A customer left me the front wheel of a CLX50 rim brake wheel with me for repair.
It seems something got caught during a crash,
and several spokes on one side of the wheel broke in succession.
The customer wasn't the original owner of this wheel,
and the frame apparently isn't Specialized either.
When he asked a nearby shop to repair it,
they said "We don't carry Specialized parts,
so we can't get spokes for this."
It's fine that they don't carry them,
but the way they said it made it sound like
they were implying "we could fix it if we just had spokes"
so I was tempted to get nasty and say
"Fine, I'll source the spokes for you—now go ahead and try fixing it, you hack,"
but since the customer came from quite a distance away,
I couldn't put him through that back-and-forth,
so I just fixed it on the spot.
Changing topics—a little before this year's Norikura,
I brought a CLX32 rim brake front wheel in for truing to a Specialized store,
and after spending about an hour, they told me "We did the best truing we could!"
Of course they charged me too, so it was basically a sham truing job.
Later, that wheel came to my shop because it was clearly messed up.
I'm not sure if the customer went from one shop to the other the same day.
The spokes were twisted all over the place,
and in particular around where I could tell they'd worked—maybe three nipples worth of section—
the vertical runout was so bad you could see it pulsing even just watching the spinning wheel
without even putting it on the truing stand.
My point is, even if a shop is arrogant enough to sell bikes for several hundred thousand yen
and claims to service Specialized,
if you happen to get unlucky and draw a dud staff member, this is what happens to you.
I don't know how many of the staff there qualify as "duds,"
or whether it's all of them.
Like I said earlier, I'm not sure if they visited us the same day,
but I do know when this wheel came to my shop.
The rear wheel didn't need any work
(I'm not asking a chimpanzee to polish the nuclear missile launch button)
but the customer asked me to inspect it while I had it, so I took it in.
This rear wheel turned out to be worth writing about
The spokes on the side with the final cross—the freewheel side—
fit into the B groove of the Campagnolo spoke press tool,
whereas the spokes on the opposite side don't fit in the B groove, so
in this 2:1 laced rear wheel, as a counter to left-right different spoke numbers,
left and right reverse different spoke diameters are used.
If they'd do this even on disc brake versions like the CLX50,
the stock wheels would be just a little bit better,
so I took rear wheel photos to make that point,
but looking at the image metadata, it was August 16th.
Back to the main topic.
I mentioned before that when you make two or more cuts in paper and try to tear it by hand,
only the weakest cut will propagate and the tear won't advance at multiple points at once.
This spoke broke in the same way—
at the butted section boundary, which is the weakest point,
like the neck of an ampule bottle.
The reason there's no spoke head at this location is that
when the nearby shop removed the end cap, they pulled it out.
This seems like a small thing, and in this case it actually was minor,
but when someone half-heartedly starts work and leaves a mess like that,
I'm the one who suffers when I have to deal with it next,
so I get irritated and think
"If you're going to start, finish the job properly."
Fixed.
↑Replaced spokes
Four spokes were broken,
but a fifth spoke was also deformed, so I replaced that one too.
Like with the CLX38 earlier,
since the rear wheel also came with it, I inspected that too.
There was no dramatic runout that seemed crash-related,
and while there was slight lateral centering issue,
it was small enough to address while truing anyway,
so I fixed both issues with truing in the direction that corrected the centering,
using a slight increase-tension approach.
The value in photographing this rear wheel as an article wasn't really about the wheel itself, but
↑This is a bit earlier chronologically, but before removing the tire to measure center,
it's a Continental Grand Prix 5000 TL (tubeless),
and with the Grand Prix 5000 TR (tubeless ready) being released,
it was discontinued with a complete switchover rather than being sold alongside it.
This tire has the same tread pattern as the Grand Prix 5000, but
the manufacturing process is the same as the Grand Prix 4000 series,
and threads come out from the bead section like they do on the Grand Prix 4000 series.
Whether threads also come out on the Grand Prix 5000 TR... I don't know.
It's not like I've never seen one, but
I've never seen one that's been in use long-term.
The bead is angular and requires a trick to seat it on the rim.
Man, I hope they get stable supply going soon.
It seems something got caught during a crash,
and several spokes on one side of the wheel broke in succession.
The customer wasn't the original owner of this wheel,
and the frame apparently isn't Specialized either.
When he asked a nearby shop to repair it,
they said "We don't carry Specialized parts,
so we can't get spokes for this."
It's fine that they don't carry them,
but the way they said it made it sound like
they were implying "we could fix it if we just had spokes"
so I was tempted to get nasty and say
"Fine, I'll source the spokes for you—now go ahead and try fixing it, you hack,"
but since the customer came from quite a distance away,
I couldn't put him through that back-and-forth,
so I just fixed it on the spot.
Changing topics—a little before this year's Norikura,
I brought a CLX32 rim brake front wheel in for truing to a Specialized store,
and after spending about an hour, they told me "We did the best truing we could!"
Of course they charged me too, so it was basically a sham truing job.
Later, that wheel came to my shop because it was clearly messed up.
I'm not sure if the customer went from one shop to the other the same day.
The spokes were twisted all over the place,
and in particular around where I could tell they'd worked—maybe three nipples worth of section—
the vertical runout was so bad you could see it pulsing even just watching the spinning wheel
without even putting it on the truing stand.
My point is, even if a shop is arrogant enough to sell bikes for several hundred thousand yen
and claims to service Specialized,
if you happen to get unlucky and draw a dud staff member, this is what happens to you.
I don't know how many of the staff there qualify as "duds,"
or whether it's all of them.
Like I said earlier, I'm not sure if they visited us the same day,
but I do know when this wheel came to my shop.
The rear wheel didn't need any work
but the customer asked me to inspect it while I had it, so I took it in.
This rear wheel turned out to be worth writing about
The spokes on the side with the final cross—the freewheel side—
fit into the B groove of the Campagnolo spoke press tool,
whereas the spokes on the opposite side don't fit in the B groove, so
in this 2:1 laced rear wheel, as a counter to left-right different spoke numbers,
left and right reverse different spoke diameters are used.
If they'd do this even on disc brake versions like the CLX50,
the stock wheels would be just a little bit better,
so I took rear wheel photos to make that point,
but looking at the image metadata, it was August 16th.
Back to the main topic.
I mentioned before that when you make two or more cuts in paper and try to tear it by hand,
only the weakest cut will propagate and the tear won't advance at multiple points at once.
This spoke broke in the same way—
at the butted section boundary, which is the weakest point,
like the neck of an ampule bottle.
The reason there's no spoke head at this location is that
when the nearby shop removed the end cap, they pulled it out.
This seems like a small thing, and in this case it actually was minor,
but when someone half-heartedly starts work and leaves a mess like that,
I'm the one who suffers when I have to deal with it next,
so I get irritated and think
"If you're going to start, finish the job properly."
Fixed.
↑Replaced spokes
Four spokes were broken,
but a fifth spoke was also deformed, so I replaced that one too.
Like with the CLX38 earlier,
since the rear wheel also came with it, I inspected that too.
There was no dramatic runout that seemed crash-related,
and while there was slight lateral centering issue,
it was small enough to address while truing anyway,
so I fixed both issues with truing in the direction that corrected the centering,
using a slight increase-tension approach.
The value in photographing this rear wheel as an article wasn't really about the wheel itself, but
↑This is a bit earlier chronologically, but before removing the tire to measure center,
it's a Continental Grand Prix 5000 TL (tubeless),
and with the Grand Prix 5000 TR (tubeless ready) being released,
it was discontinued with a complete switchover rather than being sold alongside it.
This tire has the same tread pattern as the Grand Prix 5000, but
the manufacturing process is the same as the Grand Prix 4000 series,
and threads come out from the bead section like they do on the Grand Prix 4000 series.
Whether threads also come out on the Grand Prix 5000 TR... I don't know.
It's not like I've never seen one, but
I've never seen one that's been in use long-term.
The bead is angular and requires a trick to seat it on the rim.
Man, I hope they get stable supply going soon.