Another day, another wheel build (and so on...).
A customer brought inthe front wheel of a ZIPP 353NSW rim that has a serrated shape on the inner side, which is allegedly very similar to this rim, leading to a lawsuit against Princeton CarbonWorks (ZIPP lost the case) the rear wheel of a 353NSW.
Cognition Disc V2 hub
24H all-black CX-RAY 4-cross (46mm) JIS laced.
The V2 in the hub model name
means German Vergeltungswaffe 2 (Vengeance Weapon 2)...
just kidding—it simply indicates version + number, which is common for ZIPP hubs.
Models like the 188 hub have V versions up to V9, regardless of the original naming rationale based on the nominal weight of 188g.
And most models are actually heavier than 188g.
The spokes are CX-RAY, but
ZIPP sometimes uses Sapim's CX Sprint on more budget-friendly models.
The downside is that it appears to be used only as a weight reduction strategy to make higher-end models look relatively lighter—they haven't adopted the concept of different spoke gauges on different sides of the wheel.
However, since CX Sprint was commercialized after not fitting into a certain manufacturer's custom spoke, we owe ZIPP thanks for that.
The customer wants this wheel rebuilt with a Chris King hub,
but ZIPP's current models come with extremely generous crash replacement warranty for the first owner. While you can't technically own two identical wheels,
the warranty is generous enough that buying a second wheel from scratch would effectively be cheaper—and this warranty will almost certainly
be voided by rebuilding.
We confirmed the customer understood this before proceeding.
I've done similar rebuilds before with an ONYX hub when the customer had a strong preference for that specific hub.
Note: I carefully disassemble and preserve the spokes and nipples so they can be restored to their original state and returned to the customer, but don't read too deeply into that intention.
Not that it matters since I'm going to disassemble it, but
the wheel center was offset.
With the XDR freehub body, it's hard to see in the image above, but
it's offset toward the freewheel side.
Since the rim is hookless,
it's designed for tubeless tire use in principle.
If the rim had been slightly offset toward the non-freewheel side (if it was intentional),
there would be some logic to it, but
the direction and amount of offset don't make sense, so
it's just loose manufacturing standards.
This photo was taken before the opening images.
When removing the tire that came with it,
pressing the valve core didn't let air out easily,
which was annoying, but it turned out
the valve had sealant clogged in it.
I removed the hardened buildup.
The end of the tubeless tape was peeling up,
and sealant had seeped underneath.
Possibly because the hookless bead seat height is quite high,
the tubeless tape was wrapped twice, but
ZIPP seems to share the tape between their hookless rims with 23mm and 25mm internal widths (this one is the latter). The first wrap is offset to one side,
and the second wrap is offset to the opposite edge.
Spoke threads had a thread-locking compound applied—the kind that hardens crisp and is effective against initial loosening.
Even in the image above, you can see it fills what would be the equivalent of a nipple's periodontal pocket, but
I first loosened each nipple 8 turns with a nipple driver, and after that
most nipples could be loosened by hand.
To avoid dropping nipples into the rim, I loosen only four at a time by hand and make sure to recover them.
The nipples themselves have no anti-rotation feature. They have a square drive on the outer side,
but the tool contact is shallow, making them difficult to turn. I initially thought
the square drive on internal-nipple designs only came in 3.2mm, but
this nipple's outer side felt like 3.4mm. However, since the inner drive is definitely 3.2mm,
it's unlikely the outer is different.
I mentioned earlier that this hub is the
Cognition Disc Brake V2 hub—that's the key part, "disc brake" hub.
There was already a separate hub called the Cognition hub, but after the disc brake version came out,
the old rim brake version was retroactively renamed
Cognition Rim Brake hub.
Examples of retronyms in the bicycle world include:
・Curved-spoke hub ← became a term only after straight spokes appeared
・Quill stem (often called "normal stem") ← became a term only after threadless (aheadset) stems appeared.
Ironically, now that quill stems have faded from sports bikes,
the newer aheadset stem is simply called "stem"
and similar examples abound. If you call traditional saddles "long saddles" after short saddles were invented, that counts too.
After the Cognition Rim Brake V1 hub, a new version appeared with slightly different
rear hub left end shape and left flange diameter.
From then on, the original V1 rear hub was called
V1 Gen1, and the new one became V1 Gen2
(Version 1 Generation 2). Wait, that's different from V2.
↑The reason it wasn't called V2 is because
the front hub didn't change.
The rim brake Cognition hubs don't have sawtooth flanges,
but the disc brake Cognition hubs
have had sawtooth flanges from V1 onward.
Also, since coming under SRAM ownership,
ZIPP presents hub designs with XDR freehub bodies front and center.
Their own products come first,
Shimanoand other manufacturers' freebodies second—pretty standard business practice.
One caveat worth noting: ZIPP currently publishes
stated wheel weights with XDR freehub bodies installed,
so they can't be directly compared
to other brands that list weights with Shimano freebodies
(XDR numbers appear lower).
This sawtooth flange design—does it serve a purpose? Yes, it does.
I'll omit names, but there was once a jerk who spouted off about how aluminum spokes have no physical benefit,
that spoke lacing patterns are meaningless, and so on, before eventually skipping town.
That same guy apparently said ZIPP's rim-side dimple work is meaningless too.
I suspect if his own brand had pioneered it, he'd be bragging endlessly.
In my view, those dimples win just by evoking
"the image of a golf ball arcing gracefully through the air."
If the dimple work creates no aerodynamic losses and no major downsides in strength or weight,
then "a rim with dimples that looks fast"
has powerful marketing appeal as a manufacturer's icon—that's what makes it meaningful.
So even if the Cognition disc hub's flange shape has little inherent performance benefit on its own,
pairing it with the serrated inner-edge rim rim creates a design victory—it just looks right.
The design doesn't compromise hub flange strength or make the hub noticeably heavier.
Well, we're ditching that hub anyway.
This serrated rim
requires some technique for true work (radial truing).
I'll explain the details when I cover the front wheel.
Wheel center is dead-on as a bare rim and hub.
With a tubeless tire mounted at 8 bar pressure,
the rim would clearly shift rightward, but
this rim's minimum tire size is 28C,
maximum pressure is 5 bar,
and most riders will run around 3.6 bar, so
this centering works fine.
Built.
Chris King R45D hub, 24H, black/silver two-tone, 3-cross (46mm) JIS laced with
turquoise aluminum nipples.
I'll add spoke tape later.
A customer brought in
Cognition Disc V2 hub
24H all-black CX-RAY 4-cross (46mm) JIS laced.
The V2 in the hub model name
means German Vergeltungswaffe 2 (Vengeance Weapon 2)...
just kidding—it simply indicates version + number, which is common for ZIPP hubs.
Models like the 188 hub have V versions up to V9, regardless of the original naming rationale based on the nominal weight of 188g.
The spokes are CX-RAY, but
ZIPP sometimes uses Sapim's CX Sprint on more budget-friendly models.
The downside is that it appears to be used only as a weight reduction strategy to make higher-end models look relatively lighter—they haven't adopted the concept of different spoke gauges on different sides of the wheel.
However, since CX Sprint was commercialized after not fitting into a certain manufacturer's custom spoke, we owe ZIPP thanks for that.
The customer wants this wheel rebuilt with a Chris King hub,
but ZIPP's current models come with extremely generous crash replacement warranty for the first owner. While you can't technically own two identical wheels,
the warranty is generous enough that buying a second wheel from scratch would effectively be cheaper—and this warranty will almost certainly
be voided by rebuilding.
We confirmed the customer understood this before proceeding.
I've done similar rebuilds before with an ONYX hub when the customer had a strong preference for that specific hub.
Not that it matters since I'm going to disassemble it, but
the wheel center was offset.
With the XDR freehub body, it's hard to see in the image above, but
it's offset toward the freewheel side.
Since the rim is hookless,
it's designed for tubeless tire use in principle.
If the rim had been slightly offset toward the non-freewheel side (if it was intentional),
there would be some logic to it, but
the direction and amount of offset don't make sense, so
it's just loose manufacturing standards.
This photo was taken before the opening images.
When removing the tire that came with it,
pressing the valve core didn't let air out easily,
which was annoying, but it turned out
the valve had sealant clogged in it.
I removed the hardened buildup.
The end of the tubeless tape was peeling up,
and sealant had seeped underneath.
Possibly because the hookless bead seat height is quite high,
the tubeless tape was wrapped twice, but
ZIPP seems to share the tape between their hookless rims with 23mm and 25mm internal widths (this one is the latter). The first wrap is offset to one side,
and the second wrap is offset to the opposite edge.
Spoke threads had a thread-locking compound applied—the kind that hardens crisp and is effective against initial loosening.
Even in the image above, you can see it fills what would be the equivalent of a nipple's periodontal pocket, but
I first loosened each nipple 8 turns with a nipple driver, and after that
most nipples could be loosened by hand.
To avoid dropping nipples into the rim, I loosen only four at a time by hand and make sure to recover them.
The nipples themselves have no anti-rotation feature. They have a square drive on the outer side,
but the tool contact is shallow, making them difficult to turn. I initially thought
the square drive on internal-nipple designs only came in 3.2mm, but
this nipple's outer side felt like 3.4mm. However, since the inner drive is definitely 3.2mm,
it's unlikely the outer is different.
I mentioned earlier that this hub is the
Cognition Disc Brake V2 hub—that's the key part, "disc brake" hub.
There was already a separate hub called the Cognition hub, but after the disc brake version came out,
the old rim brake version was retroactively renamed
Cognition Rim Brake hub.
Examples of retronyms in the bicycle world include:
・Curved-spoke hub ← became a term only after straight spokes appeared
・Quill stem (often called "normal stem") ← became a term only after threadless (aheadset) stems appeared.
Ironically, now that quill stems have faded from sports bikes,
the newer aheadset stem is simply called "stem"
and similar examples abound. If you call traditional saddles "long saddles" after short saddles were invented, that counts too.
After the Cognition Rim Brake V1 hub, a new version appeared with slightly different
rear hub left end shape and left flange diameter.
From then on, the original V1 rear hub was called
V1 Gen1, and the new one became V1 Gen2
(Version 1 Generation 2). Wait, that's different from V2.
↑The reason it wasn't called V2 is because
the front hub didn't change.
The rim brake Cognition hubs don't have sawtooth flanges,
but the disc brake Cognition hubs
have had sawtooth flanges from V1 onward.
Also, since coming under SRAM ownership,
ZIPP presents hub designs with XDR freehub bodies front and center.
Their own products come first,
One caveat worth noting: ZIPP currently publishes
stated wheel weights with XDR freehub bodies installed,
so they can't be directly compared
to other brands that list weights with Shimano freebodies
(XDR numbers appear lower).
This sawtooth flange design—does it serve a purpose? Yes, it does.
I'll omit names, but there was once a jerk who spouted off about how aluminum spokes have no physical benefit,
that spoke lacing patterns are meaningless, and so on, before eventually skipping town.
That same guy apparently said ZIPP's rim-side dimple work is meaningless too.
I suspect if his own brand had pioneered it, he'd be bragging endlessly.
In my view, those dimples win just by evoking
"the image of a golf ball arcing gracefully through the air."
If the dimple work creates no aerodynamic losses and no major downsides in strength or weight,
then "a rim with dimples that looks fast"
has powerful marketing appeal as a manufacturer's icon—that's what makes it meaningful.
So even if the Cognition disc hub's flange shape has little inherent performance benefit on its own,
pairing it with the serrated inner-edge rim rim creates a design victory—it just looks right.
The design doesn't compromise hub flange strength or make the hub noticeably heavier.
This serrated rim
requires some technique for true work (radial truing).
I'll explain the details when I cover the front wheel.
Wheel center is dead-on as a bare rim and hub.
With a tubeless tire mounted at 8 bar pressure,
the rim would clearly shift rightward, but
this rim's minimum tire size is 28C,
maximum pressure is 5 bar,
and most riders will run around 3.6 bar, so
this centering works fine.
Built.
Chris King R45D hub, 24H, black/silver two-tone, 3-cross (46mm) JIS laced with
turquoise aluminum nipples.
I'll add spoke tape later.