I received a Fulcrum Speed 55T from a customer.
They picked it up at an online auction,
and if I write too much detail, the previous owner might notice,
but apparently it's only been used in 3 races.
This doesn't mean it was only used for exactly 3 races,
but rather that during its period of use, it was raced in 3 times,
and based on that, there's a high likelihood
it was used regularly for other purposes too.
Both wheels are missing valve bushings.
There's virtually no chance they were removed before selling at auction.
As I'll find out later, there's evidence that confirms this judgment.
The customer (current owner) asked me to
tighten the spoke tension as much as possible,
and if I felt it necessary, to lace it as well,
but the front wheel is radially laced, and the non-freewheel side of the rear wheel
doesn't have its final crossing woven in (they don't contact),
so lacing isn't possible.
It wouldn't be impossible to relace it properly,
but this wheel is built in a way that looks like a 2:1 lacing at first glance
where the non-freewheel side spokes from a 28H radial non-freewheel build
have half their spokes removed with off-phase parking,
and even if you were to finish it as a cross pattern,
the final crossing angle on the freewheel side would be the same anyway—
it's a 2:1 lacing on even-spaced rim holes, not density-phase spacing,
so don't lump it in with that stupid Mavic crap.
That's why lacing isn't necessary here.
The front wheel was a fairly slack example,
so I decided to tension that separately from truing.
The rear wheel was centered on first pass,
and there was slight runout,
but the image would be the same even after truing,
so I only shot the picture after working on it.
I installed the current generation valve bushings (third generation).
The first and second generations had the same part number,
so you can't get anything other than third generation new anymore (→here).
Next, the front wheel.
The rim is slightly shifted to the right.
For the sake of making the article worthwhile,
I deliberately did one-sided truing and tightening
to amplify the original center offset
and raise the spoke tension.
With one-sided tightening
it's more offset than before.
Also, the original state had slight lateral runout,
but at this point there's no runout.
From here, if I tighten further in the direction of shifting the rim left until center is achieved,
the tension will be right where I'm aiming for.
From the previous state,
I achieved center by tightening.
Since the original example was slack,
I didn't overtension it.
If there were about 100 stock Speed 55T front wheels,
there'd probably be a few with this much tension,
roughly speaking.
When I installed the valve bushing on the front rim,
the fit was tight and didn't sit cleanly,
and most importantly, when I tried to pass the valve through, it wouldn't fit at all.
Since it had been in use for years without the valve bushing installed,
the Kevlar fibers woven into the carbon were
poking out in a fuzzy mess.
You wouldn't get this from "only" 3 races of use.
I carefully filed it down so the fuzz wouldn't push the valve bushing
inward from the inside.
The protruding parts in the image above have been trimmed.
I reinstalled the valve bushing
and confirmed that a threadless valve now passes through.
They picked it up at an online auction,
and if I write too much detail, the previous owner might notice,
but apparently it's only been used in 3 races.
This doesn't mean it was only used for exactly 3 races,
but rather that during its period of use, it was raced in 3 times,
and based on that, there's a high likelihood
it was used regularly for other purposes too.
Both wheels are missing valve bushings.
There's virtually no chance they were removed before selling at auction.
As I'll find out later, there's evidence that confirms this judgment.
The customer (current owner) asked me to
tighten the spoke tension as much as possible,
and if I felt it necessary, to lace it as well,
but the front wheel is radially laced, and the non-freewheel side of the rear wheel
doesn't have its final crossing woven in (they don't contact),
so lacing isn't possible.
It wouldn't be impossible to relace it properly,
but this wheel is built in a way that looks like a 2:1 lacing at first glance
where the non-freewheel side spokes from a 28H radial non-freewheel build
have half their spokes removed with off-phase parking,
and even if you were to finish it as a cross pattern,
the final crossing angle on the freewheel side would be the same anyway—
it's a 2:1 lacing on even-spaced rim holes, not density-phase spacing,
so don't lump it in with that stupid Mavic crap.
That's why lacing isn't necessary here.
The front wheel was a fairly slack example,
so I decided to tension that separately from truing.
The rear wheel was centered on first pass,
and there was slight runout,
but the image would be the same even after truing,
so I only shot the picture after working on it.
I installed the current generation valve bushings (third generation).
The first and second generations had the same part number,
so you can't get anything other than third generation new anymore (→here).
Next, the front wheel.
The rim is slightly shifted to the right.
For the sake of making the article worthwhile,
I deliberately did one-sided truing and tightening
to amplify the original center offset
and raise the spoke tension.
With one-sided tightening
it's more offset than before.
Also, the original state had slight lateral runout,
but at this point there's no runout.
From here, if I tighten further in the direction of shifting the rim left until center is achieved,
the tension will be right where I'm aiming for.
From the previous state,
I achieved center by tightening.
Since the original example was slack,
I didn't overtension it.
If there were about 100 stock Speed 55T front wheels,
there'd probably be a few with this much tension,
roughly speaking.
When I installed the valve bushing on the front rim,
the fit was tight and didn't sit cleanly,
and most importantly, when I tried to pass the valve through, it wouldn't fit at all.
Since it had been in use for years without the valve bushing installed,
the Kevlar fibers woven into the carbon were
poking out in a fuzzy mess.
You wouldn't get this from "only" 3 races of use.
I carefully filed it down so the fuzz wouldn't push the valve bushing
inward from the inside.
The protruding parts in the image above have been trimmed.
I reinstalled the valve bushing
and confirmed that a threadless valve now passes through.