Another day working on wheels (and so on).
A customer brought in a
CLX50 wheel with disc brake compatibility for work.
It's not a recent job, but this customer had me rebuild
an Alpinist CLX wheel in the past.
After rebuilding the Alpinist CLX, the customer said
"that sluggish feeling is gone—
now I can actually use this for hill climb races."
This CLX50, the customer picked up at auction
after reading online that it wasn't as soft as the Alpinist CLX.
It's better than the Alpinist CLX, sure enough,
but it still has that same sluggish feel to it.
Today I'm rebuilding the rear wheel.
The hub shell is in great condition, and
there's minimal sprocket bite marks on the freebody,
which suggests neither the previous owner
nor the current owner used it much.
However, fine sand had accumulated in the nipple seats
enough to indicate some actual use history.
I didn't gradually swap out the black Aero Lite spokes
for silver CX-RAY spokes while keeping the wheel partially assembled.
I completely disassembled the wheel down to the bare rim,
and when building it with black spokes, I would have reused
the black Aero Lite spokes on the freewheel side after
a temporary build. But the customer said
the spoke color didn't really matter—
(they wanted black spokes but silver was fine too,
was roughly the sentiment)
so I went with silver instead.
The image above shows that in progress.
I'm not going to write here why I half-forced the switch to silver spokes.
But I'll explain it to the customer.
Built.
I went with a half CX Sprint lacing pattern.
I'll do the tying and soldering later.
Bonus
This is the freewheel side of the Alpinist CLX rear wheel
I rebuilt the other day, before tying and soldering.
The wear marks on Roval's final cross don't show
unless you grip the spoke, but since I built it
without paying attention to spoke orientation,
when I looked at the wheel from the right side and found a spoke
with wear marks on its outer surface, the wear mark on the final cross
was outside the ungripped crossing.
This happened because the reverse-different-diameter lacing
allowed the freewheel-side spokes to be tensioned higher than before.
I wrote earlier that Roval's disc brake rear wheels
have tangent lacing on the non-freewheel side,
so they can't be tensioned as much as the front wheel.
But apparently, it was tensioned enough to show here.
If this were the CLX50 rim, which is about 90g heavier
than the Alpinist CLX, I thought I'd be able to observe
even more tightening on the rear wheel
(meaning the wear mark position would shift further),
but this time all the freewheel-side spokes were replaced
and they're silver, so I couldn't tell the difference.
A customer brought in a
CLX50 wheel with disc brake compatibility for work.
It's not a recent job, but this customer had me rebuild
an Alpinist CLX wheel in the past.
After rebuilding the Alpinist CLX, the customer said
"that sluggish feeling is gone—
now I can actually use this for hill climb races."
This CLX50, the customer picked up at auction
after reading online that it wasn't as soft as the Alpinist CLX.
It's better than the Alpinist CLX, sure enough,
but it still has that same sluggish feel to it.
Today I'm rebuilding the rear wheel.
The hub shell is in great condition, and
there's minimal sprocket bite marks on the freebody,
which suggests neither the previous owner
nor the current owner used it much.
However, fine sand had accumulated in the nipple seats
enough to indicate some actual use history.
I didn't gradually swap out the black Aero Lite spokes
for silver CX-RAY spokes while keeping the wheel partially assembled.
I completely disassembled the wheel down to the bare rim,
and when building it with black spokes, I would have reused
the black Aero Lite spokes on the freewheel side after
a temporary build. But the customer said
the spoke color didn't really matter—
(they wanted black spokes but silver was fine too,
was roughly the sentiment)
so I went with silver instead.
The image above shows that in progress.
I'm not going to write here why I half-forced the switch to silver spokes.
But I'll explain it to the customer.
Built.
I went with a half CX Sprint lacing pattern.
I'll do the tying and soldering later.
Bonus
This is the freewheel side of the Alpinist CLX rear wheel
I rebuilt the other day, before tying and soldering.
The wear marks on Roval's final cross don't show
unless you grip the spoke, but since I built it
without paying attention to spoke orientation,
when I looked at the wheel from the right side and found a spoke
with wear marks on its outer surface, the wear mark on the final cross
was outside the ungripped crossing.
This happened because the reverse-different-diameter lacing
allowed the freewheel-side spokes to be tensioned higher than before.
I wrote earlier that Roval's disc brake rear wheels
have tangent lacing on the non-freewheel side,
so they can't be tensioned as much as the front wheel.
But apparently, it was tensioned enough to show here.
If this were the CLX50 rim, which is about 90g heavier
than the Alpinist CLX, I thought I'd be able to observe
even more tightening on the rear wheel
(meaning the wear mark position would shift further),
but this time all the freewheel-side spokes were replaced
and they're silver, so I couldn't tell the difference.