Another day, another wheel (and so on).
↑This is the Tni AL22W rim that I'm using for Nomu Lab Wheel No. 8,
and it's one of only 2 defective units I've found
out of dozens I've sourced over time.
The rim has 24 spoke holes,
but this is a defect—or rather, a spec variation—that could only happen with 24H
(the next possibility would be 36H, but
this rim doesn't come in 36H).
Looking at the spoke holes on the outer edge of the rim,
in the image above one hole is offset upward,
and the next hole over is also offset upward,
but the next hole is offset downward.
That's right—this rim is
a "24H rim with spoke hole offsets for 2:1 lacing."
The inner edge spoke holes,
reading from left in the image above,
go "center, center, down"—
which would equate to "right, right, left" if this were a rear wheel.
Looking more closely at the right two holes from the image above,
↑it looks like this
For certain reasons, I've taped the outer edge of the rim
with masking tape.
↑This is a normal AL22W rim, where
the outer edge holes aren't offset—they're all centered—
and the inner edge has alternating left-right offsets.
In the image above, reading from the left it goes up, down, up, down,
and zooming in on the up-down pattern from the left,
it looks like this.
I've already reported the matter of the 2:1 lacing rims being mixed in to the distributor.
AL22W rims do come in offset versions, but
2:1 lacing rims with that profile
don't exist—or rather, can't be made—
so I don't think they can be ordered.
This rim appears to be one where someone
ordered a 2:1 lacing rim (same as the AL22W made by another manufacturer)
either as a rim alone or as part of a complete wheel,
and it got mixed in by mistake.
For the non-offset AL22W rim in 24H for disc brakes,
the distributor's stock was completely bought out (※),
so currently there is no inventory, meaning
if the distributor has alerted the rim maker,
sourcing this in the future will be extremely difficult.
※Why I can say "bought out" with such certainty, I have no idea
As for the 2:1 lacing rim,
I've reported it butit's too interesting so I won't return it.
In fact, I'd like to get more
If I were to build a rear wheel with disc brakes using this rim,
if there's no runout to the non-drive side and I don't do tangent lacing, it would be radial.
Roval has runout; Shimano (with phase offset) and Campagnolo Bora WTO don't.
If I put in runout tangent lacing, even though this rear wheel has spoke dish,
the drive-side spokes would actually be looser—a weird situation.
This wheel I'm building isn't for personal use, but
if it were for me, I only use front brakes even on disc,
so non-drive-side radial lacing on a 2:1 rim is no problem.
I wasn't trying to avoid that anyway, but
this time I'm building a front wheel.
As I'll explain later,
what the rim's hole offsets suggest—or rather, implicitly specify—
isn't X-pattern lacing but Ж-pattern lacing.
With X-pattern lacing, the appearance would look off.
The hub is a Shimano HB-RS470 in 32H.
I don't think it's good practice to do 2:1 lacing with bent-elbow spokes, but
since I'm using reverse-asymmetric sizing on left and right while putting Sapim Strong on the fewer-spoke side,
the risk of spoke breakage at the elbow shouldn't be too high.
Shouldn't bent-elbow spokes at 2.3mm (gauge 13) be less prone to elbow breakage
than straight spokes at 2.0mm (gauge 14)?
What seems more likely is nipple neck breakage.
7700 and later Dura-Ace hubs won't accept gauge 13 spokes.
What doesn't this blog have? The images are from a 9000 hub,
with the lower image showing just before inserting the gauge 13 butted section.
This is a 7800 hub, and
in the lower image you can see the gauge 13 butted section inserted,
and the spoke diameter differs between the inside and outside of the flange.
This is specific to Dura-Ace hubs—not all Shimano hubs reject gauge 13.
Built it.
The rim can't go up here until after 2 PM on the 28th. I'll add more later.
The rotor mount side (left) uses CX Sprint.
Going with CX-Ray would make the asymmetric difference too large,
creating excessive tension, so I avoided it.
No tie-ins. Essentially unnecessary.
The right side uses Strong (2.3–2.0mm single-butted)
in nu-spoke radial lacing.
Since it's not the brake caliper side,
I don't need to worry about spoke interference, and
since the hub is cup-and-cone, any side-to-side play from radial lacing
can be removed with bearing adjustment.
For what it's worth, this front wheel has no play after building.
The bearings are slightly looser,
but that happens with other lacing methods too.
Addendum:
Built it.
I had to keep the fact that the rim was painted
a secret until the Kansai Cyclocross Sakai-hama.
My partner's rear wheel is (here)
Orange aluminum nipples don't exist at DT, so
I'm using Sapim nipples.
Making them 12mm instead of 14mm length
is my small act of resistance.
The left side is CX Sprint, technically 6-spoke lacing,
and the right side is Strong in nu-spoke radial lacing.
For 2:1 lacing rims,
where the valve hole is drilled tells you
what lacing pattern the rim is suggesting.
If both neighbors of the valve hole
are right and left respectively,
and you lace so the valve doesn't cross the 3-spoke bundle of 2:1 lacing,
you get X-pattern lacing.
In the image above, reading clockwise it's I-pattern,
but despite being called X-pattern,
looking only at the valve hole's neighbors
they match the normal offset pattern—this is common.
The valve hole could be one more spoke clockwise without issue,
but if it's two more spokes clockwise,
the valve ends up in the final crossing of tangent lacing, which
doesn't look good.
On this rim, both neighbors of the valve hole
are on the many-spoke side,
so what the rim suggests is
Ж-pattern lacing.
I'm doing 6-spoke lacing for the many-spoke side tangent,
but don't do 4-spoke lacing.
The crossing angle becomes too sharp,
the wheel's character approaches left-right radial,
and the point of asymmetric sizing gets diluted.
The appearance gets close to a certain complete wheel's spoke pattern too, so
"why would you do 4-spoke when you went to the trouble of Ж-pattern,
is your brain made by Roval?" would be justified.
If the tangent lacing angle (the n in n-spoke lacing)
were such a negligible factor for wheel character that
spoke tension alone could fix it,
then free-hub rear wheels and disc-brake front wheels
would work fine as left-right radial, but
from experience, that's definitely not the case.
Whether you think about making the final crossing angle
on the tangent side as obtuse as possible
is the difference between CLX and Bora WTO.
So if this time the rim's hole offsets had suggested
X-pattern lacing for the valve position,
what would I have done?
I would've done Ж-pattern anyway, even if the valve
ended up inside the bundle.
Since Tni—or rather Kinlin's rims—aren't brain-made-by-Roval,
that didn't happen.
↑This is the Tni AL22W rim that I'm using for Nomu Lab Wheel No. 8,
and it's one of only 2 defective units I've found
out of dozens I've sourced over time.
The rim has 24 spoke holes,
but this is a defect—or rather, a spec variation—that could only happen with 24H
(the next possibility would be 36H, but
this rim doesn't come in 36H).
Looking at the spoke holes on the outer edge of the rim,
in the image above one hole is offset upward,
and the next hole over is also offset upward,
but the next hole is offset downward.
That's right—this rim is
a "24H rim with spoke hole offsets for 2:1 lacing."
The inner edge spoke holes,
reading from left in the image above,
go "center, center, down"—
which would equate to "right, right, left" if this were a rear wheel.
Looking more closely at the right two holes from the image above,
↑it looks like this
For certain reasons, I've taped the outer edge of the rim
with masking tape.
↑This is a normal AL22W rim, where
the outer edge holes aren't offset—they're all centered—
and the inner edge has alternating left-right offsets.
In the image above, reading from the left it goes up, down, up, down,
and zooming in on the up-down pattern from the left,
it looks like this.
I've already reported the matter of the 2:1 lacing rims being mixed in to the distributor.
AL22W rims do come in offset versions, but
2:1 lacing rims with that profile
don't exist—or rather, can't be made—
so I don't think they can be ordered.
This rim appears to be one where someone
ordered a 2:1 lacing rim (same as the AL22W made by another manufacturer)
either as a rim alone or as part of a complete wheel,
and it got mixed in by mistake.
For the non-offset AL22W rim in 24H for disc brakes,
the distributor's stock was completely bought out (※),
so currently there is no inventory, meaning
if the distributor has alerted the rim maker,
sourcing this in the future will be extremely difficult.
※Why I can say "bought out" with such certainty, I have no idea
As for the 2:1 lacing rim,
I've reported it but
If I were to build a rear wheel with disc brakes using this rim,
if there's no runout to the non-drive side and I don't do tangent lacing, it would be radial.
Roval has runout; Shimano (with phase offset) and Campagnolo Bora WTO don't.
If I put in runout tangent lacing, even though this rear wheel has spoke dish,
the drive-side spokes would actually be looser—a weird situation.
This wheel I'm building isn't for personal use, but
if it were for me, I only use front brakes even on disc,
so non-drive-side radial lacing on a 2:1 rim is no problem.
I wasn't trying to avoid that anyway, but
this time I'm building a front wheel.
As I'll explain later,
what the rim's hole offsets suggest—or rather, implicitly specify—
isn't X-pattern lacing but Ж-pattern lacing.
With X-pattern lacing, the appearance would look off.
The hub is a Shimano HB-RS470 in 32H.
I don't think it's good practice to do 2:1 lacing with bent-elbow spokes, but
since I'm using reverse-asymmetric sizing on left and right while putting Sapim Strong on the fewer-spoke side,
the risk of spoke breakage at the elbow shouldn't be too high.
Shouldn't bent-elbow spokes at 2.3mm (gauge 13) be less prone to elbow breakage
than straight spokes at 2.0mm (gauge 14)?
What seems more likely is nipple neck breakage.
7700 and later Dura-Ace hubs won't accept gauge 13 spokes.
What doesn't this blog have? The images are from a 9000 hub,
with the lower image showing just before inserting the gauge 13 butted section.
This is a 7800 hub, and
in the lower image you can see the gauge 13 butted section inserted,
and the spoke diameter differs between the inside and outside of the flange.
This is specific to Dura-Ace hubs—not all Shimano hubs reject gauge 13.
Built it.
The rim can't go up here until after 2 PM on the 28th. I'll add more later.
The rotor mount side (left) uses CX Sprint.
Going with CX-Ray would make the asymmetric difference too large,
creating excessive tension, so I avoided it.
No tie-ins. Essentially unnecessary.
The right side uses Strong (2.3–2.0mm single-butted)
in nu-spoke radial lacing.
Since it's not the brake caliper side,
I don't need to worry about spoke interference, and
since the hub is cup-and-cone, any side-to-side play from radial lacing
can be removed with bearing adjustment.
For what it's worth, this front wheel has no play after building.
The bearings are slightly looser,
but that happens with other lacing methods too.
Addendum:
Built it.
I had to keep the fact that the rim was painted
a secret until the Kansai Cyclocross Sakai-hama.
My partner's rear wheel is (here)
Orange aluminum nipples don't exist at DT, so
I'm using Sapim nipples.
Making them 12mm instead of 14mm length
is my small act of resistance.
The left side is CX Sprint, technically 6-spoke lacing,
and the right side is Strong in nu-spoke radial lacing.
For 2:1 lacing rims,
where the valve hole is drilled tells you
what lacing pattern the rim is suggesting.
If both neighbors of the valve hole
are right and left respectively,
and you lace so the valve doesn't cross the 3-spoke bundle of 2:1 lacing,
you get X-pattern lacing.
In the image above, reading clockwise it's I-pattern,
but despite being called X-pattern,
looking only at the valve hole's neighbors
they match the normal offset pattern—this is common.
The valve hole could be one more spoke clockwise without issue,
but if it's two more spokes clockwise,
the valve ends up in the final crossing of tangent lacing, which
doesn't look good.
On this rim, both neighbors of the valve hole
are on the many-spoke side,
so what the rim suggests is
Ж-pattern lacing.
I'm doing 6-spoke lacing for the many-spoke side tangent,
but don't do 4-spoke lacing.
The crossing angle becomes too sharp,
the wheel's character approaches left-right radial,
and the point of asymmetric sizing gets diluted.
The appearance gets close to a certain complete wheel's spoke pattern too, so
"why would you do 4-spoke when you went to the trouble of Ж-pattern,
is your brain made by Roval?" would be justified.
If the tangent lacing angle (the n in n-spoke lacing)
were such a negligible factor for wheel character that
spoke tension alone could fix it,
then free-hub rear wheels and disc-brake front wheels
would work fine as left-right radial, but
from experience, that's definitely not the case.
Whether you think about making the final crossing angle
on the tangent side as obtuse as possible
is the difference between CLX and Bora WTO.
So if this time the rim's hole offsets had suggested
X-pattern lacing for the valve position,
what would I have done?
I would've done Ж-pattern anyway, even if the valve
ended up inside the bundle.
Since Tni—or rather Kinlin's rims—aren't brain-made-by-Roval,
that didn't happen.