Another day, another wheel (et cetera).
I took in a rear wheel built with an EDGE 1-45 rim from a customer (sort of).
The hub is the Evo hub, the predecessor to Campagnolo's Ebolite hub,
24 spokes, all CX-RAY, four-cross laced.
It's obviously not laced correctly for riding,
but since dealing with a rebuild request would be a hassle,
I'd tried brushing it off with just an inspection a while back,
but that didn't work out.
The serial number is a six-digit 103,000-something,
right at the end of the EDGE era before it became ENVE.
They provided a Hyperon hub as the replacement for the rear wheel rebuild.
But this is tricky.
It's not about calculating spoke length or anything like that—
the issue is that even with this hub swap, the wheel would still have
equal spoke counts left and right with a non-drive-side radial lacing.
↑Near the valve hole, from above
↑From the right
↑From the left
This is a Hyperon rear wheel.
The Hyperon rear wheel, with its offset rim,
extremely asymmetrical left-right spoke count lacing, and high-low flange rim,
manages to be marginally superior
compared to a rear wheel with a non-offset rim, equal 24 spokes left and right,
all CX-RAY four-cross lacing, despite having non-drive-side radial lacing.
This is a rare rear wheel indeed.
Normally it's impossible for a radial-laced rear wheel to achieve
spoke deformation resistance comparable to a tangential-laced one.
Since the ENVE rim is not an offset rim,
even maximizing the left-right spoke weight difference beyond the original Hyperon,
you can't overcome the major factor that it lacks the offset rim design.
When comparing the same Hyperon rear hub against
spokes and a rim that are the genuine Hyperon items
(meaning straight-off-the-shelf Hyperon)
versus half-weight competition spokes with a 1-45 rim,
both assuming proper wheel centering,
if you squeeze the spokes after the wheel is built,
the genuine Hyperon should show less deformation on the non-drive side spokes.
However, there's one factor that could reverse this:
the ENVE rim has a higher spoke tension tolerance limit.
The drive side can be tensioned up to the limit, naturally,
and if the non-drive side follows along—minus the offset difference—
then...
This Hyperon hub came with ceramic ball retainers.
That's chronologically odd.
Because the ball races are black.
When Hyperon Ultra, the first WO carbon rim wheel, came out in 2004,
Hyperon was still tubular-only with steel ball bearing specifications at that point.
Black ball races plus ceramic balls is the same as early USB (Campagnolo wheelset),
but this combination causes severe ball race wear
and is prone to spalling.
I cleaned off the grease and inspected, but in this hub's case,
the wear marks were clean with no spalling.
Let me recap the timeline around Hyperon Ultra.
This is a 2003 spare parts catalog.
Only Hyperon appears.
Carbon WO rims don't even exist yet, so
there's nothing but tubular rim specifications without qualification.
The bearing ball is HB-RE023, a steel ball.
HB denotes hub parts, RE denotes Record grade,
and the ending digits like 023 as X23 are numbers assigned to bearing balls.
I couldn't find a 2004 catalog right away, so here's the 2005 one.
The first-generation Hyperon Ultra was only produced in 2004 and 2005,
and the Hyperon situation was the same in both years.
This is the page showing hub exploded views for five models:
Hyperon, Hyperon Ultra, Bora,
Neutron, and Eurus (or Eurus—I call the steel spokes version that
to distinguish it from the carbon version).
Only Hyperon Ultra has ceramic balls,
so its parts are coded HY, the Hyperon part number.
The hub dust cap ends in 011,
while the traditional black cap is Bora part number BO011,
but the red cap exclusive to first-gen Hyperon Ultra
is part number HY011.
Next, the 2006 and 2007 catalogs.
The Hyperon section contents were identical.
Hyperon and Hyperon Ultra are on the same page, summarized together, but...
Only steel ball bearing specifications—
and black cap specifications only.
This second-generation Hyperon Ultra "discontinued" the ceramic bearings and red cap of the first generation,
and is essentially just the WO rim version of the conventional tubular rim Hyperon.
After this embarrassing ceramic bearing failure,
a period of steel ball bearings only continued for a while,
and CULT didn't appear until much later.
USB came even later, but the early models had black ball races plus ceramic balls—
the same as first-gen Hyperon Ultra—
so I thought "This will spall quickly too!"
and indeed spalling cases became frequent,
until an undisclosed, part-number-unchanged specification change
(seen also in Campagnolo brake lever bushings and such)
switched to silver ball races (an in-house pseudo-CULT),
after which spalling cases dropped significantly.
Incidentally, the first-gen Hyperon Ultra's
ceramic ball retainer part number is HY023,
while the current CULT and USB's equivalent part number is HY123,
with the hundreds digit advanced, making them different parts.
So the Hyperon hub I received had ceramic balls with a black cap,
which is chronologically inconsistent.
The likely possibilities are
・First-gen Hyperon Ultra hub with just the cap changed to black
・A hub from 2004-2005 with HB-HY123 added later
either scenario is plausible.
Unlike CULT, it requires grease and can't achieve
CULT's characteristic light rotation, so
switching to steel balls to reduce spalling risk
won't significantly change performance rotation-wise.
Alternatively, I could swap out the ball races themselves for CULT versions, but...
With this era's Hyperon and Bora carbon hubs,
once spokes go through the front left/right and rear left flanges,
the one (freehub body) cannot be replaced.
I built the wheel without proposing a CULT upgrade, so CULT conversion is rejected, rejected!
For the original wheel, I loosened all nipples several times around
until spoke tension was sufficiently relaxed,
then cut the spokes.
The spokes in the image above—
since the current ENVE is the fourth generation of built-in nipples
and this rim is late-era EDGE,
it used second-generation built-in nipples.
But it has the kind of mistake that only second-gen nipples tend to have:
installed facing the wrong direction.
↑This side with the hex flats is the inner rim side.
↑This nipple side has no flats;
the threads begin immediately,
so if the spoke length is even slightly long,
you'll run out of threads and bottom out.
From the carbon residue on the spoke threads,
there was apparently room for another two or three rotations.
First-generation built-in nipples are also aluminum hex columns,
but the outer end has an embedded nylon anti-rotation insert,
so it's nearly impossible for anyone to get it wrong.
Thus this backwards nipple is a mistake seen specifically in second-gen.
F...finally reached it...
That moment when center was achieved
felt like fingertips finding the mountain peak.
It was long...
Built.
Drive side is black Champion.
I'm weaving the final cross,
same as with the genuine Hyperon.
Non-drive side is black CX-RAY.
It has slightly more spoke weight asymmetry left-to-right than genuine Hyperon
(drive side is greater, non-drive side about the same).
Since the left flange width is broader than the original Evo hub and the offset is greater,
lateral stiffness should be achieved, but the non-drive side should feel loose—
instead, it's actually more tensioned than the Evo hub with all CX-RAY.
The original had wobbly non-drive side spokes, but
the rebuilt wheel has nearly eliminated that.
Just to clarify: the original state refers to after I did inspection,
true adjustment, and minor tension adjustments.
Even so, the non-drive side stiffness is inferior to a genuine Hyperon
and inferior to a typical 24-hole hub with half-comp two-cross lacing without bracing.
However, among rear wheels with
\"non-drive side CX-RAY radial lacing on a 1-45 rim,\"
this might be the stiffest non-drive side rear wheel in the world.
Hyperon wheels are reverse-rim wheels, both front and rear.
So when viewing the wheel from the right side,
the neighboring rim hole clockwise from the valve hole
connects to a drive-side spoke (a spoke from the near flange, from your viewpoint).
I built the rebuilt rear wheel as a standard-rim wheel.
The rim holes show no intentional offset.
When viewing the wheel from the right side, the neighboring rim hole clockwise from the valve hole
connects to a non-drive-side spoke (a spoke from the far flange, from your viewpoint).
I've drawn the left-right tangential lacing final cross, one pair four spokes,
as seen from the right side when viewing the wheel
(when viewed from one side, but let's say right side).
Standard rim, in other words,
means \"the final cross in front, as seen by you,
is twisted clockwise ahead of the final cross in back.\"
I straighten the arc of the rim's inner circumference and the arc of the hub flange
into parallel straight lines of equal length.
From here, opening the left spoke diagram in reverse of the folding procedure below is
the unfolded diagram of a rim-hub-rim type wheel.
I'll add one more repetition.
In determining the valve hole position,
I can draw a perpendicular line without interfering with spokes
only at this location.
The fact that the right rim's final cross is offset rightward in the diagram
is because it's a standard rim.
A reverse rim appears mirror-image reversed compared to a standard rim
in a wheel's unfolded diagram.
If you want to position the valve hole so it doesn't fall within one pair, four spokes of the final cross,
there's only this one location.
I've added to the reverse-rim diagram,
but what \"hub flanges that force tangential lacing on both sides
for straight-pull spokes\" means is that each flange hole has
directional bias—some holes are for hedgehog-facing spokes,
others are for anti-hedgehog-facing spokes.
So with a hub with forced left-right tangential lacing for standard rims
paired with a rim that has reverse-rim hole offset,
you cannot simultaneously achieve both
\"getting the hole offset correct\" and
\"keeping the valve hole between the final cross four-spoke pair.\"
I mean, such a wheel wouldn't normally exist... except it does (here).
This Hyperon hub has one side (non-drive side)
forced to radial lacing, so it's not left-right tangential.
When I draw radially laced spokes on the wheel's unfolded diagram,
they become perpendicular lines to the horizontal parallel line.
As a tangent, Shimano's Optiberal low-spoke side like zero-cross,
with the hub-side phase squeezed fine and dense,
doesn't have spokes following a true radial line from hub center,
so it's not radial lacing in the strict sense,
and won't be expressed as perpendicular lines to parallel lines in the unfolded diagram either.
So the original was a reverse-rim hub with forced left-right tangential lacing,
but I redrew it as a non-drive-side radial-lacing-forced flange orientation.
↑Like so
I took in a rear wheel built with an EDGE 1-45 rim from a customer (sort of).
The hub is the Evo hub, the predecessor to Campagnolo's Ebolite hub,
24 spokes, all CX-RAY, four-cross laced.
It's obviously not laced correctly for riding,
but since dealing with a rebuild request would be a hassle,
I'd tried brushing it off with just an inspection a while back,
but that didn't work out.
The serial number is a six-digit 103,000-something,
right at the end of the EDGE era before it became ENVE.
They provided a Hyperon hub as the replacement for the rear wheel rebuild.
But this is tricky.
It's not about calculating spoke length or anything like that—
the issue is that even with this hub swap, the wheel would still have
equal spoke counts left and right with a non-drive-side radial lacing.
↑Near the valve hole, from above
↑From the right
↑From the left
This is a Hyperon rear wheel.
The Hyperon rear wheel, with its offset rim,
extremely asymmetrical left-right spoke count lacing, and high-low flange rim,
manages to be marginally superior
compared to a rear wheel with a non-offset rim, equal 24 spokes left and right,
all CX-RAY four-cross lacing, despite having non-drive-side radial lacing.
This is a rare rear wheel indeed.
Normally it's impossible for a radial-laced rear wheel to achieve
spoke deformation resistance comparable to a tangential-laced one.
Since the ENVE rim is not an offset rim,
even maximizing the left-right spoke weight difference beyond the original Hyperon,
you can't overcome the major factor that it lacks the offset rim design.
When comparing the same Hyperon rear hub against
spokes and a rim that are the genuine Hyperon items
(meaning straight-off-the-shelf Hyperon)
versus half-weight competition spokes with a 1-45 rim,
both assuming proper wheel centering,
if you squeeze the spokes after the wheel is built,
the genuine Hyperon should show less deformation on the non-drive side spokes.
However, there's one factor that could reverse this:
the ENVE rim has a higher spoke tension tolerance limit.
The drive side can be tensioned up to the limit, naturally,
and if the non-drive side follows along—minus the offset difference—
then...
This Hyperon hub came with ceramic ball retainers.
That's chronologically odd.
Because the ball races are black.
When Hyperon Ultra, the first WO carbon rim wheel, came out in 2004,
Hyperon was still tubular-only with steel ball bearing specifications at that point.
Black ball races plus ceramic balls is the same as early USB (Campagnolo wheelset),
but this combination causes severe ball race wear
and is prone to spalling.
I cleaned off the grease and inspected, but in this hub's case,
the wear marks were clean with no spalling.
Let me recap the timeline around Hyperon Ultra.
This is a 2003 spare parts catalog.
Only Hyperon appears.
Carbon WO rims don't even exist yet, so
there's nothing but tubular rim specifications without qualification.
The bearing ball is HB-RE023, a steel ball.
HB denotes hub parts, RE denotes Record grade,
and the ending digits like 023 as X23 are numbers assigned to bearing balls.
I couldn't find a 2004 catalog right away, so here's the 2005 one.
The first-generation Hyperon Ultra was only produced in 2004 and 2005,
and the Hyperon situation was the same in both years.
This is the page showing hub exploded views for five models:
Hyperon, Hyperon Ultra, Bora,
Neutron, and Eurus (or Eurus—I call the steel spokes version that
to distinguish it from the carbon version).
Only Hyperon Ultra has ceramic balls,
so its parts are coded HY, the Hyperon part number.
The hub dust cap ends in 011,
while the traditional black cap is Bora part number BO011,
but the red cap exclusive to first-gen Hyperon Ultra
is part number HY011.
Next, the 2006 and 2007 catalogs.
The Hyperon section contents were identical.
Hyperon and Hyperon Ultra are on the same page, summarized together, but...
Only steel ball bearing specifications—
and black cap specifications only.
This second-generation Hyperon Ultra "discontinued" the ceramic bearings and red cap of the first generation,
and is essentially just the WO rim version of the conventional tubular rim Hyperon.
After this embarrassing ceramic bearing failure,
a period of steel ball bearings only continued for a while,
and CULT didn't appear until much later.
USB came even later, but the early models had black ball races plus ceramic balls—
the same as first-gen Hyperon Ultra—
so I thought "This will spall quickly too!"
and indeed spalling cases became frequent,
until an undisclosed, part-number-unchanged specification change
(seen also in Campagnolo brake lever bushings and such)
switched to silver ball races (an in-house pseudo-CULT),
after which spalling cases dropped significantly.
Incidentally, the first-gen Hyperon Ultra's
ceramic ball retainer part number is HY023,
while the current CULT and USB's equivalent part number is HY123,
with the hundreds digit advanced, making them different parts.
So the Hyperon hub I received had ceramic balls with a black cap,
which is chronologically inconsistent.
The likely possibilities are
・First-gen Hyperon Ultra hub with just the cap changed to black
・A hub from 2004-2005 with HB-HY123 added later
either scenario is plausible.
Unlike CULT, it requires grease and can't achieve
CULT's characteristic light rotation, so
switching to steel balls to reduce spalling risk
won't significantly change performance rotation-wise.
Alternatively, I could swap out the ball races themselves for CULT versions, but...
With this era's Hyperon and Bora carbon hubs,
once spokes go through the front left/right and rear left flanges,
the one (freehub body) cannot be replaced.
I built the wheel without proposing a CULT upgrade, so CULT conversion is rejected, rejected!
For the original wheel, I loosened all nipples several times around
until spoke tension was sufficiently relaxed,
then cut the spokes.
The spokes in the image above—
since the current ENVE is the fourth generation of built-in nipples
and this rim is late-era EDGE,
it used second-generation built-in nipples.
But it has the kind of mistake that only second-gen nipples tend to have:
installed facing the wrong direction.
↑This side with the hex flats is the inner rim side.
↑This nipple side has no flats;
the threads begin immediately,
so if the spoke length is even slightly long,
you'll run out of threads and bottom out.
From the carbon residue on the spoke threads,
there was apparently room for another two or three rotations.
First-generation built-in nipples are also aluminum hex columns,
but the outer end has an embedded nylon anti-rotation insert,
so it's nearly impossible for anyone to get it wrong.
Thus this backwards nipple is a mistake seen specifically in second-gen.
F...finally reached it...
That moment when center was achieved
felt like fingertips finding the mountain peak.
It was long...
Built.
Drive side is black Champion.
I'm weaving the final cross,
same as with the genuine Hyperon.
Non-drive side is black CX-RAY.
It has slightly more spoke weight asymmetry left-to-right than genuine Hyperon
(drive side is greater, non-drive side about the same).
Since the left flange width is broader than the original Evo hub and the offset is greater,
lateral stiffness should be achieved, but the non-drive side should feel loose—
instead, it's actually more tensioned than the Evo hub with all CX-RAY.
The original had wobbly non-drive side spokes, but
the rebuilt wheel has nearly eliminated that.
Just to clarify: the original state refers to after I did inspection,
true adjustment, and minor tension adjustments.
Even so, the non-drive side stiffness is inferior to a genuine Hyperon
and inferior to a typical 24-hole hub with half-comp two-cross lacing without bracing.
However, among rear wheels with
\"non-drive side CX-RAY radial lacing on a 1-45 rim,\"
this might be the stiffest non-drive side rear wheel in the world.
Hyperon wheels are reverse-rim wheels, both front and rear.
So when viewing the wheel from the right side,
the neighboring rim hole clockwise from the valve hole
connects to a drive-side spoke (a spoke from the near flange, from your viewpoint).
I built the rebuilt rear wheel as a standard-rim wheel.
The rim holes show no intentional offset.
When viewing the wheel from the right side, the neighboring rim hole clockwise from the valve hole
connects to a non-drive-side spoke (a spoke from the far flange, from your viewpoint).
I've drawn the left-right tangential lacing final cross, one pair four spokes,
as seen from the right side when viewing the wheel
(when viewed from one side, but let's say right side).
Standard rim, in other words,
means \"the final cross in front, as seen by you,
is twisted clockwise ahead of the final cross in back.\"
I straighten the arc of the rim's inner circumference and the arc of the hub flange
into parallel straight lines of equal length.
From here, opening the left spoke diagram in reverse of the folding procedure below is
the unfolded diagram of a rim-hub-rim type wheel.
I'll add one more repetition.
In determining the valve hole position,
I can draw a perpendicular line without interfering with spokes
only at this location.
The fact that the right rim's final cross is offset rightward in the diagram
is because it's a standard rim.
A reverse rim appears mirror-image reversed compared to a standard rim
in a wheel's unfolded diagram.
If you want to position the valve hole so it doesn't fall within one pair, four spokes of the final cross,
there's only this one location.
I've added to the reverse-rim diagram,
but what \"hub flanges that force tangential lacing on both sides
for straight-pull spokes\" means is that each flange hole has
directional bias—some holes are for hedgehog-facing spokes,
others are for anti-hedgehog-facing spokes.
So with a hub with forced left-right tangential lacing for standard rims
paired with a rim that has reverse-rim hole offset,
you cannot simultaneously achieve both
\"getting the hole offset correct\" and
\"keeping the valve hole between the final cross four-spoke pair.\"
I mean, such a wheel wouldn't normally exist... except it does (here).
This Hyperon hub has one side (non-drive side)
forced to radial lacing, so it's not left-right tangential.
When I draw radially laced spokes on the wheel's unfolded diagram,
they become perpendicular lines to the horizontal parallel line.
As a tangent, Shimano's Optiberal low-spoke side like zero-cross,
with the hub-side phase squeezed fine and dense,
doesn't have spokes following a true radial line from hub center,
so it's not radial lacing in the strict sense,
and won't be expressed as perpendicular lines to parallel lines in the unfolded diagram either.
So the original was a reverse-rim hub with forced left-right tangential lacing,
but I redrew it as a non-drive-side radial-lacing-forced flange orientation.
↑Like so
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