A customer brought in a Ksyrium Pro UST for servicing.
They wanted an inspection and some minor adjustments on the rear wheel.
Let me start with the front wheel.
The hub bearing had lateral play.
This model uses a cone adjustment nut rather than a quick-fix end cap,
so I removed the play, but the bearings themselves weren't damaged
even though it looked like they'd been used this way for quite some time.
The customer wasn't the original owner of this wheel—
they brought it in for adjustment and tire replacement,
and this is the first time I've worked on it.
Mavic road UST tubeless rims come with a red label instructing you to apply
Mavic's beetle-colored tubeless tape (→here),
but when I look at the tape already applied to complete wheels,
in most cases the tape is peeling away and sealant has seeped in
at the double-layer sections from the valve hole to the end of the tape.
When I remove the tape, it leaves adhesive residue on the rim that's impossible to clean off,
which is pretty frustrating. However, this Ksyrium rim has no holes on the outer edge besides the valve hole,
so no tape is needed. The sealant moisture just made the seal a bit soggy,
which actually made cleanup after removing the tire much easier.
The dried sealant had concentrated in one area of the tire,
which must have been the lowest point during the long period
the wheel sat unused.
The rim was slightly off-center toward the right.
↑About this much
Since spoke tension wasn't loose, I was able to true it and center it
just by tightening slightly and correcting runout.
Once it was perfectly centered, I showed the customer, so I didn't take photos
of the final result.
Now for the rear wheel.
Even with aluminum spokes, Ksyrium disc brake rear wheels have 24 holes,
not 20. The essence of Isopulse isn't just the radial spoking on the drive side—
it's also that the spoke path on the non-drive tangential side runs tangent to the hub flange.
G3 spoking is often seen as three roughly parallel spokes forming one pair
(which is fine as justification for chasing vertical runout),
but wheelbuilding-wise, on the drive side the two spokes forming the final cross are the pair,
and both follow a roughly tangential path.
On a typical 20-hole rim-brake front hub with small flanges,
4-cross spoking makes the spoke pattern on one flange side
nearly pentagram-shaped. The non-drive side spokes on a 20-hole Ksyrium rear wheel
also form nearly a pentagram. This means when you look at two spokes from the same flange,
their combined path is nearly straight. But when you go to 24 holes,
the two spokes from a flange that formed a straight line (180°) at 20 holes
now form an acute angle less than 180°. To get that back to 180°,
you'd need to increase the left flange diameter, but Mavic doesn't do that
presumably to keep hub weight down. You might think that would create reverse high-low flanges,
but the Ksyrium actually already has reverse high-low flanges on the rim-brake rear wheel.
That's because Isopulse's drive side is radial, and radial spoking keeps
spoke path pretty consistent regardless of flange diameter
(the path is unchanged when viewed from the side).
So why does Racing Zero's reverse non-drive side, which is also radial,
have such extreme high-low flanges—is that pointless?
No, that's different too. On Ksyrium, the radial side is the drive side,
which structurally has a freebody, so there's almost no freedom
to adjust flange width. On Racing Zero, the radial side is the non-drive side,
and the flange width is extremely wide. Plus they use a small flange
to bring the spoke angle (viewed front-to-back) closer to the drive side.
Spoke angle from front-to-back becomes obtuse with wider left flange width
and acute with smaller flange, but flange width takes priority,
so to get wide flange width while keeping angles as acute as possible,
you end up with high-low flanges. Don't misunderstand this—if you want acute spoke angles
on the non-drive side when viewed front-to-back, you shouldn't narrow the left flange
and ignore lateral stiffness collapse, prioritizing reduced spoke tension difference
as the main factor. Especially with equal-diameter flanges and narrow left flange width—
Gokiso clearly denies 2:1 spoking in their catalog and seems concerned about spoke tension difference,
yet their rim-brake complete wheels use equal-number spoking with non-drive radial spoking,
which is about the worst you can do for spoke tension difference. Wow,
wheels really are complicated. By the way, I've never once had a customer complain
that a Gokiso complete wheel performed worse after I rebuilt it.
Oh, I got way too long-winded there.
The rear tire also had sealant concentrated and dried in one spot.
It's caked on like caulk and isn't impossible to remove, but it's very difficult.
Since this tire won't be reused anyway, it doesn't matter,
but that much dried sealant probably affects wheel balance.
The temporary centering was perfect.
I wish it had been off to the left like usual,
that would've made life easier.
The non-drive side spokes fit fully into the C groove of Park Tool's
spoke wrench (they have A through D grooves),
but the drive side spokes don't fit in the groove.
Left-right unequal diameter spoking.
I offset it 12mm to match the Cannondale AI.
That's why the customer brought it to us.
When they asked at Wise Road, they were told
"Adjustment takes huge labor costs and time (cost unclear)
you'd be better off buying a new wheel,"
but do they even sell AI-compatible rear wheels as singles?
Cannondale might have them, but anyway, the subtext seems to be
that if customers buy new wheels from Wise Road,
they'll adjust them for AI use without complaint.
You'd have to be pretty casually indifferent to say something like that—
maybe it's a prerequisite for working at Wise Road.
By the way, here we did center-offset adjustment plus new tubeless tire installation
and mounting to the customer's frame with rotor rub adjustment if needed,
all for ¥4,000 (¥3,000 for work on the truing stand + ¥1,000 for tire installation).
Time-wise, just the wheel adjustment took less than 20 minutes.
The newly installed tire had poor bead seating, so that part took considerable time.
They wanted an inspection and some minor adjustments on the rear wheel.
Let me start with the front wheel.
The hub bearing had lateral play.
This model uses a cone adjustment nut rather than a quick-fix end cap,
so I removed the play, but the bearings themselves weren't damaged
even though it looked like they'd been used this way for quite some time.
The customer wasn't the original owner of this wheel—
they brought it in for adjustment and tire replacement,
and this is the first time I've worked on it.
Mavic road UST tubeless rims come with a red label instructing you to apply
Mavic's beetle-colored tubeless tape (→here),
but when I look at the tape already applied to complete wheels,
in most cases the tape is peeling away and sealant has seeped in
at the double-layer sections from the valve hole to the end of the tape.
When I remove the tape, it leaves adhesive residue on the rim that's impossible to clean off,
which is pretty frustrating. However, this Ksyrium rim has no holes on the outer edge besides the valve hole,
so no tape is needed. The sealant moisture just made the seal a bit soggy,
which actually made cleanup after removing the tire much easier.
The dried sealant had concentrated in one area of the tire,
which must have been the lowest point during the long period
the wheel sat unused.
The rim was slightly off-center toward the right.
↑About this much
Since spoke tension wasn't loose, I was able to true it and center it
just by tightening slightly and correcting runout.
Once it was perfectly centered, I showed the customer, so I didn't take photos
of the final result.
Now for the rear wheel.
Even with aluminum spokes, Ksyrium disc brake rear wheels have 24 holes,
not 20. The essence of Isopulse isn't just the radial spoking on the drive side—
it's also that the spoke path on the non-drive tangential side runs tangent to the hub flange.
G3 spoking is often seen as three roughly parallel spokes forming one pair
(which is fine as justification for chasing vertical runout),
but wheelbuilding-wise, on the drive side the two spokes forming the final cross are the pair,
and both follow a roughly tangential path.
On a typical 20-hole rim-brake front hub with small flanges,
4-cross spoking makes the spoke pattern on one flange side
nearly pentagram-shaped. The non-drive side spokes on a 20-hole Ksyrium rear wheel
also form nearly a pentagram. This means when you look at two spokes from the same flange,
their combined path is nearly straight. But when you go to 24 holes,
the two spokes from a flange that formed a straight line (180°) at 20 holes
now form an acute angle less than 180°. To get that back to 180°,
you'd need to increase the left flange diameter, but Mavic doesn't do that
presumably to keep hub weight down. You might think that would create reverse high-low flanges,
but the Ksyrium actually already has reverse high-low flanges on the rim-brake rear wheel.
That's because Isopulse's drive side is radial, and radial spoking keeps
spoke path pretty consistent regardless of flange diameter
(the path is unchanged when viewed from the side).
So why does Racing Zero's reverse non-drive side, which is also radial,
have such extreme high-low flanges—is that pointless?
No, that's different too. On Ksyrium, the radial side is the drive side,
which structurally has a freebody, so there's almost no freedom
to adjust flange width. On Racing Zero, the radial side is the non-drive side,
and the flange width is extremely wide. Plus they use a small flange
to bring the spoke angle (viewed front-to-back) closer to the drive side.
Spoke angle from front-to-back becomes obtuse with wider left flange width
and acute with smaller flange, but flange width takes priority,
so to get wide flange width while keeping angles as acute as possible,
you end up with high-low flanges. Don't misunderstand this—if you want acute spoke angles
on the non-drive side when viewed front-to-back, you shouldn't narrow the left flange
and ignore lateral stiffness collapse, prioritizing reduced spoke tension difference
as the main factor. Especially with equal-diameter flanges and narrow left flange width—
Gokiso clearly denies 2:1 spoking in their catalog and seems concerned about spoke tension difference,
yet their rim-brake complete wheels use equal-number spoking with non-drive radial spoking,
which is about the worst you can do for spoke tension difference. Wow,
wheels really are complicated. By the way, I've never once had a customer complain
that a Gokiso complete wheel performed worse after I rebuilt it.
Oh, I got way too long-winded there.
The rear tire also had sealant concentrated and dried in one spot.
It's caked on like caulk and isn't impossible to remove, but it's very difficult.
Since this tire won't be reused anyway, it doesn't matter,
but that much dried sealant probably affects wheel balance.
The temporary centering was perfect.
I wish it had been off to the left like usual,
that would've made life easier.
The non-drive side spokes fit fully into the C groove of Park Tool's
spoke wrench (they have A through D grooves),
but the drive side spokes don't fit in the groove.
Left-right unequal diameter spoking.
I offset it 12mm to match the Cannondale AI.
That's why the customer brought it to us.
When they asked at Wise Road, they were told
"Adjustment takes huge labor costs and time (cost unclear)
you'd be better off buying a new wheel,"
but do they even sell AI-compatible rear wheels as singles?
Cannondale might have them, but anyway, the subtext seems to be
that if customers buy new wheels from Wise Road,
they'll adjust them for AI use without complaint.
You'd have to be pretty casually indifferent to say something like that—
maybe it's a prerequisite for working at Wise Road.
By the way, here we did center-offset adjustment plus new tubeless tire installation
and mounting to the customer's frame with rotor rub adjustment if needed,
all for ¥4,000 (¥3,000 for work on the truing stand + ¥1,000 for tire installation).
Time-wise, just the wheel adjustment took less than 20 minutes.
The newly installed tire had poor bead seating, so that part took considerable time.