Another day working on wheels (and so on).
I received a rear wheel from a customer to work on—a ZIPP 303 Firecrest
tubeless rim for disc brakes.
Compared to the first-gen Bora (non-Ultra) WTO disc,
it doesn't roll well at all, so they want me to rebuild it.
On this rear wheel, the valve stem is positioned
at 12 o'clock, and when viewed from the right side,
the upper-left shows the top half of the ZIPP lettering,
while the lower-right shows the bottom half.
The matching front wheel was set up the same way.
Since this rim isn't an offset rim and has the same number of holes
on both sides, there's a possibility when rebuilding
that I could inadvertently reverse the rim left-to-right
from the original orientation.
ZIPP is pretty casual about this stuff, and there have been cases
where the front and rear wheels of a set don't match up,
and the customer asked me to rebuild one wheel just so the sticker
markings would line up properly (→here).
I've rebuilt it.
In this photo, the valve stem is positioned around 4 o'clock,
and the rim's left-right orientation is the same as the original.
The hub is a ZIPP ZR1 hub, 24H.
The original setup was all-black CX Sprint 4x4 lacing,
and after rebuilding, the freewheel-side spokes stayed the same,
but I went with semi-CX Sprint 4x6 lacing with cross-over on the drive side.
At the customer's request, I used gold aluminum nipples.
I explained to the customer beforehand that rebuilding
would likely void ZIPP's generous first-owner warranty.
ZIPP's ZR1 hubs and Cognition hubs come with end caps for 12mm thru-axles,
but quick-release end caps are also available.
For some reason, though, they also make end caps
to convert the front from 12mm to 15x100mm.
With disc brake conversion and thru-axle standardization
(though there's no such thing as "thru-axle rim brake era"
so these two basically amount to the same thing),
the manufacturers destroy the infrastructure users have invested in
through planned obsolescence to force us to buy new stuff.
The next annoyance they're cooking up, I'd bet, is BOOST spacing on road bikes.
Yeah, that's where all previous framesets and wheels
suddenly won't be compatible with any wheelsets or framesets
from 202X onwards and beyond.
What, mountain bikes already went down this road?
There's a 2-inch-wide rut visible in the path, isn't there?
They'll probably spout some nonsense about wider end spacing
and increased stiffness.
But before that, they should focus on fixing the actual structural stiffness
of the hub body and rim connected by spokes,
which honestly deserves more attention.
If the only frame variable is rear end width,
comparing the original wheel structure with a 148mm end
to the rebuilt wheel structure with a 142mm end,
I can say with certainty that the latter rolls significantly better.
Actually, the original setup was really terrible—
building a worse wheel than that would be harder.
Going back to my point, if the front hub works with a 15mm quick-release end,
then it should be easy enough to make a 15x110mm end too,
so ZIPP wheels should be capable of handling BOOST spacing.
Even if a spec like "road BOOST" at 12x110mm comes along,
there's no problem.
Based on the hub structure and ZIPP's track record so far,
I'd expect wheels using Campagnolo/Fulcrum hubs
or DT or DT-made hubs to continue working
with some kind of compatibility measures in place.
The white spec sticker on this wheel—I thought it might be
from a limited edition that came with the same sticker from the factory,
so I asked the customer. Turns out the shop where they bought the wheel
peeled off the original gray sticker and replaced it with
a separately sold white sticker.
With ZIPP's factory-applied stickers,
even though they're pretty thick,
they're applied right over the dimples,
yet the dimple indentations still show through on top of the sticker.
I've seen a video of ZIPP's factory where a skilled woman
places the bare rim on a broad work table (marked with a cross for reference),
applies the sticker, and then firmly presses it down using a baren-like tool
from relief printing. But applying a sticker cleanly to a finished wheel
rather than a bare rim is incredibly difficult.
Looking at the factory-original ZIPP 303 FIRECREST sticker
near the valve stem position in the earlier photo,
the dimples show through beautifully.
The sticker on this rim shows no dimple texture,
and the sharp edges were peeling up all over the place.
I'm being extremely careful when handling the rim
so it doesn't get any worse.
The parts that are already peeling have lost their adhesion—
even pressing them hard with my thumb just makes them peel right back up.
As for ZIPP rims, they're currently not sold as bare rims;
they only sell complete wheels. Because of warranty issues,
there aren't many cases of disassembly and rebuilds,
so opportunities to know the bare rim weight are extremely limited.
If I were to share that information here,
colleagues who haven't actually disassembled wheels
would probably be saying tomorrow "the 303 Firecrest rim weighs ○○○g,"
and I've actually seen this happen with the CLX 50 rim specs.
So I'm not inclined to share that data.
↑ugh, what, this guy's being all cagey about it, bad vibes
Apologies for the wait! Please take a look at this image!
Please take a look at this image!
↑ stop it stop it stop it!
I received a rear wheel from a customer to work on—a ZIPP 303 Firecrest
tubeless rim for disc brakes.
Compared to the first-gen Bora (non-Ultra) WTO disc,
it doesn't roll well at all, so they want me to rebuild it.
On this rear wheel, the valve stem is positioned
at 12 o'clock, and when viewed from the right side,
the upper-left shows the top half of the ZIPP lettering,
while the lower-right shows the bottom half.
The matching front wheel was set up the same way.
Since this rim isn't an offset rim and has the same number of holes
on both sides, there's a possibility when rebuilding
that I could inadvertently reverse the rim left-to-right
from the original orientation.
ZIPP is pretty casual about this stuff, and there have been cases
where the front and rear wheels of a set don't match up,
and the customer asked me to rebuild one wheel just so the sticker
markings would line up properly (→here).
I've rebuilt it.
In this photo, the valve stem is positioned around 4 o'clock,
and the rim's left-right orientation is the same as the original.
The hub is a ZIPP ZR1 hub, 24H.
The original setup was all-black CX Sprint 4x4 lacing,
and after rebuilding, the freewheel-side spokes stayed the same,
but I went with semi-CX Sprint 4x6 lacing with cross-over on the drive side.
At the customer's request, I used gold aluminum nipples.
I explained to the customer beforehand that rebuilding
would likely void ZIPP's generous first-owner warranty.
ZIPP's ZR1 hubs and Cognition hubs come with end caps for 12mm thru-axles,
but quick-release end caps are also available.
For some reason, though, they also make end caps
to convert the front from 12mm to 15x100mm.
With disc brake conversion and thru-axle standardization
(though there's no such thing as "thru-axle rim brake era"
so these two basically amount to the same thing),
the manufacturers destroy the infrastructure users have invested in
through planned obsolescence to force us to buy new stuff.
The next annoyance they're cooking up, I'd bet, is BOOST spacing on road bikes.
Yeah, that's where all previous framesets and wheels
suddenly won't be compatible with any wheelsets or framesets
from 202X onwards and beyond.
What, mountain bikes already went down this road?
There's a 2-inch-wide rut visible in the path, isn't there?
They'll probably spout some nonsense about wider end spacing
and increased stiffness.
But before that, they should focus on fixing the actual structural stiffness
of the hub body and rim connected by spokes,
which honestly deserves more attention.
If the only frame variable is rear end width,
comparing the original wheel structure with a 148mm end
to the rebuilt wheel structure with a 142mm end,
I can say with certainty that the latter rolls significantly better.
Actually, the original setup was really terrible—
building a worse wheel than that would be harder.
Going back to my point, if the front hub works with a 15mm quick-release end,
then it should be easy enough to make a 15x110mm end too,
so ZIPP wheels should be capable of handling BOOST spacing.
Even if a spec like "road BOOST" at 12x110mm comes along,
there's no problem.
Based on the hub structure and ZIPP's track record so far,
I'd expect wheels using Campagnolo/Fulcrum hubs
or DT or DT-made hubs to continue working
with some kind of compatibility measures in place.
The white spec sticker on this wheel—I thought it might be
from a limited edition that came with the same sticker from the factory,
so I asked the customer. Turns out the shop where they bought the wheel
peeled off the original gray sticker and replaced it with
a separately sold white sticker.
With ZIPP's factory-applied stickers,
even though they're pretty thick,
they're applied right over the dimples,
yet the dimple indentations still show through on top of the sticker.
I've seen a video of ZIPP's factory where a skilled woman
places the bare rim on a broad work table (marked with a cross for reference),
applies the sticker, and then firmly presses it down using a baren-like tool
from relief printing. But applying a sticker cleanly to a finished wheel
rather than a bare rim is incredibly difficult.
Looking at the factory-original ZIPP 303 FIRECREST sticker
near the valve stem position in the earlier photo,
the dimples show through beautifully.
The sticker on this rim shows no dimple texture,
and the sharp edges were peeling up all over the place.
I'm being extremely careful when handling the rim
so it doesn't get any worse.
The parts that are already peeling have lost their adhesion—
even pressing them hard with my thumb just makes them peel right back up.
As for ZIPP rims, they're currently not sold as bare rims;
they only sell complete wheels. Because of warranty issues,
there aren't many cases of disassembly and rebuilds,
so opportunities to know the bare rim weight are extremely limited.
If I were to share that information here,
colleagues who haven't actually disassembled wheels
would probably be saying tomorrow "the 303 Firecrest rim weighs ○○○g,"
and I've actually seen this happen with the CLX 50 rim specs.
So I'm not inclined to share that data.
↑ugh, what, this guy's being all cagey about it, bad vibes
Apologies for the wait! Please take a look at this image!
Please take a look at this image!
↑ stop it stop it stop it!