A customer left the front wheel of a Bora One 35 with me.
It's a tubular rim setup, but it's only been used for one season
and it's not the narrow rim version with internal nipples.
Without even putting it on a truing stand, you could see
some pretty obvious lateral wobble,
so when they took it to Wise Road,
they were told that
"the spokes are twisted so we can't fix it,
and if we had to replace them it would take a really long time."
Even if we gave them spare spokes and plenty of time
I don't think they could fix it properly, but anyway
I asked the customer if spokes could really twist on their own,
and whether someone must have worked on it before bringing it to Wise Road.
They didn't tell me which location, but
they'd taken it to Cycle Base Asahi for a truing job.
And they did some seriously messed-up work there.
I don't think all the staff at Cycle Base Asahi are technically incompetent.
Just like you'd need to see every crow to claim "all crows are black,"
I don't know about the skill level of every staff member at every location,
so the most I can honestly say is
"probably as incompetent as the ratio of black crows to all crows."
↑The butted section of the spoke looks oddly thin
because the flattened section of the aero spoke is facing sideways.
↑I put tape on each spoke to highlight the plane of the flattened section.
I did the same marking at another location.
When I did this, I found 3 spokes where the tape direction changed
along a single spoke
(= they were twisted).
Separately from those, there were 2 spokes that weren't twisted
but had their flattened section oriented incorrectly,
so I marked those with just one piece of tape.
↑The spokes on this Bora
are the same length on the front and rear left (tangent side),
and are interchangeable, but
the rear right tangentially-laced spokes have
no modification below the head, while
the front and rear left radially-laced spokes
have a twist-stop dimple indent (shown in the image above).
According to the customer, the Asahi staff member
due to their incompetence claimed something like
"there's a nipple that just keeps spinning forever"
↑Sure enough, there was actually a spot where a spoke had rotated about 90 degrees.
The nipples on this wheel have a nylon locking insert
embedded in the outer edge face,
and if you don't hold the spoke firmly with the genuine tool
or a proper equivalent tool,
the spoke will twist or the spoke head will rotate at the hub
before the nipple threads engage.
If someone twisted the spoke past where this dimple
is supposed to provide resistance, or
if this dimple is doing its job,
then the spoke gets twisted—but
it seems unlikely they'reso stupid they don't realize
they did this during their work,
so the only explanation is they messed it up on purpose
and knew it, yet still charged the customer for it.
I often say that
"truing and wheel building are
fundamentally the same task—taking things to 100% of the builder's standards—
so anyone who can't build wheels can't true them either."
With a Bora, if someone can't get it to meet manufacturer
shipping standards when given the parts completely disassembled,
then they obviously can't do proper truing work
(including centering).
Conversely, would any new Bora ever leave the factory
with spokes this twisted?
Argh, I hate having to deal with the aftermath of this kind of incompetence.
Those people should drop dead for doing this.
Oh, I did ask the customer beforehand just to be sure
they hadn't worked on it themselves.
We have plenty of spare spokes in stock.
Of the 5 spokes I marked with tape,
3 are twisted, and since we have more spokes than that in stock,
we can definitely fix it, but...
These twisted spokes,
straightened right out cleanly with two spoke holders.
There's no sign of plastic deformation (permanent bending).
As a result, all 5 spokes—the 3 with corrected twists
and the 2 with corrected orientation—turned out to be fine without replacement.
↑This is a discarded spoke from our shop, twisted with two spoke holders
until it showed plastic deformation,
which I showed the customer.
If they looked like this, replacement would be necessary,
but I explained to the customer that
none of the spokes this time were twisted that badly.
The only part we actually replaced
was the nipple directly below where there was major lateral runout,
which had become rough and damaged from handling,
so we replaced just that one.
In other words, the major lateral runout was also a result of their bogus truing,
and without it, the customer might never have noticed
the spoke twists and just kept using it.
The customer probably brought it to Asahi because it was the nearest shop,
but it turned out the nearest shop that could actually fix it
was ours.
↑This nylon locking insert
causes spokes to twist only when worked on by incompetent people is what causes spokes to twist.
When I spin the wheel by itself,
I hear something rattling inside the rim,
so when I guide it toward the only place it can escape—the valve hole—
the blue debris that comes out
is this nylon that broke off and fell inside the rim.
In the end, we didn't need the spare spokes after all.
Hypothetically speaking, if Wise Road had spare spokes in stock,
in this exact same situation, even though no replacement was necessary,
I bet they'd say something like
"if a spoke has been twisted once and had weird forces on it,
you really need to replace it,"
and push forward with charging not just labor
but also spare spoke costs.
I doubt many people would press the applause button for this post.
↓Way too many of you!
It's a tubular rim setup, but it's only been used for one season
and it's not the narrow rim version with internal nipples.
Without even putting it on a truing stand, you could see
some pretty obvious lateral wobble,
so when they took it to Wise Road,
they were told that
"the spokes are twisted so we can't fix it,
and if we had to replace them it would take a really long time."
I don't think they could fix it properly, but anyway
I asked the customer if spokes could really twist on their own,
and whether someone must have worked on it before bringing it to Wise Road.
They didn't tell me which location, but
they'd taken it to Cycle Base Asahi for a truing job.
And they did some seriously messed-up work there.
I don't think all the staff at Cycle Base Asahi are technically incompetent.
Just like you'd need to see every crow to claim "all crows are black,"
I don't know about the skill level of every staff member at every location,
so the most I can honestly say is
"probably as incompetent as the ratio of black crows to all crows."
↑The butted section of the spoke looks oddly thin
because the flattened section of the aero spoke is facing sideways.
↑I put tape on each spoke to highlight the plane of the flattened section.
I did the same marking at another location.
When I did this, I found 3 spokes where the tape direction changed
along a single spoke
(= they were twisted).
Separately from those, there were 2 spokes that weren't twisted
but had their flattened section oriented incorrectly,
so I marked those with just one piece of tape.
↑The spokes on this Bora
are the same length on the front and rear left (tangent side),
and are interchangeable, but
the rear right tangentially-laced spokes have
no modification below the head, while
the front and rear left radially-laced spokes
have a twist-stop dimple indent (shown in the image above).
According to the customer, the Asahi staff member
"there's a nipple that just keeps spinning forever"
↑Sure enough, there was actually a spot where a spoke had rotated about 90 degrees.
The nipples on this wheel have a nylon locking insert
embedded in the outer edge face,
and if you don't hold the spoke firmly with the genuine tool
or a proper equivalent tool,
the spoke will twist or the spoke head will rotate at the hub
before the nipple threads engage.
If someone twisted the spoke past where this dimple
is supposed to provide resistance, or
if this dimple is doing its job,
then the spoke gets twisted—but
it seems unlikely they're
they did this during their work,
so the only explanation is they messed it up on purpose
and knew it, yet still charged the customer for it.
I often say that
"truing and wheel building are
fundamentally the same task—taking things to 100% of the builder's standards—
so anyone who can't build wheels can't true them either."
With a Bora, if someone can't get it to meet manufacturer
shipping standards when given the parts completely disassembled,
then they obviously can't do proper truing work
(including centering).
Conversely, would any new Bora ever leave the factory
with spokes this twisted?
Argh, I hate having to deal with the aftermath of this kind of incompetence.
Those people should drop dead for doing this.
Oh, I did ask the customer beforehand just to be sure
they hadn't worked on it themselves.
We have plenty of spare spokes in stock.
Of the 5 spokes I marked with tape,
3 are twisted, and since we have more spokes than that in stock,
we can definitely fix it, but...
These twisted spokes,
straightened right out cleanly with two spoke holders.
There's no sign of plastic deformation (permanent bending).
As a result, all 5 spokes—the 3 with corrected twists
and the 2 with corrected orientation—turned out to be fine without replacement.
↑This is a discarded spoke from our shop, twisted with two spoke holders
until it showed plastic deformation,
which I showed the customer.
If they looked like this, replacement would be necessary,
but I explained to the customer that
none of the spokes this time were twisted that badly.
The only part we actually replaced
was the nipple directly below where there was major lateral runout,
which had become rough and damaged from handling,
so we replaced just that one.
In other words, the major lateral runout was also a result of their bogus truing,
and without it, the customer might never have noticed
the spoke twists and just kept using it.
The customer probably brought it to Asahi because it was the nearest shop,
but it turned out the nearest shop that could actually fix it
was ours.
↑This nylon locking insert
When I spin the wheel by itself,
I hear something rattling inside the rim,
so when I guide it toward the only place it can escape—the valve hole—
the blue debris that comes out
is this nylon that broke off and fell inside the rim.
In the end, we didn't need the spare spokes after all.
Hypothetically speaking, if Wise Road had spare spokes in stock,
in this exact same situation, even though no replacement was necessary,
I bet they'd say something like
"if a spoke has been twisted once and had weird forces on it,
you really need to replace it,"
and push forward with charging not just labor
but also spare spoke costs.
I doubt many people would press the applause button for this post.
↓Way too many of you!