Another day with wheels (and so on).
A customer left me a complete Tni Dragon 50 wheelset.
Their request was pretty vague—just to make it roll better—
but that's no problem since the stock specs aren't anything special.
I'm shooting from the left side because there's a white serial number sticker on the right side of the rim.
The hub is the Tni brand Dragon Wheel original, with hook-style hub flanges and black CX-RAY spokes built straight radial.
Paul Lew apparently had a hand in the rim design, but the manufacturing source is different from LEW rims.
When I squeezed both spokes on one side together, the deflection seemed minimal, so I checked the spoke tension. It turned out to be only slightly lower than my Nolablab Wheel No. 5 (which also has all CX-RAY 20H spokes).
It just felt that way because the rim height is tall—meaning the spokes are shorter.
A more extreme example would be wheels with 20-inch or smaller rims, where spoke deflection feels almost rigid even though the tension isn't actually that high.
The Tni Dragon wheelset comes in two versions:
this 50mm deep tubular rim and also a 35mm deep tubular rim version.
Both rims are exclusive to these complete wheelsets—
there's no separate rim sales.
Built it up.
660 hub, 20H, black CX-Sprint reverse-pull spokes, radial laced.
I considered reusing the original front hub, but the bearings were shot and the 660 hub has better dimensions, so I swapped it out too.
The rear wheel has the serial number sticker on the left side (the non-freewheel side). The front rim (especially the brake zone) doesn't have left-right attributes, so I could have flipped the rim left-to-right during the rebuild, but I kept it the same as the original just to be safe.
Since the front wheel is radial laced, it comes down to spoke weight and tension alone, but the real story is the rear wheel.
I've seen the Dragon 35 a few times before, but I've never heard anyone say anything good about its rear wheel specifically.
With this Dragon 50 wheelset front and rear—if the rear wheel were even slightly better, there's a good chance it wouldn't have been brought to our shop in the first place.
A customer left me a complete Tni Dragon 50 wheelset.
Their request was pretty vague—just to make it roll better—
but that's no problem since the stock specs aren't anything special.
I'm shooting from the left side because there's a white serial number sticker on the right side of the rim.
The hub is the Tni brand Dragon Wheel original, with hook-style hub flanges and black CX-RAY spokes built straight radial.
Paul Lew apparently had a hand in the rim design, but the manufacturing source is different from LEW rims.
When I squeezed both spokes on one side together, the deflection seemed minimal, so I checked the spoke tension. It turned out to be only slightly lower than my Nolablab Wheel No. 5 (which also has all CX-RAY 20H spokes).
It just felt that way because the rim height is tall—meaning the spokes are shorter.
A more extreme example would be wheels with 20-inch or smaller rims, where spoke deflection feels almost rigid even though the tension isn't actually that high.
The Tni Dragon wheelset comes in two versions:
this 50mm deep tubular rim and also a 35mm deep tubular rim version.
Both rims are exclusive to these complete wheelsets—
there's no separate rim sales.
Built it up.
660 hub, 20H, black CX-Sprint reverse-pull spokes, radial laced.
I considered reusing the original front hub, but the bearings were shot and the 660 hub has better dimensions, so I swapped it out too.
The rear wheel has the serial number sticker on the left side (the non-freewheel side). The front rim (especially the brake zone) doesn't have left-right attributes, so I could have flipped the rim left-to-right during the rebuild, but I kept it the same as the original just to be safe.
Since the front wheel is radial laced, it comes down to spoke weight and tension alone, but the real story is the rear wheel.
I've seen the Dragon 35 a few times before, but I've never heard anyone say anything good about its rear wheel specifically.
With this Dragon 50 wheelset front and rear—if the rear wheel were even slightly better, there's a good chance it wouldn't have been brought to our shop in the first place.