I received the front wheel from a Roval C38 from a (sort of) customer.
One spoke is bent, and they're asking me to replace it.
↑This one
In the image, I've relieved the spoke tension to
make the deformation more obvious.
At first, I turned them down.
The reason being, the person who brought in this wheel
is someone I've known for a long time,
but right now they're a Specialized Concept Store staff member,
which means they're a competitor in the industry.
I agreed to take it on with the condition that it's okay to write about it here.
Though they did ask me not to name which store it is.
I asked them, "You're not embarrassed selling complete Tarmac bikes for hundreds of thousands of yen
when you can't even replace a single spoke?"
They came back with, "You're absolutely right."
Since this is their personal bike and not a job they're dumping on me,
I reluctantly agreed,
but when I asked what they'd do if a customer brought a C38 front wheel with a broken spoke
to their Specialized Concept Store for repair,
apparently they send it to a service center,
and they don't even stock spokes
at the store where they work
(I'm not sure about all stores, but this is what they said).
Since service center repairs take time,
they figured our shop could fix it right away,
which is apparently why they brought it to us.
Pretty pathetic, honestly.
This time, experiencing firsthand what it's like to have spokes on their own wheel
reach a state requiring replacement is valuable learning,
but if they're going to rely on me instead of doing it themselves,
won't they never be able to build wheels in their entire future?
I gave them no end of grief about that.
It's definitely not just this one person who brought the wheel in—
the fact that Specialized Concept Stores can't fix wheels is universal.
There are at least two white crows flying around.
Being able to fix wheels at this level should be obvious, and to put it this way—
it should be as obvious as crows being black,
so based on my rough observations
it seems like Specialized Concept Stores are full of white crows.
Separate from this incident,
right before this year's Mt. Fuji climb event, at Specialized Kishiwada shop,
after about an hour of pretend truing
the spoke still had flats that weren't addressed, there was vertical runout
that could only have come from randomly turning nipples,
and worse, the lateral runout wasn't fully corrected and there was hub offset too—
when someone brought in a Roval front wheel in that condition,
a comment came in when I posted about it from the wheel owner saying,
"Please remove the store name for their honor."
Where's the "honor" in work so hopelessly incompetent they can't even get back to factory spec
(while arrogantly charging for it)?
If that shop's "honor" is so important, why don't they keep getting service there forever?
Don't bring it to my shop.
Asking for favors only when it's convenient, that's pretty audacious.
I'm not taking down the store name.
After replacing the spoke and getting the lateral runout corrected,
the rim was offset to the right.
In the image above, from that point I've adjusted
about half a turn of the nipples in the direction of reducing hub offset,
so originally it was shifted even more.
Got the center straightened out.
Among Roval wheels,
the CLX series (including Rapide and Alpinist) use aluminum nipples,
while the CL series and this C series use brass nipples.
Both have hex flats on the outer edge for gripping,
but like DT's Squorx nipples or
Reynolds wheels from certain periods with square sockets on the inner edge that strip easily,
you might think you can only adjust from the outer edge...but that's not quite right.
If I'd just needed to replace one spoke and do almost all the adjustment in that one spot,
I could've fixed it without removing the rim tape by turning the nipples from the inner side,
but with that large hub offset,
I ended up removing the tubeless tape and working from the outer edge.
The spokes on this front wheel
weren't DT Competition (2.0–1.8–2.0mm) but
Competition Race (2.0–1.6–2.0mm),
but it worked out.
Also, at a different location from the spoke I replaced, the outer hex on a nipple was stripped
and the tool would slip (talk about stripped out),
so I replaced that too.
Nipple stock?
Somehow we managed.
All fixed.
↑The replaced spoke and nipple
The spoke and nipple are from different locations,
but for the sake of photography I assembled them together.
One spoke is bent, and they're asking me to replace it.
↑This one
In the image, I've relieved the spoke tension to
make the deformation more obvious.
At first, I turned them down.
The reason being, the person who brought in this wheel
is someone I've known for a long time,
but right now they're a Specialized Concept Store staff member,
which means they're a competitor in the industry.
I agreed to take it on with the condition that it's okay to write about it here.
Though they did ask me not to name which store it is.
I asked them, "You're not embarrassed selling complete Tarmac bikes for hundreds of thousands of yen
when you can't even replace a single spoke?"
They came back with, "You're absolutely right."
Since this is their personal bike and not a job they're dumping on me,
I reluctantly agreed,
but when I asked what they'd do if a customer brought a C38 front wheel with a broken spoke
to their Specialized Concept Store for repair,
apparently they send it to a service center,
and they don't even stock spokes
at the store where they work
(I'm not sure about all stores, but this is what they said).
Since service center repairs take time,
they figured our shop could fix it right away,
which is apparently why they brought it to us.
Pretty pathetic, honestly.
This time, experiencing firsthand what it's like to have spokes on their own wheel
reach a state requiring replacement is valuable learning,
but if they're going to rely on me instead of doing it themselves,
won't they never be able to build wheels in their entire future?
I gave them no end of grief about that.
It's definitely not just this one person who brought the wheel in—
the fact that Specialized Concept Stores can't fix wheels is universal.
There are at least two white crows flying around.
it should be as obvious as crows being black,
so based on my rough observations
it seems like Specialized Concept Stores are full of white crows.
Separate from this incident,
right before this year's Mt. Fuji climb event, at Specialized Kishiwada shop,
after about an hour of pretend truing
the spoke still had flats that weren't addressed, there was vertical runout
that could only have come from randomly turning nipples,
and worse, the lateral runout wasn't fully corrected and there was hub offset too—
when someone brought in a Roval front wheel in that condition,
a comment came in when I posted about it from the wheel owner saying,
"Please remove the store name for their honor."
Where's the "honor" in work so hopelessly incompetent they can't even get back to factory spec
(while arrogantly charging for it)?
If that shop's "honor" is so important, why don't they keep getting service there forever?
Don't bring it to my shop.
Asking for favors only when it's convenient, that's pretty audacious.
I'm not taking down the store name.
After replacing the spoke and getting the lateral runout corrected,
the rim was offset to the right.
In the image above, from that point I've adjusted
about half a turn of the nipples in the direction of reducing hub offset,
so originally it was shifted even more.
Got the center straightened out.
Among Roval wheels,
the CLX series (including Rapide and Alpinist) use aluminum nipples,
while the CL series and this C series use brass nipples.
Both have hex flats on the outer edge for gripping,
but like DT's Squorx nipples or
Reynolds wheels from certain periods with square sockets on the inner edge that strip easily,
you might think you can only adjust from the outer edge...but that's not quite right.
If I'd just needed to replace one spoke and do almost all the adjustment in that one spot,
I could've fixed it without removing the rim tape by turning the nipples from the inner side,
but with that large hub offset,
I ended up removing the tubeless tape and working from the outer edge.
The spokes on this front wheel
weren't DT Competition (2.0–1.8–2.0mm) but
Competition Race (2.0–1.6–2.0mm),
but it worked out.
Also, at a different location from the spoke I replaced, the outer hex on a nipple was stripped
and the tool would slip (talk about stripped out),
so I replaced that too.
Nipple stock?
Somehow we managed.
All fixed.
↑The replaced spoke and nipple
The spoke and nipple are from different locations,
but for the sake of photography I assembled them together.