A customer brought in a Roval (high-end wheel brand) Alpinist CLXII and
Rapide CLXII, and I inspected the front and rear wheels.
The rims now support tubeless, and
probably because of that the rims became heavier, but
there were some pretty significant downgrades that made that seem trivial.
I only took photos of the Alpinist CLXII rear wheel and
front hub.
The Rapide CLXII had the same
drum-shaped hub body as the previous model and CLX50,
the so-called Roval hub,
but the Alpinist CLXII had become
a common straight-spoke hub with standard
hub flange geometry.
Looking at the final crossing spoke on the freewheel side
on the left side of the image above,
it's not laced (woven). A piece of paper slides right through.
Nowadays, many wheels don't lace the final crossing,
and while this eliminates spoke-to-spoke squeaking,
torsional rigidity definitely decreases.
This is a pretty terrible downgrade.
Photos of the previous model with proper lacing are in the article before this one.
This is the CLX50 rear hub right flange,
and the horizontal positions of the flange holes are offset slightly from each other.
The spoke coming out of the outer hole passes through the inside of
the spoke from the inner hole at the final crossing,
making contact. In other words, it's laced.
The Rapide CLXII rear hub right flange has a similar structure,
but the spoke from the outer hole passes on the outside at the final crossing
and doesn't contact the spoke from the inner hole
in the unloaded state.
In other words, it's not laced.
This is the CLX50 rear hub left flange.
This was photographed after a rebuild,
so the spokes are CX Sprint.
Since there's no horizontal position difference in the hub flange holes,
the final crossing must always make contact.
In that case, the overlap is interpreted as corresponding to the left side of
JIS lacing or reverse Italian lacing, where the spoke in the non-porcupine direction is on the outside,
and Roval's original state was like that too.
But with the Rapide CLXII,
the two flanges at the final crossing spokes
have a horizontal position offset,
so the spokes don't contact (aren't laced) at the final crossing.
Campagnolo's Bora WTO also
doesn't lace the final crossing,
but it has excellent hub dimensions,
asymmetric left-right lacing with tangent lacing only on the lower spoke count side,
spoke trajectory on the freewheel side that's nearly tangent to the hub flange,
and makes the final crossing angle as obtuse as possible
(that's basically G3 lacing),
so the design is fundamentally different from Roval's,
which is why it's never criticized as being sloppy
enough to warrant rebuilding.
The Alpinist CLXII came with a Tarmac frameset
and I removed the front and rear wheels for inspection.
The front wheel thru-axle was tightened abnormally tight,
and even though the front wheel barely showed signs of use,
the bearing was already destroyed.
When spun with no load, the wheel's rotation time was
extremely short, and when I manually turned the hub shaft,
it was sluggish and heavy.
The image above shows the bearing before replacement,
but aside from that, I think it's not good to skimp on
centerlock disc spline.
The pipe that supports the bearing inner race from inside the hub
has an outer diameter nearly flush with the hub body inner diameter, so
there were two protrusions to hold O-rings for preventing movement, but
they shift even when carefully withdrawn.
As for the actual inspection,
the Rapide CLXII had minimal runout but some centering offset,
while the Alpinist CLXII had no centering offset but some runout
(not exactly high-value content, so I didn't even bother taking photos).
Separately,
there's also a rebuild project for the Alpinist CLXII,
and while I can't say for certain yet, the rear wheel rim only
appears to have no lateral hole stagger.
The front wheel has clearly staggered holes on the lower spoke count side and
is 21H anyway, so only 2:1 lacing is possible,
but the rear wheel might be convertible from 16+8H to 12+12H
like a Shimano wheel.
Even if it were possible, that rebuild project has already
confirmed that won't be done.
Rapide CLXII, and I inspected the front and rear wheels.
The rims now support tubeless, and
probably because of that the rims became heavier, but
there were some pretty significant downgrades that made that seem trivial.
I only took photos of the Alpinist CLXII rear wheel and
front hub.
The Rapide CLXII had the same
drum-shaped hub body as the previous model and CLX50,
the so-called Roval hub,
but the Alpinist CLXII had become
a common straight-spoke hub with standard
hub flange geometry.
Looking at the final crossing spoke on the freewheel side
on the left side of the image above,
it's not laced (woven). A piece of paper slides right through.
Nowadays, many wheels don't lace the final crossing,
and while this eliminates spoke-to-spoke squeaking,
torsional rigidity definitely decreases.
This is a pretty terrible downgrade.
Photos of the previous model with proper lacing are in the article before this one.
This is the CLX50 rear hub right flange,
and the horizontal positions of the flange holes are offset slightly from each other.
The spoke coming out of the outer hole passes through the inside of
the spoke from the inner hole at the final crossing,
making contact. In other words, it's laced.
The Rapide CLXII rear hub right flange has a similar structure,
but the spoke from the outer hole passes on the outside at the final crossing
and doesn't contact the spoke from the inner hole
in the unloaded state.
In other words, it's not laced.
This is the CLX50 rear hub left flange.
This was photographed after a rebuild,
so the spokes are CX Sprint.
Since there's no horizontal position difference in the hub flange holes,
the final crossing must always make contact.
In that case, the overlap is interpreted as corresponding to the left side of
JIS lacing or reverse Italian lacing, where the spoke in the non-porcupine direction is on the outside,
and Roval's original state was like that too.
But with the Rapide CLXII,
the two flanges at the final crossing spokes
have a horizontal position offset,
so the spokes don't contact (aren't laced) at the final crossing.
Campagnolo's Bora WTO also
doesn't lace the final crossing,
but it has excellent hub dimensions,
asymmetric left-right lacing with tangent lacing only on the lower spoke count side,
spoke trajectory on the freewheel side that's nearly tangent to the hub flange,
and makes the final crossing angle as obtuse as possible
(that's basically G3 lacing),
so the design is fundamentally different from Roval's,
which is why it's never criticized as being sloppy
enough to warrant rebuilding.
The Alpinist CLXII came with a Tarmac frameset
and I removed the front and rear wheels for inspection.
The front wheel thru-axle was tightened abnormally tight,
and even though the front wheel barely showed signs of use,
the bearing was already destroyed.
When spun with no load, the wheel's rotation time was
extremely short, and when I manually turned the hub shaft,
it was sluggish and heavy.
The image above shows the bearing before replacement,
but aside from that, I think it's not good to skimp on
centerlock disc spline.
The pipe that supports the bearing inner race from inside the hub
has an outer diameter nearly flush with the hub body inner diameter, so
there were two protrusions to hold O-rings for preventing movement, but
they shift even when carefully withdrawn.
As for the actual inspection,
the Rapide CLXII had minimal runout but some centering offset,
while the Alpinist CLXII had no centering offset but some runout
Separately,
there's also a rebuild project for the Alpinist CLXII,
and while I can't say for certain yet, the rear wheel rim only
appears to have no lateral hole stagger.
The front wheel has clearly staggered holes on the lower spoke count side and
is 21H anyway, so only 2:1 lacing is possible,
but the rear wheel might be convertible from 16+8H to 12+12H
like a Shimano wheel.
Even if it were possible, that rebuild project has already
confirmed that won't be done.