A customer brought in the rear wheel from a Rovaal Rapide CLX40 for repair.
It's a rim brake wheel.
It's from the era of internal nipple design,
and the spoke next to the valve hole is broken.
The spokes on both sides are, surprisingly, Revolution spokes.
With a 40mm high rim, they don't use reverse different-diameter lacing on the non-freewheel side,
so I thought it might be a Campagnolo model, but when I checked, it turned out to be Revolution.
The customer who brought this wheel in
took it to the nearest Specialized concept store,
where they said they couldn't fix it right away. However, a staff member who was there—
someone who previously came to our shop with their personal C38 wheel for repair
(→here)—
recommended our shop.
This really gets under my skin.
I'm not your personal errand boy,
and if you work at a concept store,
you should handle things within what's acceptable there—that's it.
Bringing your personal wheel to our shop as an individual
is completely different from recommending us as a shop staff member.
Since you'll probably read this eventually, I'll spell it out: as of now,
I won't accept any more repair jobs from you, personal or otherwise.
Even if you quit the concept store and are no longer in the bike business,
I'm not changing my mind on that, so remember it well.
Anyway, the customer who brought in this wheel
wants it fixed because they want to ride it over the New Year holidays.
As a lesson for buying a bike from a brand where even the manufacturer's official concept store
can't swap out a single spoke same-day,
I could have sent them home to experience firsthand
how low the shopping experience level is relative to the price of the product,
but I decided to fix it anyway.
Sorry for being so condescending about swapping one spoke.
When you're dealing with people who can't even do that much,
it just comes naturally.
If there's a Specialized concept store out there that can repair this wheel
"same-day" (←that's the key point), please speak up. I'll mention you here.
If you can't do it, keep quiet.
Now go on, get that 70% assembled complete bike out of the box,
lock the handlebar stem straight, and get back to the simple job of
moving them from left to right!
Fixed.
↑Replaced spoke and nipple
The spoke broke right where the threading starts.
With straight spokes, this type of break at the threaded section is actually more common
than spoke head failure.
The nipple looks like this.
The spoke can't be recovered.
Since these are round spokes, the shape of the butted section doesn't change when they rotate,
so they weren't given that flattened eringi mushroom-like treatment.
The work of truing the wheel to remove deflection from years of use
takes more time than simply replacing one spoke.
Actually, that's not all.
There's an odd radial deflection spanning about six consecutive rim holes,
and while I didn't ask the customer,
it's almost certain they have a history of amateur truing attempts.
I suspect that even if this rear wheel hadn't had a broken spoke
and we'd just done an inspection, the work time would have been
almost exactly the same.
It's a rim brake wheel.
It's from the era of internal nipple design,
and the spoke next to the valve hole is broken.
The spokes on both sides are, surprisingly, Revolution spokes.
With a 40mm high rim, they don't use reverse different-diameter lacing on the non-freewheel side,
so I thought it might be a Campagnolo model, but when I checked, it turned out to be Revolution.
The customer who brought this wheel in
took it to the nearest Specialized concept store,
where they said they couldn't fix it right away. However, a staff member who was there—
someone who previously came to our shop with their personal C38 wheel for repair
(→here)—
recommended our shop.
This really gets under my skin.
I'm not your personal errand boy,
and if you work at a concept store,
you should handle things within what's acceptable there—that's it.
Bringing your personal wheel to our shop as an individual
is completely different from recommending us as a shop staff member.
Since you'll probably read this eventually, I'll spell it out: as of now,
I won't accept any more repair jobs from you, personal or otherwise.
Even if you quit the concept store and are no longer in the bike business,
I'm not changing my mind on that, so remember it well.
Anyway, the customer who brought in this wheel
wants it fixed because they want to ride it over the New Year holidays.
As a lesson for buying a bike from a brand where even the manufacturer's official concept store
can't swap out a single spoke same-day,
I could have sent them home to experience firsthand
how low the shopping experience level is relative to the price of the product,
but I decided to fix it anyway.
Sorry for being so condescending about swapping one spoke.
When you're dealing with people who can't even do that much,
it just comes naturally.
If there's a Specialized concept store out there that can repair this wheel
"same-day" (←that's the key point), please speak up. I'll mention you here.
If you can't do it, keep quiet.
Now go on, get that 70% assembled complete bike out of the box,
lock the handlebar stem straight, and get back to the simple job of
moving them from left to right!
Fixed.
↑Replaced spoke and nipple
The spoke broke right where the threading starts.
With straight spokes, this type of break at the threaded section is actually more common
than spoke head failure.
The nipple looks like this.
The spoke can't be recovered.
Since these are round spokes, the shape of the butted section doesn't change when they rotate,
so they weren't given that flattened eringi mushroom-like treatment.
The work of truing the wheel to remove deflection from years of use
takes more time than simply replacing one spoke.
Actually, that's not all.
There's an odd radial deflection spanning about six consecutive rim holes,
and while I didn't ask the customer,
it's almost certain they have a history of amateur truing attempts.
I suspect that even if this rear wheel hadn't had a broken spoke
and we'd just done an inspection, the work time would have been
almost exactly the same.