Another wheel day today (you know the drill).
A customer dropped off a wheel built with a Bontrager
aluminum rim.
It's built with paired spokes, but
apparently the original hub flange had cracked, so
it got re-laced with a
White Industries T11 front hub.
The hub, naturally, is designed to be laced with
evenly-spaced rim holes, so
there's a phase offset.
In this case, from my perspective the near flange holes are
twisted counterclockwise, and
the far flange holes are twisted clockwise.
Since this is 0-cross lacing, it's still manageable, but
with tangent lacing, spoke length would differ between
the porcupine-forward and porcupine-back directions.
I said 0-cross rather than radial because
the spoke path deviates from true radial lines from the hub center.
It's 20H, so each flange has an even number of spokes, but
normally spokes from opposite rim holes would line up straight
when viewed from the side—but as you can see here, they don't.
You'd get the same result lacing an 18H front rim
on a 36H hub with every other hole skipped.
I'm not concerned about that per se, but
the spokes are too short.
The spokes are DT Champion #14 (2.0mm) plain,
and the nipples are some cheap mystery type
with a pointed tip on the inner end.
Since the spoke threads weren't die-rolled
with a spoke cutter, they weren't cut too short deliberately.
When you're lacing a wheel, there's no way you'd miss
noticing short spokes... and yet.
To begin with, this came in for inspection
along with the rear wheel, and
it had a stretch-band type rim tape, so
if it had been laced with 14mm-length nipples
instead of the 12mm ones in the photo,
the nipple could have buried the spoke threads,
which might explain why I didn't catch the short spoke length.
So I'm re-lacing it with proper-length spokes.
This is a reverse rim.
The center hole in the photo above is the valve hole.
↑Left is valve hole, right is spoke hole
This is a "single-eyelet" rim with eyelets only on the inner edge,
and when using standard nipples, there's enough
ball-joint-like flex to absorb spoke directionality,
so it's actually possible to accidentally lace it as a normal rim.
When it came in, it had been laced as a reverse rim.
Built.
T11 hub, 20H, black CX Sprint outpoke 0-cross with
black aluminum nipples.
The rear wheel—its mate—stayed in stock configuration
with black spokes and black nipples,
so I matched it to that.
A customer dropped off a wheel built with a Bontrager
aluminum rim.
It's built with paired spokes, but
apparently the original hub flange had cracked, so
it got re-laced with a
White Industries T11 front hub.
The hub, naturally, is designed to be laced with
evenly-spaced rim holes, so
there's a phase offset.
In this case, from my perspective the near flange holes are
twisted counterclockwise, and
the far flange holes are twisted clockwise.
Since this is 0-cross lacing, it's still manageable, but
with tangent lacing, spoke length would differ between
the porcupine-forward and porcupine-back directions.
I said 0-cross rather than radial because
the spoke path deviates from true radial lines from the hub center.
It's 20H, so each flange has an even number of spokes, but
normally spokes from opposite rim holes would line up straight
when viewed from the side—but as you can see here, they don't.
You'd get the same result lacing an 18H front rim
on a 36H hub with every other hole skipped.
I'm not concerned about that per se, but
the spokes are too short.
The spokes are DT Champion #14 (2.0mm) plain,
and the nipples are some cheap mystery type
with a pointed tip on the inner end.
Since the spoke threads weren't die-rolled
with a spoke cutter, they weren't cut too short deliberately.
When you're lacing a wheel, there's no way you'd miss
noticing short spokes... and yet.
To begin with, this came in for inspection
along with the rear wheel, and
it had a stretch-band type rim tape, so
if it had been laced with 14mm-length nipples
instead of the 12mm ones in the photo,
the nipple could have buried the spoke threads,
which might explain why I didn't catch the short spoke length.
So I'm re-lacing it with proper-length spokes.
This is a reverse rim.
The center hole in the photo above is the valve hole.
↑Left is valve hole, right is spoke hole
This is a "single-eyelet" rim with eyelets only on the inner edge,
and when using standard nipples, there's enough
ball-joint-like flex to absorb spoke directionality,
so it's actually possible to accidentally lace it as a normal rim.
When it came in, it had been laced as a reverse rim.
Built.
T11 hub, 20H, black CX Sprint outpoke 0-cross with
black aluminum nipples.
The rear wheel—its mate—stayed in stock configuration
with black spokes and black nipples,
so I matched it to that.