A customer brought in the front and rear wheels from a Roval CLX50 Peter Sagan signature model for service.
Let me start with the front wheel.
The hub shell is silver,
and the text on the rim sidewall has a sparkling finish—
it's a special edition model.
The radial runout is terrible, bad enough that there's no way this would pass the manufacturer's QC. The rim is dancing up and down noticeably as it spins, and I've shown this to the customer.
The customer hasn't attempted any truing themselves. Some incompetent hack shop—I don't know where—attempted their version of truing, and because of that, the inspection time for both wheels exceeded what it takes to build a wheel from scratch. On top of that, a wheel that was supposed to ship out today couldn't be shipped (my excuse).
The wheels the customer brought in were removed from their own bike, and based on what I'm seeing, this is a complete bike worth over one million yen, yet it's fitted with wheels that wouldn't even pass the quality standards of a basic utility bike (mamachari).
Many of the nipples show tool marks on the inner edge where wrenches have been applied, and those marked for replacement—nipples that have been severely stripped—I replaced four in total.
I've written about this before: Reynolds wheels use nipples where the inner edge sometimes has oddly rounded corners, and these shouldn't be turned except during initial assembly. But Roval nipples, whether brass or aluminum, can have the inner edge gripped without leaving strip marks, and the wheel can be fully trued. That someone can do this is a kind of talent (the kind of talent that lets you keep a shop running at this skill level and sell complete bikes left and right with smooth talk alone).
Of the four nipples I replaced, three had spokes with permanent deformation—twisting—so I replaced those spokes as well.
After replacing spokes and nipples and chasing down radial and lateral runout, here's the temporary center position.
I checked the temporary center position when the wheels arrived, and in terms of center offset, this point is slightly larger than the initial state.
I brought the center into true from that state.
Fixed.
Setting aside the condition when it was brought in—which was beyond redemption—I'm confident that the precision now is higher than it was at new.
↑Parts that were replaced
The bearing rotation was abnormally stiff, so I replaced it.
Before replacement, it was a ceramic bearing from CeramicSpeed. After replacement, it's a standard steel ball bearing. I had the customer check the condition before and after replacement.
The blue seal is on the side facing into the hub; the side facing outward had a black seal.
Of the four nipples arranged in a cross pattern, the bottom one appears to have minimal damage on the wrench edge,
but they've all deformed enough that the square shape has turned into a diamond.
If you just place a spoke flat, the butted section at the spoke head will be oriented vertically,
but near the threaded end, it's twisted like this.
In both images, I haven't touched the spoke.
I'm just photographing it as it sits.
When I run my finger along the section near the threads on the middle spoke, the surface is complexly dented, so there may be factors beyond just the truing attempt.
Now for the rear wheel.
What is this?
The spokes on the freewheel side are twisted about 90°, and separately there are spokes on the non-freewheel side that are also twisted. When I corrected them using a tool to grip the flat section, the spoke head—crushed flat like sliced oyster mushroom—didn't seem to be seated in the hub flange (which means it had been loosened and retightened), and the moment the spoke head seated in the flange, there was a sharp snap and dust scattered from the flange.
Edit: I thought it was that, but it's more likely that the spoke was twisted so much that the crushed spoke head just slipped out of the rim slot.
↑This is a nipple I replaced later. The tool was only gripping the very end of the nipple.
There was a significant center offset.
The direction of drift is typical of age-related use, but that's barely relevant.
Roval's disc brake rear wheels use a 2:1 spoke ratio with the non-freewheel side in tangential lacing, making the freewheel side looser than usual. This makes it easy to tighten the freewheel side. Yet, oddly, both nipples I replaced were on the freewheel side.
It's like a DIY wooden chair with four legs of unequal length that wobbles, so you cut them all down until the wobble stops, only to find they've become way too short. Someone was tightening the freewheel side back and forth with their truing play, and the radial runout showed it. Not as bad as the front wheel, but there was definitely radial runout, and the center offset was as shown in those images above.
After replacing two nipples and one spoke from a different rim hole, and chasing down radial and lateral runout, here's the temporary center position.
I was mindful not to increase the center offset, which actually decreased slightly, but I've been touching everything everywhere, so an increase would have been understandable.
In fact, the front wheel saw a slight increase in offset at the temporary center position.
As I sometimes note, many of the steps feel like restoring a Rubik's Cube that a monkey scrambled.
I brought the center into true.
Fixed.
Blue tape marks where nipples were replaced,
and white tape marks where spokes were replaced.
I didn't replace the nipples at the location where I replaced the spoke.
The TPU tube in the tire had some twists and creases.
The customer mentioned plans to convert to tubeless in the near future. In fact, the tire has already been switched to a Continental 5000S TR, but if they continue running tubes, this would work. However, I'd advise against using this as a spare tube going forward.
↑Parts that were replaced
The nipple at the bottom of the image
is the one that had the tool applied shallowly.
As for the spoke,
without touching the one sitting flat,
tracing from the spoke head
along to
the thread end shows it's twisted just over 90°.
To cause this kind of permanent deformation, you'd have to twist it about 180° first and then release it. I can't fathom why anyone would do that.
Let me start with the front wheel.
The hub shell is silver,
and the text on the rim sidewall has a sparkling finish—
it's a special edition model.
The radial runout is terrible, bad enough that there's no way this would pass the manufacturer's QC. The rim is dancing up and down noticeably as it spins, and I've shown this to the customer.
The customer hasn't attempted any truing themselves. Some incompetent hack shop—I don't know where—attempted their version of truing, and because of that, the inspection time for both wheels exceeded what it takes to build a wheel from scratch. On top of that, a wheel that was supposed to ship out today couldn't be shipped (my excuse).
The wheels the customer brought in were removed from their own bike, and based on what I'm seeing, this is a complete bike worth over one million yen, yet it's fitted with wheels that wouldn't even pass the quality standards of a basic utility bike (mamachari).
Many of the nipples show tool marks on the inner edge where wrenches have been applied, and those marked for replacement—nipples that have been severely stripped—I replaced four in total.
I've written about this before: Reynolds wheels use nipples where the inner edge sometimes has oddly rounded corners, and these shouldn't be turned except during initial assembly. But Roval nipples, whether brass or aluminum, can have the inner edge gripped without leaving strip marks, and the wheel can be fully trued. That someone can do this is a kind of talent (the kind of talent that lets you keep a shop running at this skill level and sell complete bikes left and right with smooth talk alone).
Of the four nipples I replaced, three had spokes with permanent deformation—twisting—so I replaced those spokes as well.
After replacing spokes and nipples and chasing down radial and lateral runout, here's the temporary center position.
I checked the temporary center position when the wheels arrived, and in terms of center offset, this point is slightly larger than the initial state.
I brought the center into true from that state.
Fixed.
Setting aside the condition when it was brought in—which was beyond redemption—I'm confident that the precision now is higher than it was at new.
↑Parts that were replaced
The bearing rotation was abnormally stiff, so I replaced it.
Before replacement, it was a ceramic bearing from CeramicSpeed. After replacement, it's a standard steel ball bearing. I had the customer check the condition before and after replacement.
The blue seal is on the side facing into the hub; the side facing outward had a black seal.
Of the four nipples arranged in a cross pattern, the bottom one appears to have minimal damage on the wrench edge,
but they've all deformed enough that the square shape has turned into a diamond.
If you just place a spoke flat, the butted section at the spoke head will be oriented vertically,
but near the threaded end, it's twisted like this.
In both images, I haven't touched the spoke.
I'm just photographing it as it sits.
When I run my finger along the section near the threads on the middle spoke, the surface is complexly dented, so there may be factors beyond just the truing attempt.
Now for the rear wheel.
What is this?
The spokes on the freewheel side are twisted about 90°, and separately there are spokes on the non-freewheel side that are also twisted. When I corrected them using a tool to grip the flat section, the spoke head—crushed flat like sliced oyster mushroom—didn't seem to be seated in the hub flange (which means it had been loosened and retightened), and the moment the spoke head seated in the flange, there was a sharp snap and dust scattered from the flange.
Edit: I thought it was that, but it's more likely that the spoke was twisted so much that the crushed spoke head just slipped out of the rim slot.
↑This is a nipple I replaced later. The tool was only gripping the very end of the nipple.
There was a significant center offset.
The direction of drift is typical of age-related use, but that's barely relevant.
Roval's disc brake rear wheels use a 2:1 spoke ratio with the non-freewheel side in tangential lacing, making the freewheel side looser than usual. This makes it easy to tighten the freewheel side. Yet, oddly, both nipples I replaced were on the freewheel side.
It's like a DIY wooden chair with four legs of unequal length that wobbles, so you cut them all down until the wobble stops, only to find they've become way too short. Someone was tightening the freewheel side back and forth with their truing play, and the radial runout showed it. Not as bad as the front wheel, but there was definitely radial runout, and the center offset was as shown in those images above.
After replacing two nipples and one spoke from a different rim hole, and chasing down radial and lateral runout, here's the temporary center position.
I was mindful not to increase the center offset, which actually decreased slightly, but I've been touching everything everywhere, so an increase would have been understandable.
In fact, the front wheel saw a slight increase in offset at the temporary center position.
As I sometimes note, many of the steps feel like restoring a Rubik's Cube that a monkey scrambled.
I brought the center into true.
Fixed.
Blue tape marks where nipples were replaced,
and white tape marks where spokes were replaced.
I didn't replace the nipples at the location where I replaced the spoke.
The TPU tube in the tire had some twists and creases.
The customer mentioned plans to convert to tubeless in the near future. In fact, the tire has already been switched to a Continental 5000S TR, but if they continue running tubes, this would work. However, I'd advise against using this as a spare tube going forward.
↑Parts that were replaced
The nipple at the bottom of the image
is the one that had the tool applied shallowly.
As for the spoke,
without touching the one sitting flat,
tracing from the spoke head
along to
the thread end shows it's twisted just over 90°.
To cause this kind of permanent deformation, you'd have to twist it about 180° first and then release it. I can't fathom why anyone would do that.