A customer brought in the front wheel of a Racing Zero for me to work on.
Apparently they picked this up at an auction recently
(and based on the condition I'd see later,
they haven't actually used it since getting it),
but the hub has that gritty feeling that makes you want to grease it up,
so when they tried to loosen the left end,
the new axle had become a disaster waiting to happen,
and they asked if I could do something about it.
Even when I held the right side with the dedicated 14mm wrench,
the left end wouldn't loosen at all,
so things got rough.
I drilled off the flange portion of the hollow end bolt.
The set screw-like remnant left on the hub axle
has lost its thread-locking force, so
it can be easily unscrewed and removed. I've never had this not turn freely before,
but even if it had been seized,
from this point I can replace the entire hub axle,
and I have stock of those as well.
I replaced the left end with a new one. I applied threadlocker to the right end's threads
and grease to the left end's threads,
so when turning with a 5mm Allen key on both sides,
the left end loosens first. After that, I inspected it, but
the wheel center was seriously out of true. There was also significant radial runout — I can't imagine this was ever used in this condition. Additionally, though I didn't get a photo, there were seized nipples,
and I replaced one spoke.
This is just speculation, but I think before putting it up for auction,
the previous owner (an amateur) tried their hand at truing
and completely messed it up. As a "job," no shop would return this to a customer like this.
...Right? There's no way?
As a side note, this wheel's current owner
also sells wheels on auction sometimes,
and while they don't explicitly state it in the listing,
they have our shop inspect it before putting it up for auction. I've even told them once,
"You don't really need to go that far,"
but because they want the next person to enjoy using it,
they don't just do the work—
they even bear the cost of replacing bad parts
to deliver it in the best possible resale condition.
Next, the same customer brought in
the rear wheel of a first-generation Racing Zero. This was also obtained at auction, but
with the first wheel and all,
if the previous owner sees this post,
they might recognize it as the wheel they let go of.
A spoke on the freewheel side
is broken around the final crossing. These red-tie spokes—
the manufacturer no longer has stock. Our shop doesn't have tons, but we do have inventory.
Actually, before this wheel was won at auction,
the customer called me
asking about spare spoke inventory. If there was a chance to fix it, they'd buy it. There's clearly one spoke that needs replacing,
but if maybe a few of its neighbors had deformation
that meant they also needed replacing,
I could handle it—I said so confidently
so they went ahead with the bid. As it turned out, only the broken spoke needed replacing.
It's fixed.
↑The spoke I replaced It has deformation in the neck near the hub flange,
so something must have gotten caught in it.
The rear wheel of the first customer's pair and the front wheel of the second customer's pair
were also brought in for inspection (※),
and since I wanted to write about Fulcrum's 2:1 lacing pattern,
I took the chance to snap some photos.
※The work order was: first customer's front wheel end replacement and inspection,
second customer's rear wheel spoke replacement and inspection,
second customer's front wheel inspection,
but because the initial truing-mess correction
took forever,
the customer ran out of time,
and I couldn't inspect the first customer's rear wheel.
Regarding Fulcrum's 2:1 lacing,
when viewed from the side,
the non-drive-side radial-laced spokes
pass through the final crossing of the drive-side tangent-laced spokes
in a Ж (zhe) pattern. The 2:1 pattern should have a more obtuse final crossing angle,
but whereas the "right-left-right" of the Ж pattern is one unit,
the "right-right-left" becomes one unit in the
XI (xi) pattern,
which makes the final crossing angle sharper (closer to radial). On top of that, some brands like Lovall
got nervous about disc brake forces
and made the non-drive side tangent-laced too,
creating the rare situation where
the drive-side spokes are looser.
Now, this Racing Zero rear wheel
appears to be XI-laced at first glance,
but because the rim has rest-phase offset holes,
it's different from XI lacing on evenly-spaced holes. From a normal 28-hole rear wheel
with left-right-left-right-left-right... spacing,
half of the non-drive-side spokes are skipped
to create left-right-rest-right-left-right-rest-right... patterning
with rest-phase offset. Whether you skip them to look like Ж lacing
or to look like XI lacing,
the final crossing angle on the drive side doesn't change.
In fact, comparing the final crossing angles
of the two rear wheels today,
there's no major difference.
In the past, I had a wheel from some crappy fly-by-night brand
(they disappeared—reason unknown)
with a symmetrical 40-hole 2:1 rear wheel
that was frame-rubbing (not brake-rubbing, frame-rubbing),
which I re-laced as an asymmetric 60-hole pattern
and solved (→here),
and the principle that 2:1 lacing should have a more obtuse final crossing angle
means that in hand-built wheels,
60-hole lacing is better than 40-hole lacing.
Apparently they picked this up at an auction recently
(and based on the condition I'd see later,
they haven't actually used it since getting it),
but the hub has that gritty feeling that makes you want to grease it up,
so when they tried to loosen the left end,
the new axle had become a disaster waiting to happen,
and they asked if I could do something about it.
Even when I held the right side with the dedicated 14mm wrench,
the left end wouldn't loosen at all,
so things got rough.
I drilled off the flange portion of the hollow end bolt.
The set screw-like remnant left on the hub axle
has lost its thread-locking force, so
it can be easily unscrewed and removed. I've never had this not turn freely before,
but even if it had been seized,
from this point I can replace the entire hub axle,
and I have stock of those as well.
I replaced the left end with a new one. I applied threadlocker to the right end's threads
and grease to the left end's threads,
so when turning with a 5mm Allen key on both sides,
the left end loosens first. After that, I inspected it, but
the wheel center was seriously out of true. There was also significant radial runout — I can't imagine this was ever used in this condition. Additionally, though I didn't get a photo, there were seized nipples,
and I replaced one spoke.
This is just speculation, but I think before putting it up for auction,
the previous owner (an amateur) tried their hand at truing
and completely messed it up. As a "job," no shop would return this to a customer like this.
...Right? There's no way?
As a side note, this wheel's current owner
also sells wheels on auction sometimes,
and while they don't explicitly state it in the listing,
they have our shop inspect it before putting it up for auction. I've even told them once,
"You don't really need to go that far,"
but because they want the next person to enjoy using it,
they don't just do the work—
they even bear the cost of replacing bad parts
to deliver it in the best possible resale condition.
Next, the same customer brought in
the rear wheel of a first-generation Racing Zero. This was also obtained at auction, but
with the first wheel and all,
if the previous owner sees this post,
they might recognize it as the wheel they let go of.
A spoke on the freewheel side
is broken around the final crossing. These red-tie spokes—
the manufacturer no longer has stock. Our shop doesn't have tons, but we do have inventory.
Actually, before this wheel was won at auction,
the customer called me
asking about spare spoke inventory. If there was a chance to fix it, they'd buy it. There's clearly one spoke that needs replacing,
but if maybe a few of its neighbors had deformation
that meant they also needed replacing,
I could handle it—I said so confidently
so they went ahead with the bid. As it turned out, only the broken spoke needed replacing.
It's fixed.
↑The spoke I replaced It has deformation in the neck near the hub flange,
so something must have gotten caught in it.
The rear wheel of the first customer's pair and the front wheel of the second customer's pair
were also brought in for inspection (※),
and since I wanted to write about Fulcrum's 2:1 lacing pattern,
I took the chance to snap some photos.
※The work order was: first customer's front wheel end replacement and inspection,
second customer's rear wheel spoke replacement and inspection,
second customer's front wheel inspection,
but because the initial truing-mess correction
took forever,
the customer ran out of time,
and I couldn't inspect the first customer's rear wheel.
Regarding Fulcrum's 2:1 lacing,
when viewed from the side,
the non-drive-side radial-laced spokes
pass through the final crossing of the drive-side tangent-laced spokes
in a Ж (zhe) pattern. The 2:1 pattern should have a more obtuse final crossing angle,
but whereas the "right-left-right" of the Ж pattern is one unit,
the "right-right-left" becomes one unit in the
XI (xi) pattern,
which makes the final crossing angle sharper (closer to radial). On top of that, some brands like Lovall
got nervous about disc brake forces
and made the non-drive side tangent-laced too,
creating the rare situation where
the drive-side spokes are looser.
Now, this Racing Zero rear wheel
appears to be XI-laced at first glance,
but because the rim has rest-phase offset holes,
it's different from XI lacing on evenly-spaced holes. From a normal 28-hole rear wheel
with left-right-left-right-left-right... spacing,
half of the non-drive-side spokes are skipped
to create left-right-rest-right-left-right-rest-right... patterning
with rest-phase offset. Whether you skip them to look like Ж lacing
or to look like XI lacing,
the final crossing angle on the drive side doesn't change.
In fact, comparing the final crossing angles
of the two rear wheels today,
there's no major difference.
In the past, I had a wheel from some crappy fly-by-night brand
(they disappeared—reason unknown)
with a symmetrical 40-hole 2:1 rear wheel
that was frame-rubbing (not brake-rubbing, frame-rubbing),
which I re-laced as an asymmetric 60-hole pattern
and solved (→here),
and the principle that 2:1 lacing should have a more obtuse final crossing angle
means that in hand-built wheels,
60-hole lacing is better than 40-hole lacing.