Today it's wheels again (and so on).
A customer brought in the front wheel from a Rovale C38 for me to work on.
They wanted it rebuilt.
The sticker shifts between orange, pink, and violet depending on the viewing angle.
Rovale and DT 350 double-name hub, 24H.
Built all-black Campagnolo Race zero-four with brass nipples.
This is an elbow-spoke hub design, but the advantage of straight-spokes is that the elbow is less prone to breaking,
while the disadvantage is that you can't change the building method.
Among the wheel repairs we handle at the shop,
most spoke replacements are due to crashes or accidents that bent or broke spokes,
but when it comes to natural metal fatigue failures,
even with elbow-spoke designs,
breakage at the threaded section near the rim
is actually more common than hub-side breaks.
What I'm getting at is that while it's not like it never happens,
elbow-spoke breakage in Sapim or DT spokes is actually
rather a rare case.
So I'm not particularly fond of straight-spoke hubs
because they come with such large constraints
regarding build methods and spoke weight preferences.
If you ask me, the Rovale CLX50 wheel is something where
a fool started playing with 2:1 lacing to look smart,
resulting in performance worse than a normal wheel (excluding the aero hype),
but the C38's rim weight is only slightly lighter than the CLX50 rim, almost about the same
（the lower limit of individual CLX50 rim weight variance is about the same as the average C38 rim weight),
it's like the CLX50's 50mm-high rim weight compressed into a 38mm height,
so while the C38 rim certainly loses out to the CLX50 rim in height-to-weight ratio,
just the single point of being a rim designed for equal-sided lacing
makes it overall superior to the CLX50 rim from a comprehensive standpoint.
By the 20th century, we already knew that equal-sided lacing was a crap wheel,
yet they're still building it with radial lacing on the low-tension side—probably
to make the higher-end models look better. Deliberate obsolescence, in my opinion.
If you could build the C38 as a 12+12H all-Aero Lite zero-four with aluminum nipples,
that is, as a normal wheel with good materials,
it would be a wheel that feels faster than the CLX50,
with the front not drifting in corners and the rear having better grip.
As I mentioned before,
I believe they don't do this on purpose.
Looking at it from the perspective of material meant for rebuilding,
if someone said they'd give me either the C38's front and rear wheels or the CLX50's front and rear wheels for free,
I'd pick the C38.
Rebuilt.
Black half CX Sprint zero-four lacing
with black aluminum nipples.
I'll finish the spoking later,
but even without spoking, this wheel is already faster than a stock CLX50, I reckon.
A customer brought in the front wheel from a Rovale C38 for me to work on.
They wanted it rebuilt.
The sticker shifts between orange, pink, and violet depending on the viewing angle.
Rovale and DT 350 double-name hub, 24H.
Built all-black Campagnolo Race zero-four with brass nipples.
This is an elbow-spoke hub design, but the advantage of straight-spokes is that the elbow is less prone to breaking,
while the disadvantage is that you can't change the building method.
Among the wheel repairs we handle at the shop,
most spoke replacements are due to crashes or accidents that bent or broke spokes,
but when it comes to natural metal fatigue failures,
even with elbow-spoke designs,
breakage at the threaded section near the rim
is actually more common than hub-side breaks.
What I'm getting at is that while it's not like it never happens,
elbow-spoke breakage in Sapim or DT spokes is actually
rather a rare case.
So I'm not particularly fond of straight-spoke hubs
because they come with such large constraints
regarding build methods and spoke weight preferences.
If you ask me, the Rovale CLX50 wheel is something where
a fool started playing with 2:1 lacing to look smart,
resulting in performance worse than a normal wheel (excluding the aero hype),
but the C38's rim weight is only slightly lighter than the CLX50 rim, almost about the same
（the lower limit of individual CLX50 rim weight variance is about the same as the average C38 rim weight),
it's like the CLX50's 50mm-high rim weight compressed into a 38mm height,
so while the C38 rim certainly loses out to the CLX50 rim in height-to-weight ratio,
just the single point of being a rim designed for equal-sided lacing
makes it overall superior to the CLX50 rim from a comprehensive standpoint.
By the 20th century, we already knew that equal-sided lacing was a crap wheel,
yet they're still building it with radial lacing on the low-tension side—probably
to make the higher-end models look better. Deliberate obsolescence, in my opinion.
If you could build the C38 as a 12+12H all-Aero Lite zero-four with aluminum nipples,
that is, as a normal wheel with good materials,
it would be a wheel that feels faster than the CLX50,
with the front not drifting in corners and the rear having better grip.
As I mentioned before,
I believe they don't do this on purpose.
Looking at it from the perspective of material meant for rebuilding,
if someone said they'd give me either the C38's front and rear wheels or the CLX50's front and rear wheels for free,
I'd pick the C38.
Rebuilt.
Black half CX Sprint zero-four lacing
with black aluminum nipples.
I'll finish the spoking later,
but even without spoking, this wheel is already faster than a stock CLX50, I reckon.