Another day of wheel building (and so on). But first.
With current Shimano 12-speed, assuming a front chainring of 52-36T and a cassette of 11-30T,
when you put the outer 52T × low gear 30T,
the gear ratio comes to approximately 1.73x.
This means the rear wheel turns 1.73 times for one crank revolution.
Next, with the inner 36T, if we calculate the cassette tooth count that gives a gear ratio of 1.73333x,
the theoretical value is 36÷1.73333=20.76927..., so
the nearest integer is 21T.
When we calculate 36T×21T (technically we're dividing, not multiplying),
the gear ratio is 1.7142...x, so
roughly speaking 52T×30T≒36×21T is fine.
So the subsequent 36T×24T, 27T, and 30T combinations
become the unique light gears only available with the inner ring,
and when you hear "24-speed," you might think it's like a 24-color colored pencil set,
but it's actually just 24 pencils,
and if you count similar colors as the same color, there aren't actually 24 colors.
If you think of it as "12 colors with the outer ring, plus the inner ring's unique colors,"
then in this case there are only 12+3=15 colors.
Shimano's Synchro Shift automatically handles this kind of shifting without manual input,
using electronic components.
Shimano, despite being the inventor of dual-pivot brakes,
abandoned them and completely obsoleted the infrastructure
for quick-release wheels and frame sets,
forcibly pushing through-axles and disc brakes
in the road bike world. But I suspect that eventually
they'll set the rear end spacing to around 150mm
and combine a 2×5S 10-speed external drivetrain
with a 10-speed internal hub drivetrain for a total 100-speed setup.
At that point,
I might be like "don't even go there" when they say things like
«The chain got thicker and lasts over 10,000km!»
or «We've greatly reduced the hub dishing!»
This 100-speed will also be like a 100-pencil set—
there aren't actually 100 colors—but
supposing you eliminate combinations with the same or nearly identical gear ratios
and avoid frequently shifting the front,
the result might be around 40 speeds (purely imagination on this number).
For humans to efficiently use both external and internal shifting,
especially during a race with a scrambled brain, is impossible,
so you'd need some kind of synchro-shift system
that manages both internal and external shifts.
Using white for the lightest gear and black for the heaviest,
with the gear ratios in between expressed as shades of gray,
↑a gauge like this
might be displayed on a cycle computer.
White's 0.94x equals 34T×36T equivalent,
black's 4.81x equals 53T×11T equivalent, and
if you divide the space between into 40 segments, each step
is roughly 0.1x.
Note: I chose 40 speeds because
between roughly 5x and 1x gear ratio,
if you can get all ratios at roughly 0.1x increments,
there's no need to go finer than that.
From the 100-speed combinations, Synchro Shift would automatically select
40 combinations that are roughly 0.1x increments while avoiding frequent front shifts.
That 2.78x shown in the diagram
corresponds to 53T×19T, but
future road bike riders might
not think «I'm running outer 53T×19T right now»
but rather «I'm pedaling at a 2.78x gear ratio right now.»
If you dislike unexpected front shifts during Synchro Shift causing pedaling to catch,
you can just increase the cassette speed and internal hub stages
and go with a single front chainring.
At that point, they'd start saying «the added weight from the internal hub
is basically cancelled out by eliminating the front derailleur and its mount!»
If you look inside the seat tube of a lightweight carbon frame with a rivet-bonded front derailleur mount
using a light, you'll see that
the seat tube wall thickness is considerably thicker only around the derailleur mount.
If it's «no front derailleur mount, single-speed only,»
the frame could be even lighter.
Anyway, another day of wheel building (and so on).
I received a HUNT complete-build wheel rear wheel on deposit from a customer.
Any way you look at it, it's unused.
This rear hub is made by a manufacturer called Classified, and it's an internal hub system called Powershift.
It's designed for single-speed front bikes and puts the front shifting function in the rear hub.
It connects via Bluetooth for wireless shifting, with control buttons mounted on the handlebar.
The Classified brand itself is handled by the only Japanese distributor for De Rosa,
but this rear wheel is a complete build collaboration with HUNT.
The world's first 13-speed component wasn't the current SRAM RED with single front option,
and it wasn't Campagnolo Ekar 1×13S either—
it was ROTOR's hydraulic-shifting 1×13S.
That component comes in two types: 2×11S and 1×13S,
with the former 11S being Shimano 11S-compatible,
but the latter can only be used with wheels and cassettes supplied by ROTOR.
I thought that without the corporate clout to push a new standard,
there's no way it'll catch on. By the way, I've built the 2×11S version before.
So I think this internal hub, despite being ahead of its time,
won't actually become mainstream.
But the owner of this wheel
must have empathized with the philosophy and thought
«Well, let me buy this!»—or so I assumed.
The internal shifting unit has been completely removed.
Apparently, they want me to build a wheel using this rim
with a regular hub.
So I asked the customer why they bought the Classified hub model,
and they said the complete-build wheel using this rim
only came in Classified hub spec.
I also have a hub on deposit—a HUNT brand hub.
It has assembly marks, so it has a prior history as a wheel.
It uses EZO bearings. EZO is Hokkaido-based Kita-Nippon Seiki,
and their industrial bearings without a tapered shape
were press-fitted into Pinarello headset parts of that era, and
sometimes—though not always—EZO bearings were used in PowerTap hubs with steel ball bearings.
Incidentally, PowerTap uses Enduro bearings for ceramic bearing versions.
The freebody is Novatech, but the whole hub doesn't appear to be Novatech.
I disassembled the wheel.
I'm reusing the nipples and nipple washers,
but with 24 pieces, I divided them into groups of 6
to make them visually easier to keep track of.
↑using small-diameter nipple washers like these
combined with standard nipples invites trouble,
but the contact surface of the nipples matches
and the wall thickness is sufficient, so this case looks fine.
↑the image on the right is Sapim's Nipple Washer A,
and I have a wheel from another customer on deposit
where nipples kept breaking because of these.
It needs a rebuild, but
there's absolutely no way I can finish this year,
so I'll write about it in detail when the time comes.
The brittle threadlocker has hardened into the shape of the nipple's threads.
It only prevents initial loosening,
and after that it's basically useless.
When I loosened the nipples slightly, they could be turned by hand afterward.
This means that areas where I chose to loosen during truing work
could vibrate loose again afterward.
Built.
HUNT hub, 24H, black semi-comp 2-cross JIS lacing pattern.
Whether to do spoke nipple sealing wasn't noted in the memo.
Note: I asked the customer later and they want it sealed.
The HUNT wheel bag I received holds two wheels,
and it contained the matching front wheel (20H, not 24H).
The difference in spoke deformation from left to right is
actually less on the rear wheel which should have more dishing than the front. Ha-ha.
The front wheel and the rear wheel before rebuilding
both use black Pillar aero spokes in a left-right equal-gauge build.
Regarding this rim,
even considering a measured rim height of 48mm and
an internal width of 22.8mm,
(and I forgot to mention it's a hooked tubeless-ready rim),
I found it heavier than what I'd prefer,
as an outer-rim-weight-obsessed fanatic.
But if there's some added value—
like superior aerodynamics or
«HUNT» written on the rim—
that might make it acceptable.
I'm not telling you the measured rim weight.
If you want to know, buy a Classified hub complete wheel
and take it apart yourself.
↑what a jerk this guy is
You Don't Need To Take It Apart!
Please Look At This Image!
↑STOP RIGHT THERE!
With current Shimano 12-speed, assuming a front chainring of 52-36T and a cassette of 11-30T,
when you put the outer 52T × low gear 30T,
the gear ratio comes to approximately 1.73x.
This means the rear wheel turns 1.73 times for one crank revolution.
Next, with the inner 36T, if we calculate the cassette tooth count that gives a gear ratio of 1.73333x,
the theoretical value is 36÷1.73333=20.76927..., so
the nearest integer is 21T.
When we calculate 36T×21T (technically we're dividing, not multiplying),
the gear ratio is 1.7142...x, so
roughly speaking 52T×30T≒36×21T is fine.
So the subsequent 36T×24T, 27T, and 30T combinations
become the unique light gears only available with the inner ring,
and when you hear "24-speed," you might think it's like a 24-color colored pencil set,
but it's actually just 24 pencils,
and if you count similar colors as the same color, there aren't actually 24 colors.
If you think of it as "12 colors with the outer ring, plus the inner ring's unique colors,"
then in this case there are only 12+3=15 colors.
Shimano's Synchro Shift automatically handles this kind of shifting without manual input,
using electronic components.
Shimano, despite being the inventor of dual-pivot brakes,
abandoned them and completely obsoleted the infrastructure
for quick-release wheels and frame sets,
forcibly pushing through-axles and disc brakes
in the road bike world. But I suspect that eventually
they'll set the rear end spacing to around 150mm
and combine a 2×5S 10-speed external drivetrain
with a 10-speed internal hub drivetrain for a total 100-speed setup.
At that point,
I might be like "don't even go there" when they say things like
«The chain got thicker and lasts over 10,000km!»
or «We've greatly reduced the hub dishing!»
This 100-speed will also be like a 100-pencil set—
there aren't actually 100 colors—but
supposing you eliminate combinations with the same or nearly identical gear ratios
and avoid frequently shifting the front,
the result might be around 40 speeds (purely imagination on this number).
For humans to efficiently use both external and internal shifting,
especially during a race with a scrambled brain, is impossible,
so you'd need some kind of synchro-shift system
that manages both internal and external shifts.
Using white for the lightest gear and black for the heaviest,
with the gear ratios in between expressed as shades of gray,
↑a gauge like this
might be displayed on a cycle computer.
White's 0.94x equals 34T×36T equivalent,
black's 4.81x equals 53T×11T equivalent, and
if you divide the space between into 40 segments, each step
is roughly 0.1x.
Note: I chose 40 speeds because
between roughly 5x and 1x gear ratio,
if you can get all ratios at roughly 0.1x increments,
there's no need to go finer than that.
From the 100-speed combinations, Synchro Shift would automatically select
40 combinations that are roughly 0.1x increments while avoiding frequent front shifts.
That 2.78x shown in the diagram
corresponds to 53T×19T, but
future road bike riders might
not think «I'm running outer 53T×19T right now»
but rather «I'm pedaling at a 2.78x gear ratio right now.»
If you dislike unexpected front shifts during Synchro Shift causing pedaling to catch,
you can just increase the cassette speed and internal hub stages
and go with a single front chainring.
At that point, they'd start saying «the added weight from the internal hub
is basically cancelled out by eliminating the front derailleur and its mount!»
If you look inside the seat tube of a lightweight carbon frame with a rivet-bonded front derailleur mount
using a light, you'll see that
the seat tube wall thickness is considerably thicker only around the derailleur mount.
If it's «no front derailleur mount, single-speed only,»
the frame could be even lighter.
Anyway, another day of wheel building (and so on).
I received a HUNT complete-build wheel rear wheel on deposit from a customer.
Any way you look at it, it's unused.
This rear hub is made by a manufacturer called Classified, and it's an internal hub system called Powershift.
It's designed for single-speed front bikes and puts the front shifting function in the rear hub.
It connects via Bluetooth for wireless shifting, with control buttons mounted on the handlebar.
The Classified brand itself is handled by the only Japanese distributor for De Rosa,
but this rear wheel is a complete build collaboration with HUNT.
The world's first 13-speed component wasn't the current SRAM RED with single front option,
and it wasn't Campagnolo Ekar 1×13S either—
it was ROTOR's hydraulic-shifting 1×13S.
That component comes in two types: 2×11S and 1×13S,
with the former 11S being Shimano 11S-compatible,
but the latter can only be used with wheels and cassettes supplied by ROTOR.
I thought that without the corporate clout to push a new standard,
there's no way it'll catch on. By the way, I've built the 2×11S version before.
So I think this internal hub, despite being ahead of its time,
won't actually become mainstream.
But the owner of this wheel
must have empathized with the philosophy and thought
«Well, let me buy this!»—or so I assumed.
The internal shifting unit has been completely removed.
Apparently, they want me to build a wheel using this rim
with a regular hub.
So I asked the customer why they bought the Classified hub model,
and they said the complete-build wheel using this rim
only came in Classified hub spec.
I also have a hub on deposit—a HUNT brand hub.
It has assembly marks, so it has a prior history as a wheel.
It uses EZO bearings. EZO is Hokkaido-based Kita-Nippon Seiki,
and their industrial bearings without a tapered shape
were press-fitted into Pinarello headset parts of that era, and
sometimes—though not always—EZO bearings were used in PowerTap hubs with steel ball bearings.
Incidentally, PowerTap uses Enduro bearings for ceramic bearing versions.
The freebody is Novatech, but the whole hub doesn't appear to be Novatech.
I disassembled the wheel.
I'm reusing the nipples and nipple washers,
but with 24 pieces, I divided them into groups of 6
to make them visually easier to keep track of.
↑using small-diameter nipple washers like these
combined with standard nipples invites trouble,
but the contact surface of the nipples matches
and the wall thickness is sufficient, so this case looks fine.
↑the image on the right is Sapim's Nipple Washer A,
and I have a wheel from another customer on deposit
where nipples kept breaking because of these.
It needs a rebuild, but
there's absolutely no way I can finish this year,
so I'll write about it in detail when the time comes.
The brittle threadlocker has hardened into the shape of the nipple's threads.
It only prevents initial loosening,
and after that it's basically useless.
When I loosened the nipples slightly, they could be turned by hand afterward.
This means that areas where I chose to loosen during truing work
could vibrate loose again afterward.
Built.
HUNT hub, 24H, black semi-comp 2-cross JIS lacing pattern.
Whether to do spoke nipple sealing wasn't noted in the memo.
Note: I asked the customer later and they want it sealed.
The HUNT wheel bag I received holds two wheels,
and it contained the matching front wheel (20H, not 24H).
The difference in spoke deformation from left to right is
actually less on the rear wheel which should have more dishing than the front. Ha-ha.
The front wheel and the rear wheel before rebuilding
both use black Pillar aero spokes in a left-right equal-gauge build.
Regarding this rim,
even considering a measured rim height of 48mm and
an internal width of 22.8mm,
(and I forgot to mention it's a hooked tubeless-ready rim),
I found it heavier than what I'd prefer,
as an outer-rim-weight-obsessed fanatic.
But if there's some added value—
like superior aerodynamics or
«HUNT» written on the rim—
that might make it acceptable.
I'm not telling you the measured rim weight.
If you want to know, buy a Classified hub complete wheel
and take it apart yourself.
↑what a jerk this guy is
You Don't Need To Take It Apart!
Please Look At This Image!
↑STOP RIGHT THERE!