noise was caused by
spoke angle differences between fixed-gear and road wheels,
but I'm skeptical whether they could confidently tell someone that
if I went and asked them (I'd introduce myself as the Nomu Lab, of course).
They even swapped out aero spokes for round ones,
supposedly as a noise remedy too.
Also, when spoke tension increases, spoke deformation decreases, which should
help reduce noise—in that sense, six-cross would be better than four-cross...
If you want to solve spoke noise "only," true radial lacing on both sides would work,
but that's not possible on a drive wheel, so that's out.
I thought it would just need truing, but there was
radial run-out and axial run-out, so I corrected those before lacing.
The lateral truing and spoke tension were done well,
but by changing the spokes and lacing pattern
(of course, within the rim's limits), it could be tensioned even more.
This rim is SES (Smart Envi System).
The sticker on the rim is sold as either repair parts or as dress-up parts
if it's not black or white,
but it's applied so cleanly that it doesn't look like anyone other than
the manufacturer applied it after leaving the factory.
The reason I'm concerned about this is
the rim is exactly the WO version of the "65" rim that existed since the EDGE era,
and it wasn't even a wide rim.
I didn't know this either, but was the very first 6.7
just a cosmetic variation of the classic ENVE "65" rim,
with the rim itself being identical?
After researching, the 65 rim specifications for both tubular and WO are
rim height/rim width of 65mm/19mm
(actual measured rim height is 66mm, but that's fine).
The sales period was 2008–2015 according to official sources.
In contrast, the original SES 6.7 rim specs are
for both tubular and WO: rim height/rim width/spoke hole count of
front-intended rim: 26mm/60mm/20H only
rear-intended rim: 24mm/70mm/24H only
sales period: 2012–2015,
so this rim can probably be considered
"a 65 rim with an SES sticker applied to it."
WO rim for us to service.
The wheel was making noise, so they took it to a nearby shop first,
but when that didn't solve it, they brought it to us.
I can't say which shop that was—promised the customer I wouldn't—but
there's another customer (technically) who lives practically next door
to that shop, yet aside from online purchases from overseas,
only comes to our actual storefront,
so I've heard plenty of stories about their mishaps.
The image above is after the work.
After truing, I did a full lacing on both sides.
All-black spokes in Italian four-cross lacing—
since it's a fixed-cup hub, there's no need to flip it left and right,
so Italian lacing works fine.
It's a fixed-cup hub, but there are no flats on the hub shell.
According to that shop, they told the customer the noise was caused by
spoke angle differences between fixed-gear and road wheels,
but I'm skeptical whether they could confidently tell someone that
if I went and asked them (I'd introduce myself as the Nomu Lab, of course).
They even swapped out aero spokes for round ones,
supposedly as a noise remedy too.
Also, when spoke tension increases, spoke deformation decreases, which should
help reduce noise—in that sense, six-cross would be better than four-cross...
If you want to solve spoke noise "only," true radial lacing on both sides would work,
but that's not possible on a drive wheel, so that's out.
I thought it would just need truing, but there was
radial run-out and axial run-out, so I corrected those before lacing.
The lateral truing and spoke tension were done well,
but by changing the spokes and lacing pattern
(of course, within the rim's limits), it could be tensioned even more.
This rim is SES (Smart Envi System).
The sticker on the rim is sold as either repair parts or as dress-up parts
if it's not black or white,
but it's applied so cleanly that it doesn't look like anyone other than
the manufacturer applied it after leaving the factory.
The reason I'm concerned about this is
the rim is exactly the WO version of the "65" rim that existed since the EDGE era,
and it wasn't even a wide rim.
I didn't know this either, but was the very first 6.7
just a cosmetic variation of the classic ENVE "65" rim,
with the rim itself being identical?
After researching, the 65 rim specifications for both tubular and WO are
rim height/rim width of 65mm/19mm
(actual measured rim height is 66mm, but that's fine).
The sales period was 2008–2015 according to official sources.
In contrast, the original SES 6.7 rim specs are
for both tubular and WO: rim height/rim width/spoke hole count of
front-intended rim: 26mm/60mm/20H only
rear-intended rim: 24mm/70mm/24H only
sales period: 2012–2015,
so this rim can probably be considered
"a 65 rim with an SES sticker applied to it."