Today it's wheels again (and so on).
A customer brought in a front wheel built with a 7700 Dura-Ace hub and
an Open Pro rim.
They wanted it rebuilt.
HB-7700, 32H, straight gauge spokes, half-laced radial lacing.
There was a period when Shimano explicitly prohibited radial lacing on their hubs.
The HB-5500 from the 5500-series 105 of the same era as this 7700-series Dura-Ace
was subtly revised into the HB-5501 (differing only in the logo),
which moved the flange holes slightly inward
to ensure thicker material on the outer edge.
The HB-5501A became Shimano's first hub to permit radial lacing.
In other words, this hub is prohibited from radial lacing.
However, in the professional racing scene at that time,
wheels built with this hub in radial lacing were
used routinely.
And in the previous generation, the 6400-series 600 Ultegra front hub
from the 7400-series Dura-Ace era,
the HB-6400, came in 18H.
Doing radial lacing with 18H (9H on one side, odd) is practically impossible.
Even with an X-X-X-X-X-X pattern, three spokes would still end up radial.
Moreover, this 7700-series has a very extensive range of hole counts:
12, 16, 24, 28, 32, 36H, plus
18H for the front only—
this hub itself came in an 18H specification.
And while I'm at it, I'll mention this:
the lack of foresight shown by Shimano, never releasing a 20H front hub until the 9000-series lineup was discontinued,
and the similar lack of foresight with disc hubs—not offering the RS770 or R7070 in 24H, yet offering 36H—
is genuinely baffling.
If they had released a 20H for rim brake front hubs
and a 24H for disc brake front and rear hubs,
it's no exaggeration to say that
well over 1,000 of the wheels I've built would have Shimano hubs.
Unlike when I received the rear wheel,
the spoke length was on the short side,
The spokes were CN spokes.
CN spoke stamps come in a couple of versions—
there's one with a lowercase n inside a C,
but these are the uppercase version.
Either the stamping machine has worn out
or the markings just aren't very sharp.
The hub flange appears to show ZH,
but since the month marking only goes up to
L (the 12th letter),
this must actually be HZ,
which identifies it as August 2001.
This is right before the 7800-series came out,
so it was built quite late in the 7700's production run.
I've given this some thought:
among A–L, the letters that look the same upside down are
H and I.
So HI (September of 1983 or 2009)
and IH (August of 1984 or 2010)
can't be distinguished from each other when they're close in time.
Well, as long as we know roughly when it was made,
maybe we just accept that every 26 years, IG is used for only two months,
or something like that.
These days, some component parts have QR codes laser-stamped on them,
so they're more precise—
internally, Shimano probably records year, month, and day.
Also, the letters marking the year cycle every 26 years,
but with Dura-Ace track hubs alone,
you can't tell them apart just from the hub itself.
For instance, around V (1997 or 2023),
if the original box is missing (the box design changes)
and it's old stock that's been kept clean,
it's not impossible.
There was some runout,
and even though I'm taking a close-up photo here,
it's obvious enough without doing that.
I rebuilt it.
HB-7700, 32H, CX-RAY half-laced radial lacing
with silver aluminum nipples.
The radial lacing was per the customer's request.
With 32H and above, the hub shell is harder to wipe down,
but since the original was the same, there shouldn't be any issues.
While this hub is capable of half-laced radial lacing,
I didn't do that this time.
A customer brought in a front wheel built with a 7700 Dura-Ace hub and
an Open Pro rim.
They wanted it rebuilt.
HB-7700, 32H, straight gauge spokes, half-laced radial lacing.
There was a period when Shimano explicitly prohibited radial lacing on their hubs.
The HB-5500 from the 5500-series 105 of the same era as this 7700-series Dura-Ace
was subtly revised into the HB-5501 (differing only in the logo),
which moved the flange holes slightly inward
to ensure thicker material on the outer edge.
The HB-5501A became Shimano's first hub to permit radial lacing.
In other words, this hub is prohibited from radial lacing.
However, in the professional racing scene at that time,
wheels built with this hub in radial lacing were
used routinely.
And in the previous generation, the 6400-series 600 Ultegra front hub
from the 7400-series Dura-Ace era,
the HB-6400, came in 18H.
Doing radial lacing with 18H (9H on one side, odd) is practically impossible.
Even with an X-X-X-X-X-X pattern, three spokes would still end up radial.
Moreover, this 7700-series has a very extensive range of hole counts:
12, 16, 24, 28, 32, 36H, plus
18H for the front only—
this hub itself came in an 18H specification.
And while I'm at it, I'll mention this:
the lack of foresight shown by Shimano, never releasing a 20H front hub until the 9000-series lineup was discontinued,
and the similar lack of foresight with disc hubs—not offering the RS770 or R7070 in 24H, yet offering 36H—
is genuinely baffling.
If they had released a 20H for rim brake front hubs
and a 24H for disc brake front and rear hubs,
it's no exaggeration to say that
well over 1,000 of the wheels I've built would have Shimano hubs.
Unlike when I received the rear wheel,
the spoke length was on the short side,
The spokes were CN spokes.
CN spoke stamps come in a couple of versions—
there's one with a lowercase n inside a C,
but these are the uppercase version.
Either the stamping machine has worn out
or the markings just aren't very sharp.
The hub flange appears to show ZH,
but since the month marking only goes up to
L (the 12th letter),
this must actually be HZ,
which identifies it as August 2001.
This is right before the 7800-series came out,
so it was built quite late in the 7700's production run.
I've given this some thought:
among A–L, the letters that look the same upside down are
H and I.
So HI (September of 1983 or 2009)
and IH (August of 1984 or 2010)
can't be distinguished from each other when they're close in time.
Well, as long as we know roughly when it was made,
maybe we just accept that every 26 years, IG is used for only two months,
or something like that.
These days, some component parts have QR codes laser-stamped on them,
so they're more precise—
internally, Shimano probably records year, month, and day.
Also, the letters marking the year cycle every 26 years,
but with Dura-Ace track hubs alone,
you can't tell them apart just from the hub itself.
For instance, around V (1997 or 2023),
if the original box is missing (the box design changes)
and it's old stock that's been kept clean,
it's not impossible.
There was some runout,
and even though I'm taking a close-up photo here,
it's obvious enough without doing that.
I rebuilt it.
HB-7700, 32H, CX-RAY half-laced radial lacing
with silver aluminum nipples.
The radial lacing was per the customer's request.
With 32H and above, the hub shell is harder to wipe down,
but since the original was the same, there shouldn't be any issues.
While this hub is capable of half-laced radial lacing,
I didn't do that this time.