A customer dropped off the front wheel of a Racing 3DB.
↑On the right side, the spoke on the fewer-spoke side radial-laced section is bent, so they want it replaced and checked.
On the fewer-spoke side, the spokes pass through the hub shell rather than being hooked, so I needed to pull the hub axle out quite a bit to do the replacement.
Because of that, while the hub rotation was smooth, the grease around the ball bearings had dried out, and I found some corrosion on the ball race side. Fortunately, it hadn't gotten to the point of pitting, and the corrosion wiped off cleanly. The balls had become slightly discolored, but rather than replacing them, I just cleaned and regreased them.
Fixed.
The yellow masking tape on the rim was put there by the customer before bringing it in—it marks the bent spokes and areas with obvious runout.
The photo at the beginning was taken from the side without the tape.
↑There are three spots marked with blue tape on spokes as a record of where I loosened the nipples completely. One was the spoke I replaced, where I also replaced the nipple, and there were two other nipples that were stripped—stripped badly enough to need replacement. I replaced those too.
↑The replaced spoke and nipples
These three don't look that stripped on the gripping faces, but on all of them, one of the two square sides of the gripping face won't grip at all with a tool—they slip. These definitely need replacing.
I found a rough center by avoiding the worst runout section, and it was spot-on, but a lot of the nipples showed signs of amateur adjustment, and since there was also radial runout along with lateral runout, someone made a mess of it trying to true it.
The customer is the second owner of this wheel. They didn't get it from an auction but from a real-life acquaintance, and they've never done any truing work on it since they got it, so all this damage is from the previous owner's tinkering.
This front wheel uses radial spokes on both sides—the fewer-spoke side is 2.0-1.8-2.0mm, and the many-spoke side is 2.0-1.6-2.0mm, making it a left-right reverse-butted configuration.
Campagnolo and Fulcrum use left-right reverse-butted lacing on their disc brake wheels with certain low-profile rims
(the Bora WTO33 doesn't, so that seems to be where the divide is).
This left-right reverse-butted lacing is actually pretty important, but neither Campagnolo nor Fulcrum mention it in their catalogs or anything.
Since they don't mention it, there's no explanation of why they do it.
I looked it up, and Fulcrum's current website doesn't list spoke gauges.
The Zonda DB we sold here recently had left-right reverse-butted lacing only on the rear wheel, but the current website doesn't list spoke gauges there either. The 2019 paper catalog lists them, showing all four wheels (front and rear, both sides) as 2.0-1.6-2.0mm.
This wasn't a spec change they made later—I've confirmed that the rear wheel had left-right reverse-butted lacing from its debut.
The current website says in the spoke description section for the Zonda DB: "Steel spokes with aerodynamic profile," but the Zonda DB doesn't have aero spokes.
They're sloppy at this level.
I didn't take photos, but besides this Racing 3DB, I also did checks on the same customer's wheels: inspections of a ZIPP 303 front and rear wheels and freeebody bearing replacement, and inspections of a Mavic Cosmic Carbon that had clear hub centering issues on both wheels.
Separately from all that, I was asked to fix a rear brake hose on a LOOK 795 Blade RS that had components installed at a certain shop in Osaka City. The work on that hose was pretty sloppy.
This is a digression, but LOOK used to put KG on frames and PP on pedals as model name prefixes
(with some exceptions like the KX series), and on frames, from the first model KG86 all the way to the last one with KG, the KG481SL, the numbers in the model number indicated the material and frame construction (lugged or monocoque, etc.), so you could tell what kind of frame it was just by looking at the number.
But starting with the 585 flagship model after the KG481SL, the numbers lost their manufacturing meaning. Now the hundreds digit indicates the era, and the tens digit shows grade level up or down. It's kind of like, the bigger the number, the newer and higher-grade it is in a vague way.
For example, the 586 is positioned as a lightweight road frame and is not a successor to the KG386 or KG486, which looked like a TT or aero frame.
Tracking the flagship road frame model numbers: 585→595→695.
The 695 has variants like the 695SR (Super Rigid) with different stiffness but same appearance, and the 695ZR (the company's own BB standard, no standard ZED crank but retrofit-ready = ZED READY), which uses a PF86-spec BB. After that they switched to adding letters after the model number—695 Lite, 695 Aero Lite, and so on.
LOOK's flagship frames undergo complete redesigns roughly every three model years, and I wonder if they can pay back the cost of the carbon molds.
Also, every single time they introduce some completely different in-house headset standard.
The current flagship model number went from 695 to 795, but honestly, they're pretty much out of numbers.
The 800s are already used for track bikes like the 875 and 895, and the 900s are used for MTBs like the 986, 989, and 996.
I thought after that they'd have to go with pet names like Huez... but it turns out Huez also got a model number—785 (not a successor to the 585)—so the 700s are pretty much used up too.
The 695 Lite has regular caliper brakes front and rear, and the 695 Aero Lite has a brake built into the fork blade up front and direct-mount behind the BB in back. The 795 Lite and 795 Aero Lite work the same way.
The 795 Lite RS (Aero Lite RS) is a minor update that modified the spec to allow Shimano's electronic junction A to be housed in the top tube and enlarged the headset bearings.
Next came the 795 Blade RS, which finally included a disc brake frame option. But starting in 2024, they changed the frame shape completely and released a new disc-brake-only frame with the same name.
It's confusing.
The fact that they didn't change the model name despite the frame being completely different shape suggests they really have exhausted the 795 number.
Officially it's exactly the same name, but Japanese distributors distinguish between them—the current model as of this writing, debuted in 2024, is called the 795 Blade 2 RS.
End of digression
The frame in question is the first-generation 795 Blade RS.
The disc brake hose comes out of the head tube, runs along the side of the proprietary stem, and is built into the handlebar. The rear brake hose that runs inside the down tube had way too much length, and someone had crammed it forcefully into the frame, giving the hose a permanent crease. They wanted me to look at it.
I removed the cover that's bolted to the top of the down tube. What the heck is this?
But even before that, what really got me was this:
This part, which was held in place by being sandwiched between the cover and frame, came right out of the frame.
This is a part designed to suspend the rear brake hose (and in the case of mechanical shifters, two shift outers) inside the down tube.
If you're not going to thread the hose through this, there's no reason to have a removable cover on the down tube in the first place (※).
How does work like this pass inspection?
※The customer has SRAM eTap, but in the case of Shimano electronic components, junction A with a charging port would go in here, so then it would be necessary.
I replaced the disc hose and bled the brakes.
A method that works without removing the BB or crank came through, so it wasn't too labor-intensive, but since there's bleeding involved, it still took a decent amount of time.
Below the hose suspension part down to the BB, and above the part up to the head tube (just a tiny bit of hose), I installed urethane tubing to prevent rattling.
↑Replaced parts
They covered it up by using zip ties like Shimano does for their electronic cables.
I guess they thought the customer wouldn't notice.
↑On the right side, the spoke on the fewer-spoke side radial-laced section is bent, so they want it replaced and checked.
On the fewer-spoke side, the spokes pass through the hub shell rather than being hooked, so I needed to pull the hub axle out quite a bit to do the replacement.
Because of that, while the hub rotation was smooth, the grease around the ball bearings had dried out, and I found some corrosion on the ball race side. Fortunately, it hadn't gotten to the point of pitting, and the corrosion wiped off cleanly. The balls had become slightly discolored, but rather than replacing them, I just cleaned and regreased them.
Fixed.
The yellow masking tape on the rim was put there by the customer before bringing it in—it marks the bent spokes and areas with obvious runout.
The photo at the beginning was taken from the side without the tape.
↑There are three spots marked with blue tape on spokes as a record of where I loosened the nipples completely. One was the spoke I replaced, where I also replaced the nipple, and there were two other nipples that were stripped—stripped badly enough to need replacement. I replaced those too.
↑The replaced spoke and nipples
These three don't look that stripped on the gripping faces, but on all of them, one of the two square sides of the gripping face won't grip at all with a tool—they slip. These definitely need replacing.
I found a rough center by avoiding the worst runout section, and it was spot-on, but a lot of the nipples showed signs of amateur adjustment, and since there was also radial runout along with lateral runout, someone made a mess of it trying to true it.
The customer is the second owner of this wheel. They didn't get it from an auction but from a real-life acquaintance, and they've never done any truing work on it since they got it, so all this damage is from the previous owner's tinkering.
This front wheel uses radial spokes on both sides—the fewer-spoke side is 2.0-1.8-2.0mm, and the many-spoke side is 2.0-1.6-2.0mm, making it a left-right reverse-butted configuration.
Campagnolo and Fulcrum use left-right reverse-butted lacing on their disc brake wheels with certain low-profile rims
(the Bora WTO33 doesn't, so that seems to be where the divide is).
This left-right reverse-butted lacing is actually pretty important, but neither Campagnolo nor Fulcrum mention it in their catalogs or anything.
Since they don't mention it, there's no explanation of why they do it.
I looked it up, and Fulcrum's current website doesn't list spoke gauges.
The Zonda DB we sold here recently had left-right reverse-butted lacing only on the rear wheel, but the current website doesn't list spoke gauges there either. The 2019 paper catalog lists them, showing all four wheels (front and rear, both sides) as 2.0-1.6-2.0mm.
This wasn't a spec change they made later—I've confirmed that the rear wheel had left-right reverse-butted lacing from its debut.
The current website says in the spoke description section for the Zonda DB: "Steel spokes with aerodynamic profile," but the Zonda DB doesn't have aero spokes.
They're sloppy at this level.
I didn't take photos, but besides this Racing 3DB, I also did checks on the same customer's wheels: inspections of a ZIPP 303 front and rear wheels and freeebody bearing replacement, and inspections of a Mavic Cosmic Carbon that had clear hub centering issues on both wheels.
Separately from all that, I was asked to fix a rear brake hose on a LOOK 795 Blade RS that had components installed at a certain shop in Osaka City. The work on that hose was pretty sloppy.
This is a digression, but LOOK used to put KG on frames and PP on pedals as model name prefixes
(with some exceptions like the KX series), and on frames, from the first model KG86 all the way to the last one with KG, the KG481SL, the numbers in the model number indicated the material and frame construction (lugged or monocoque, etc.), so you could tell what kind of frame it was just by looking at the number.
But starting with the 585 flagship model after the KG481SL, the numbers lost their manufacturing meaning. Now the hundreds digit indicates the era, and the tens digit shows grade level up or down. It's kind of like, the bigger the number, the newer and higher-grade it is in a vague way.
For example, the 586 is positioned as a lightweight road frame and is not a successor to the KG386 or KG486, which looked like a TT or aero frame.
Tracking the flagship road frame model numbers: 585→595→695.
The 695 has variants like the 695SR (Super Rigid) with different stiffness but same appearance, and the 695ZR (the company's own BB standard, no standard ZED crank but retrofit-ready = ZED READY), which uses a PF86-spec BB. After that they switched to adding letters after the model number—695 Lite, 695 Aero Lite, and so on.
LOOK's flagship frames undergo complete redesigns roughly every three model years, and I wonder if they can pay back the cost of the carbon molds.
The current flagship model number went from 695 to 795, but honestly, they're pretty much out of numbers.
The 800s are already used for track bikes like the 875 and 895, and the 900s are used for MTBs like the 986, 989, and 996.
I thought after that they'd have to go with pet names like Huez... but it turns out Huez also got a model number—785 (not a successor to the 585)—so the 700s are pretty much used up too.
The 695 Lite has regular caliper brakes front and rear, and the 695 Aero Lite has a brake built into the fork blade up front and direct-mount behind the BB in back. The 795 Lite and 795 Aero Lite work the same way.
The 795 Lite RS (Aero Lite RS) is a minor update that modified the spec to allow Shimano's electronic junction A to be housed in the top tube and enlarged the headset bearings.
Next came the 795 Blade RS, which finally included a disc brake frame option. But starting in 2024, they changed the frame shape completely and released a new disc-brake-only frame with the same name.
It's confusing.
The fact that they didn't change the model name despite the frame being completely different shape suggests they really have exhausted the 795 number.
Officially it's exactly the same name, but Japanese distributors distinguish between them—the current model as of this writing, debuted in 2024, is called the 795 Blade 2 RS.
End of digression
The frame in question is the first-generation 795 Blade RS.
The disc brake hose comes out of the head tube, runs along the side of the proprietary stem, and is built into the handlebar. The rear brake hose that runs inside the down tube had way too much length, and someone had crammed it forcefully into the frame, giving the hose a permanent crease. They wanted me to look at it.
I removed the cover that's bolted to the top of the down tube. What the heck is this?
But even before that, what really got me was this:
This part, which was held in place by being sandwiched between the cover and frame, came right out of the frame.
This is a part designed to suspend the rear brake hose (and in the case of mechanical shifters, two shift outers) inside the down tube.
If you're not going to thread the hose through this, there's no reason to have a removable cover on the down tube in the first place (※).
How does work like this pass inspection?
※The customer has SRAM eTap, but in the case of Shimano electronic components, junction A with a charging port would go in here, so then it would be necessary.
I replaced the disc hose and bled the brakes.
A method that works without removing the BB or crank came through, so it wasn't too labor-intensive, but since there's bleeding involved, it still took a decent amount of time.
Below the hose suspension part down to the BB, and above the part up to the head tube (just a tiny bit of hose), I installed urethane tubing to prevent rattling.
↑Replaced parts
They covered it up by using zip ties like Shimano does for their electronic cables.
I guess they thought the customer wouldn't notice.