Today it's wheels again (and so on)... but before that.
About yesterday's front wheel on the Roval C38:
The front hub isn't an original made on commission from DT, but rather
a standard DT product, so unlike Roval's hubs—which are ridiculous—
it doesn't commit the foolish mistake of adopting small-diameter bearings for petty weight savings,
and the bearings are less prone to damage from compression by the through axle.
I said petty weight savings, but looking at Roval's hub,
there appears to be space to accommodate bearings
of the same size as this DT hub,
yet they deliberately chose smaller-diameter bearings.
The outer diameter of the drop-out insertion part equals the inner diameter of the bearing—
both Roval's hub and this hub are the same in that regard—
so Roval's bearing is only smaller in outer diameter compared to the bearing in the photo above,
but when the dimension difference between inner and outer rings is smaller,
it means the size of the bearing balls that can fit between them
is also smaller.
Roval's front wheels are overwhelmingly most often mounted on
Specialized front forks, of course, but
Specialized's X-12 through-axle standard
is also a specification that tightens unnecessarily well (to an excessive degree),
so when people who don't fully understand this overtighten it,
the result is wheels spinning worse than a department store bike's front wheel
when rotated by their own weight alone—in other words, grinding—
and you see quite a few Roval front wheels in this condition.
The idea that all users treat their equipment properly
is an illusion.
There are people who diligently apply the manufacturer-specified grease
to Mavic's Instant Drive 360 surface ratchet at the recommended frequency (every 1000 km),
but it's probably not zero, though
it's certainly not the majority (50% or more).
I'd say it's even below 10%.
So if your Roval front wheel has grinding bearings,
it's not your fault—it's Roval's fault for not being able to imagine
that there are quite a few people like that,
so don't worry about it.
Even DT, if it became clear through experience that
reducing bearing size hardly changes maintenance frequency at all,
would still shrink the bearings down to that critical size
(since it would simply be weight savings with no risk).
↑Not the Tower of Hanoi,
but there are three bearings here.
The inner diameters are all the same.
From left in the image above, these are 6802, 6902, 6903 in size,
with 6802 being the size used in Roval's front wheel.
6902 is the bearing size for this DT front hub,
and 6903 has examples of use in DT rear hubs and elsewhere, but
the contact-sealed 6903 that used to go in the left side of older Shimano Ultegra rear hubs
was extremely durable—
I've seen many instances of ones that were in constant use for five years,
and older Ultegra rear wheels bought ten years ago
showing no signs of wear whatsoever, even with less frequent use.
In contrast, it's common to see Roval front wheels
where the bearings are grinding within six months of purchase
due to over-tightening the through-axle.
So anyway,
it's wheels again today (and so on).
Continuing from yesterday.
I'm rebuilding the rear wheel on the C38.
DT 370 hub, 24H, all-black Competé Race, built in 4-cross pattern.
This freehub body says "Ratchet LN," so
it's a system where initially it had a three-pawl ratchet with a pull spring,
but could be upgraded later to the current single-push spring-type star ratchet... no wait,
the older two-push spring-type star ratchet—
and it had already been converted to a two-push spring-type star ratchet.
Built.
Half-Competé, 46-spoke JIS build.
I'll do the lacing later.
Like the front wheel, I've made the spoke and nipple nearest the valve hole on the left side black.
I'm confident that this rear wheel too, even without lacing,
would have many people say it rolls better than the CLX 50's rear wheel,
but to have a real basis for that claim, I need to know the rim weight.
If we're targeting the CLX 50 as the benchmark, we need to beat its 50mm height / weight ratio of 435-440g.
If the C38 rim weighs 500g, even if we win in the hub and spoke portion,
we can't win overall.
And in fact, the C38 rim is inferior in height/weight ratio
compared to the CLX 50's rim.
With only 38mm rim height,
the rim weight is actually heavier than the CLX 50, so.
Even if you push the side of a C38 rim with your finger,
it doesn't feel as squishy as the CLX rim does.
※Like Shimano's WH-R9170-C40, which has a 37mm-height rim in both TL and TU
but doesn't express the exact rim height in the model name,
I measured it just to be sure.
But the weight difference isn't that large, so
considering the relative importance of each factor,
the major disadvantage of the CLX—being forced into a 2:1 XI lacing pattern
by rim hole runout repeating left-right-right ×n times
(n=7 for front wheel, n=8 for rear wheel)—
means the C38 can ultimately be built into a better wheel
than the CLX.
What? You want me to show the basis for that height/weight ratio?
Why do I have to explain that kind of thing?
↑Ugh, this guy has a bad attitude.
My apologies for the wait! Please view these images!
It's the front rim!
It's the rear rim!
This time there happened to be no problems,
but when the front and rear rims have the same number of holes and specifications,
you might want to disassemble both wheels at the same time
so you can use the heavier one for the front wheel!
↑Stop it!
About yesterday's front wheel on the Roval C38:
The front hub isn't an original made on commission from DT, but rather
a standard DT product, so unlike Roval's hubs—which are ridiculous—
it doesn't commit the foolish mistake of adopting small-diameter bearings for petty weight savings,
and the bearings are less prone to damage from compression by the through axle.
I said petty weight savings, but looking at Roval's hub,
there appears to be space to accommodate bearings
of the same size as this DT hub,
yet they deliberately chose smaller-diameter bearings.
The outer diameter of the drop-out insertion part equals the inner diameter of the bearing—
both Roval's hub and this hub are the same in that regard—
so Roval's bearing is only smaller in outer diameter compared to the bearing in the photo above,
but when the dimension difference between inner and outer rings is smaller,
it means the size of the bearing balls that can fit between them
is also smaller.
Roval's front wheels are overwhelmingly most often mounted on
Specialized front forks, of course, but
Specialized's X-12 through-axle standard
is also a specification that tightens unnecessarily well (to an excessive degree),
so when people who don't fully understand this overtighten it,
the result is wheels spinning worse than a department store bike's front wheel
when rotated by their own weight alone—in other words, grinding—
and you see quite a few Roval front wheels in this condition.
The idea that all users treat their equipment properly
is an illusion.
There are people who diligently apply the manufacturer-specified grease
to Mavic's Instant Drive 360 surface ratchet at the recommended frequency (every 1000 km),
but it's probably not zero, though
it's certainly not the majority (50% or more).
I'd say it's even below 10%.
So if your Roval front wheel has grinding bearings,
it's not your fault—it's Roval's fault for not being able to imagine
that there are quite a few people like that,
so don't worry about it.
Even DT, if it became clear through experience that
reducing bearing size hardly changes maintenance frequency at all,
would still shrink the bearings down to that critical size
(since it would simply be weight savings with no risk).
↑Not the Tower of Hanoi,
but there are three bearings here.
The inner diameters are all the same.
From left in the image above, these are 6802, 6902, 6903 in size,
with 6802 being the size used in Roval's front wheel.
6902 is the bearing size for this DT front hub,
and 6903 has examples of use in DT rear hubs and elsewhere, but
the contact-sealed 6903 that used to go in the left side of older Shimano Ultegra rear hubs
was extremely durable—
I've seen many instances of ones that were in constant use for five years,
and older Ultegra rear wheels bought ten years ago
showing no signs of wear whatsoever, even with less frequent use.
In contrast, it's common to see Roval front wheels
where the bearings are grinding within six months of purchase
due to over-tightening the through-axle.
So anyway,
it's wheels again today (and so on).
Continuing from yesterday.
I'm rebuilding the rear wheel on the C38.
DT 370 hub, 24H, all-black Competé Race, built in 4-cross pattern.
This freehub body says "Ratchet LN," so
it's a system where initially it had a three-pawl ratchet with a pull spring,
but could be upgraded later to the current single-push spring-type star ratchet... no wait,
the older two-push spring-type star ratchet—
and it had already been converted to a two-push spring-type star ratchet.
Built.
Half-Competé, 46-spoke JIS build.
I'll do the lacing later.
Like the front wheel, I've made the spoke and nipple nearest the valve hole on the left side black.
I'm confident that this rear wheel too, even without lacing,
would have many people say it rolls better than the CLX 50's rear wheel,
but to have a real basis for that claim, I need to know the rim weight.
If we're targeting the CLX 50 as the benchmark, we need to beat its 50mm height / weight ratio of 435-440g.
If the C38 rim weighs 500g, even if we win in the hub and spoke portion,
we can't win overall.
And in fact, the C38 rim is inferior in height/weight ratio
compared to the CLX 50's rim.
With only 38mm rim height,
the rim weight is actually heavier than the CLX 50, so.
Even if you push the side of a C38 rim with your finger,
it doesn't feel as squishy as the CLX rim does.
※Like Shimano's WH-R9170-C40, which has a 37mm-height rim in both TL and TU
but doesn't express the exact rim height in the model name,
I measured it just to be sure.
But the weight difference isn't that large, so
considering the relative importance of each factor,
the major disadvantage of the CLX—being forced into a 2:1 XI lacing pattern
by rim hole runout repeating left-right-right ×n times
(n=7 for front wheel, n=8 for rear wheel)—
means the C38 can ultimately be built into a better wheel
than the CLX.
What? You want me to show the basis for that height/weight ratio?
Why do I have to explain that kind of thing?
↑Ugh, this guy has a bad attitude.
My apologies for the wait! Please view these images!
It's the front rim!
It's the rear rim!
This time there happened to be no problems,
but when the front and rear rims have the same number of holes and specifications,
you might want to disassemble both wheels at the same time
so you can use the heavier one for the front wheel!
↑Stop it!