Another day working on wheels (and so on).
I sourced a Tni SUB1 wheel at a customer's request.
SUB1 is a model name meaning under 1kg,
and it's sold both as individual rims and as complete wheelsets.
The rims sold individually were quickly bought out,
so the distributor is already out of stock.
I won't bother explaining why I can definitively say they were hoarded.
When building a wheel from an individual rim,
pairing it with Evolight or 660 hubs and all-black CX-RAY spokes
barely gets you under 1000g,
but if you do a semi-rigid rear wheel, you exceed 1000g
and the name doesn't hold up.
The complete wheelsets come in rim brake and disc brake versions.
The individually-sold rims are for rim brakes,
so the brake zones have AC3-looking treatment,
but the disc brake wheelset rims
have no brake zone and instead have a Tni sticker
applied where the brake zone would normally be on the rim side.
Also, the spoke hole count specifications differ completely
between individual rims and complete wheelsets—
individual rims come in 20, 24, and 28H,
but the rim brake wheelset is
18H front and 21H rear,
while the disc brake wheelset is
21H both front and rear.
These 21H setups are 2:1 builds (14+7H).
The stated weight for complete wheelsets is
890–910g for rim brake and
950–970g for disc brake.
The spokes on complete wheelsets are all-black CX-RAY,
and a single CX-RAY spoke and aluminum nipple
in the length used weigh around 5.2g.
Treating that as roughly 5g,
compared to hand-built rim brake spec with
20H front and 24H rear, there are 5 fewer spokes,
and compared to hand-built disc brake spec with
24H both front and rear, there are 6 fewer spokes.
This saves around 25–30g on the complete wheelset side,
but if the disc brake complete wheelset were
24H front and rear,
the actual measured weight would likely exceed 1000g.
The hubs on complete wheelsets prioritize lightness alone
(thin construction with bearing seals as the final defense line
and no waterproof seals, etc.),
so it's difficult to build equally light wheels using standard hubs.
Ultra-light hubs like Extralite would be another story,
but the complete wheelset hubs straight-up copy Extralite's shape,
and the freewheel body ratchet is a knockoff of a
spring-pawl star ratchet.
↑Front wheel
↑Rear wheel
The rear wheel's 2:1 build is X-pattern (X-cross).
This wheelset is rim brake spec,
though the disc brake version is already sold out.
Looking at the rim brake rear wheel as it comes off the shelf,
it's just incredibly light weight-wise,
but doesn't look like it'll ride particularly well.
As for this wheelset, the customer wanted to buy
a SUB1 rim originally, but it was already sold out,
so they still really wanted a wheel with this rim.
They thought about buying the complete wheelset instead,
but since the customer uses Campagnolo groupset,
they asked a nearby shop if they could swap the freewheel body
for a Campagnolo version, or rebuild the rear wheel
with some kind of Campagnolo-compatible hub,
but were told it wasn't possible, so they consulted with us.
Incidentally, this customer is someone I've known for 20 years
and is from Kansai region, though they currently live in Kanto.
When they had business in Osaka recently and visited in person,
they mentioned this.
By the way, that nearby shop apparently knows about us—
our notoriousshop—and says about this blog
that we "study hard."
Why are they talking down to me? They can't even do what I did today.
If I swap the freewheel body for Campagnolo spec
on an Evolight hub with 28H
and build it with the non-drive side spoke holes skipped, I can technically
build a 21H rear wheel.
But I'd really rather not do a 2:1 build on the non-drive side
with radial lacing using J-bend spokes.
Besides Evolight, there's also DT for Campagnolo freewheel bodies,
but even the 350 hub is several times more expensive than Evolight,
and the freewheel bodies that come stock on rear hubs are
(at least in how Japanese distributors sell them)
only Shimano HG or SRAM XDR spec,
so you'd have to buy one of those hubs first,
then buy a separate Campagnolo freewheel body,
and the total list price would easily exceed ¥70,000 before tax.
Plus, when I checked prices just now,
the 350 rear hub quick-release models carried by Japanese distributors
only come in 24H and 32H, so it wouldn't work anyway.
Another option was to use the rear wheel from a Racing 3.
Even if the bearings were pitted
or the freewheel body wasn't Campagnolo spec,
those can be swapped out later,
so I asked them to find a rear wheel with an intact hub body.
"Found one! A Racing 3 rear wheel!"
"Excellent!"
They mentioned they'd prefer an early version without the rest phase,
but it was from the era that had the rest phase,
and from before they went to mega high-flange.
Here's the actual measured weight of the SUB1 front wheel.
And here's the rear wheel.
I'm not going to write an article where I brag about the weight
of a wheelset I didn't build myself by saying
"The combined front and rear weighs 902g!" or something.
The spoke length was on the short side,
which might be part of the weight-reduction strategy.
↑I'm not serious—just messing around
I disassembled the SUB1 rear wheel.
The rim's stated weight is 220–250g.
There seems to be another rim back there,
but don't worry about it.
I also disassembled the Racing 3 rear wheel.
The bearings showed no signs of wear and can be reused as-is.
The freewheel body was Shimano 10-speed,
but since I'm replacing it, it doesn't matter.
Built.
Here's my advertisement that it's been swapped to Campagnolo freewheel body, and
here's my advertisement that the hex hole in the cone lock bolt
is clean after washing (most wheels besides new ones have black gunk clogged in it),
while also confirming the wheel is properly centered.
Since it's an XI-pattern hub, it became an XI-pattern build.
If you pass off the drive-side tangent lacing as X-pattern,
there are no rim holes where the non-drive-side radial spokes come out,
so you can't build the wheel.
This Racing 3 rear wheel went from
a normal 28H non-drive radial rear wheel to
a 21H with every other spoke hole on the non-drive side removed—a rest-phase 21H.
I always say XI-pattern 2:1 builds aren't ideal,
and the reason is that the final cross angle becomes sharp
and approaches radial lacing.
However, regarding Fulcrum's rest phase,
whether you remove drive-side or non-drive spokes to make the wheel XI-pattern
or X-pattern, the trajectory of the drive-side spokes doesn't change.
Fulcrum has continued to release 2:1 wheels with evenly-spaced spoke holes
even after introducing rest-phase wheels,
and they're consistent: rest-phase is XI-pattern,
and evenly-spaced holes are X-pattern.
The Racing 3 rear rim and the Tni SUB1 rear rim
have their seven non-drive-side spoke holes in exactly the same phase.
I added the outer circumference line to the SUB1 rim
because the SUB1 rim is low-profile,
with no deeper meaning than that.
The SUB1 rim's drive-side spoke holes
are evenly-spaced, so the distance between spoke holes
on the drive side's final cross is tighter than on rest-phase rims.
This naturally affects spoke length calculations.
Building a wheel with Racing 3 hub and SUB1 rim
gives you this.
This spoke hole phase difference on the drive side
is outside the spoke trajectory
the hub flange design and shape assumes,
so you might think the spokes would bend
around the hub flange area,
but there was no problem there.
↑In fact, I've even built wheels before using Zonda DB hub with Racing 3 DB rim (→here).
Both the inside and outside of the rim showed no spoke hole offset.
Even if there were X-pattern offset on the rim,
it wouldn't prevent you from building it XI-pattern,
but you'd design it so that with O as the valve hole
and spokes grouped in parentheses,
X-pattern would have phase "RLR" O "RLR",
ensuring consistent pattern repeat.
If you took an "RLR" "RLR" O "RLR" "RLR"… X-pattern-offsetted rim
and built it XI-pattern, you'd get
"L" "RRL" "RRL" "R" O "RRL" "RRL" "R"…
with the valve hole ending up in the middle of the drive-side final cross.
But without offset, you can set it as "RRL" O "RRL",
placing the valve hole between XI and XI patterns.
Actual measured weight of the rebuilt rear wheel.
The Campagnolo freewheel body is aluminum,
but the Shimano 10-speed freewheel body is steel,
so if it were still that, we'd likely have exceeded 600g.
The 74g weight increase isn't just from the hub difference;
it also relates to swapping the non-drive spokes to black CX Sprint straight-gauge.
Wire lacing comes later—it's essential for this wheel.
The customer told us to pursue stiffness within what the rim allows,
but if they hadn't, I would have proposed
a left-right different-diameter build from our end.
Fulcrum hubs are great—the left flange is wide,
which gives good lateral stiffness.
Here's the Racing 3 rim.
The drive-side spokes are hooked-on type,
so you can remove them from the flange if you loosen the nipples enough.
The non-drive spokes are through-type,
so I remove the spokes first, then reinstall them
for nipple retention inside the rim.
It's probably not worth doing, but building a rear wheel
with this rim and SUB1 hub isn't impossible.
On the non-drive side at least; the drive-side spokes
can't be reused length-wise,
so you'd need to calculate and prepare them.
But if that were happening, I'd have the customer's nearby shop do it—
surely they're not displaying a shop sign while unable to do even this.
I sourced a Tni SUB1 wheel at a customer's request.
SUB1 is a model name meaning under 1kg,
and it's sold both as individual rims and as complete wheelsets.
The rims sold individually were quickly bought out,
so the distributor is already out of stock.
I won't bother explaining why I can definitively say they were hoarded.
When building a wheel from an individual rim,
pairing it with Evolight or 660 hubs and all-black CX-RAY spokes
barely gets you under 1000g,
but if you do a semi-rigid rear wheel, you exceed 1000g
and the name doesn't hold up.
The complete wheelsets come in rim brake and disc brake versions.
The individually-sold rims are for rim brakes,
so the brake zones have AC3-looking treatment,
but the disc brake wheelset rims
have no brake zone and instead have a Tni sticker
applied where the brake zone would normally be on the rim side.
Also, the spoke hole count specifications differ completely
between individual rims and complete wheelsets—
individual rims come in 20, 24, and 28H,
but the rim brake wheelset is
18H front and 21H rear,
while the disc brake wheelset is
21H both front and rear.
These 21H setups are 2:1 builds (14+7H).
The stated weight for complete wheelsets is
890–910g for rim brake and
950–970g for disc brake.
The spokes on complete wheelsets are all-black CX-RAY,
and a single CX-RAY spoke and aluminum nipple
in the length used weigh around 5.2g.
Treating that as roughly 5g,
compared to hand-built rim brake spec with
20H front and 24H rear, there are 5 fewer spokes,
and compared to hand-built disc brake spec with
24H both front and rear, there are 6 fewer spokes.
This saves around 25–30g on the complete wheelset side,
but if the disc brake complete wheelset were
24H front and rear,
the actual measured weight would likely exceed 1000g.
The hubs on complete wheelsets prioritize lightness alone
(thin construction with bearing seals as the final defense line
and no waterproof seals, etc.),
so it's difficult to build equally light wheels using standard hubs.
Ultra-light hubs like Extralite would be another story,
but the complete wheelset hubs straight-up copy Extralite's shape,
and the freewheel body ratchet is a knockoff of a
spring-pawl star ratchet.
↑Front wheel
↑Rear wheel
The rear wheel's 2:1 build is X-pattern (X-cross).
This wheelset is rim brake spec,
though the disc brake version is already sold out.
Looking at the rim brake rear wheel as it comes off the shelf,
it's just incredibly light weight-wise,
but doesn't look like it'll ride particularly well.
As for this wheelset, the customer wanted to buy
a SUB1 rim originally, but it was already sold out,
so they still really wanted a wheel with this rim.
They thought about buying the complete wheelset instead,
but since the customer uses Campagnolo groupset,
they asked a nearby shop if they could swap the freewheel body
for a Campagnolo version, or rebuild the rear wheel
with some kind of Campagnolo-compatible hub,
but were told it wasn't possible, so they consulted with us.
Incidentally, this customer is someone I've known for 20 years
and is from Kansai region, though they currently live in Kanto.
When they had business in Osaka recently and visited in person,
they mentioned this.
By the way, that nearby shop apparently knows about us—
that we "study hard."
Why are they talking down to me? They can't even do what I did today.
If I swap the freewheel body for Campagnolo spec
on an Evolight hub with 28H
and build it with the non-drive side spoke holes skipped, I can technically
build a 21H rear wheel.
But I'd really rather not do a 2:1 build on the non-drive side
with radial lacing using J-bend spokes.
Besides Evolight, there's also DT for Campagnolo freewheel bodies,
but even the 350 hub is several times more expensive than Evolight,
and the freewheel bodies that come stock on rear hubs are
(at least in how Japanese distributors sell them)
only Shimano HG or SRAM XDR spec,
so you'd have to buy one of those hubs first,
then buy a separate Campagnolo freewheel body,
and the total list price would easily exceed ¥70,000 before tax.
Plus, when I checked prices just now,
the 350 rear hub quick-release models carried by Japanese distributors
only come in 24H and 32H, so it wouldn't work anyway.
Another option was to use the rear wheel from a Racing 3.
Even if the bearings were pitted
or the freewheel body wasn't Campagnolo spec,
those can be swapped out later,
so I asked them to find a rear wheel with an intact hub body.
"Found one! A Racing 3 rear wheel!"
"Excellent!"
They mentioned they'd prefer an early version without the rest phase,
but it was from the era that had the rest phase,
and from before they went to mega high-flange.
Here's the actual measured weight of the SUB1 front wheel.
And here's the rear wheel.
I'm not going to write an article where I brag about the weight
of a wheelset I didn't build myself by saying
"The combined front and rear weighs 902g!" or something.
The spoke length was on the short side,
which might be part of the weight-reduction strategy.
I disassembled the SUB1 rear wheel.
The rim's stated weight is 220–250g.
There seems to be another rim back there,
but don't worry about it.
I also disassembled the Racing 3 rear wheel.
The bearings showed no signs of wear and can be reused as-is.
The freewheel body was Shimano 10-speed,
but since I'm replacing it, it doesn't matter.
Built.
Here's my advertisement that it's been swapped to Campagnolo freewheel body, and
here's my advertisement that the hex hole in the cone lock bolt
is clean after washing (most wheels besides new ones have black gunk clogged in it),
while also confirming the wheel is properly centered.
Since it's an XI-pattern hub, it became an XI-pattern build.
If you pass off the drive-side tangent lacing as X-pattern,
there are no rim holes where the non-drive-side radial spokes come out,
so you can't build the wheel.
This Racing 3 rear wheel went from
a normal 28H non-drive radial rear wheel to
a 21H with every other spoke hole on the non-drive side removed—a rest-phase 21H.
I always say XI-pattern 2:1 builds aren't ideal,
and the reason is that the final cross angle becomes sharp
and approaches radial lacing.
However, regarding Fulcrum's rest phase,
whether you remove drive-side or non-drive spokes to make the wheel XI-pattern
or X-pattern, the trajectory of the drive-side spokes doesn't change.
Fulcrum has continued to release 2:1 wheels with evenly-spaced spoke holes
even after introducing rest-phase wheels,
and they're consistent: rest-phase is XI-pattern,
and evenly-spaced holes are X-pattern.
The Racing 3 rear rim and the Tni SUB1 rear rim
have their seven non-drive-side spoke holes in exactly the same phase.
I added the outer circumference line to the SUB1 rim
because the SUB1 rim is low-profile,
with no deeper meaning than that.
The SUB1 rim's drive-side spoke holes
are evenly-spaced, so the distance between spoke holes
on the drive side's final cross is tighter than on rest-phase rims.
This naturally affects spoke length calculations.
Building a wheel with Racing 3 hub and SUB1 rim
gives you this.
This spoke hole phase difference on the drive side
is outside the spoke trajectory
the hub flange design and shape assumes,
so you might think the spokes would bend
around the hub flange area,
but there was no problem there.
↑In fact, I've even built wheels before using Zonda DB hub with Racing 3 DB rim (→here).
Both the inside and outside of the rim showed no spoke hole offset.
Even if there were X-pattern offset on the rim,
it wouldn't prevent you from building it XI-pattern,
but you'd design it so that with O as the valve hole
and spokes grouped in parentheses,
X-pattern would have phase "RLR" O "RLR",
ensuring consistent pattern repeat.
If you took an "RLR" "RLR" O "RLR" "RLR"… X-pattern-offsetted rim
and built it XI-pattern, you'd get
"L" "RRL" "RRL" "R" O "RRL" "RRL" "R"…
with the valve hole ending up in the middle of the drive-side final cross.
But without offset, you can set it as "RRL" O "RRL",
placing the valve hole between XI and XI patterns.
Actual measured weight of the rebuilt rear wheel.
The Campagnolo freewheel body is aluminum,
but the Shimano 10-speed freewheel body is steel,
so if it were still that, we'd likely have exceeded 600g.
The 74g weight increase isn't just from the hub difference;
it also relates to swapping the non-drive spokes to black CX Sprint straight-gauge.
Wire lacing comes later—it's essential for this wheel.
The customer told us to pursue stiffness within what the rim allows,
but if they hadn't, I would have proposed
a left-right different-diameter build from our end.
Fulcrum hubs are great—the left flange is wide,
which gives good lateral stiffness.
Here's the Racing 3 rim.
The drive-side spokes are hooked-on type,
so you can remove them from the flange if you loosen the nipples enough.
The non-drive spokes are through-type,
so I remove the spokes first, then reinstall them
for nipple retention inside the rim.
It's probably not worth doing, but building a rear wheel
with this rim and SUB1 hub isn't impossible.
On the non-drive side at least; the drive-side spokes
can't be reused length-wise,
so you'd need to calculate and prepare them.
But if that were happening, I'd have the customer's nearby shop do it—
surely they're not displaying a shop sign while unable to do even this.