I received IT LAB 45 wheels from a customer.
I could write my honest opinions about these, but
I can see it coming—getting dragged into annoying back-and-forths—so
I'm not going to write about that here.
The customer who brought them in asked:
"If you can increase the spoke tension, please do."
On both wheels,
the hubs are DT's new 240 straight-pull 24H hubs,
the spokes are all black CX-RAY or black Aerolite straight
(I didn't confirm which exactly, but it's one of those),
and they're built in a forced 2-cross pattern on both sides front and rear, but
the final crossing isn't woven on any of the left or right sides on either wheel.
If it had been woven, it would make a tight creaking sound from the crossing,
but this was built so loosely
it's way too slack to chalk up to aging under normal use—
it's clearly the builder's philosophy.
This is often misunderstood, but
I don't think that tensioning spokes more and more
necessarily makes better wheels.
That said, this wheel is way too loose.
Not everyone will have the same experience, but
if nothing else, the actual rider shouldn't be unhappy about it—
except at least one person ended up bringing it to my shop.
Both wheels had center drift, and the front wheel had vertical runout too.
I showed the customer these issues in person.
I'm interpreting these as "bonus from tightening."
I didn't just correct the center drift with tightening adjustments,
I also did separate "tension-increasing tightening" on top of that.
This new digital camera is really hard to photograph with.
The image above isn't the original center drift amount.
Originally, the rim was drifted to the right by about two sheets of paper,
and while there's a possibility that was just normal aging-related center drift,
not worth making a fuss about—
the front wheel, when I first received it, was already drifted about as much as in the image above.
This image shows the state after tightening-style runout correction on the freewheel side
plus conscious tightening done separately from that.
From a state of "no runout but the rim drifted right,"
I brought the center back by tightening on the non-freewheel side.
As a result, both wheels—both sides left and right—were noticeably different from before,
enough that the customer remarked on the change,
but that's just doing what I could under the original constraints.
If I could mess with spoke counts, final crossing details, and binding as I liked,
I could have made them transform even more—I told the customer that.
But it takes time, so I didn't go that far.
I could write my honest opinions about these, but
I can see it coming—getting dragged into annoying back-and-forths—so
I'm not going to write about that here.
The customer who brought them in asked:
"If you can increase the spoke tension, please do."
On both wheels,
the hubs are DT's new 240 straight-pull 24H hubs,
the spokes are all black CX-RAY or black Aerolite straight
(I didn't confirm which exactly, but it's one of those),
and they're built in a forced 2-cross pattern on both sides front and rear, but
the final crossing isn't woven on any of the left or right sides on either wheel.
If it had been woven, it would make a tight creaking sound from the crossing,
but this was built so loosely
it's way too slack to chalk up to aging under normal use—
it's clearly the builder's philosophy.
This is often misunderstood, but
I don't think that tensioning spokes more and more
necessarily makes better wheels.
That said, this wheel is way too loose.
Not everyone will have the same experience, but
if nothing else, the actual rider shouldn't be unhappy about it—
except at least one person ended up bringing it to my shop.
Both wheels had center drift, and the front wheel had vertical runout too.
I showed the customer these issues in person.
I'm interpreting these as "bonus from tightening."
I didn't just correct the center drift with tightening adjustments,
I also did separate "tension-increasing tightening" on top of that.
This new digital camera is really hard to photograph with.
The image above isn't the original center drift amount.
Originally, the rim was drifted to the right by about two sheets of paper,
and while there's a possibility that was just normal aging-related center drift,
not worth making a fuss about—
the front wheel, when I first received it, was already drifted about as much as in the image above.
This image shows the state after tightening-style runout correction on the freewheel side
plus conscious tightening done separately from that.
From a state of "no runout but the rim drifted right,"
I brought the center back by tightening on the non-freewheel side.
As a result, both wheels—both sides left and right—were noticeably different from before,
enough that the customer remarked on the change,
but that's just doing what I could under the original constraints.
If I could mess with spoke counts, final crossing details, and binding as I liked,
I could have made them transform even more—I told the customer that.
But it takes time, so I didn't go that far.