Today it's wheels again (and so on).
A customer brought in a wheel built with Mavic Record Mond rims.
According to them, it came from a vintage bike that hung on the wall of an old shop, and they asked the shop owner for the whole bike and got it.
Someone might suggest the rim name should be read as "Record du Monde," but the "Record Mond" name stuck because that's how it appeared in katakana in catalogs from back then.
The sprocket is a Regina Oro 6-speed with teeth configured as 13-14-15-17-19-21T. That's truly the gear ratio you'd see on a road racer from before the term "road bike" was even coined.
I've had windsurfers ask me "Wait, there's Neil Pryde for bicycles too?" and skiers ask "Wait, there's POC helmets for bicycles too?" The latter example includes Uvex as well. I've never been asked by equestrians "Wait, there's LAS helmets for bicycles too?" either.
When it comes to the motorcycle industry, Suomy helmets and Sidi shoes (or boots in the motorcycle world) fall into the "they make bicycle gear too" category. But Regina, the chain and sprocket maker, has withdrawn from the bicycle industry while remaining active in the motorcycle world. Over there, the katakana spelling "Regina" is now standard.
The customer asked to have the freewheel removed. Regina's two-claw freewheel (not the fine spline type) can be tricky to remove without stripping the notches if it's jammed in—but this one came off very easily. Once you pedal hard even once, the threads engage in the tightening direction, so this wheel is definitely unused.
I removed the freewheel sprocket. Someone might think it resembles a SRAM XD. That's more like the best of both worlds—freewheel and freehub combined. The point that "the number of sprockets doesn't depend on the thread depth on the hub side" is the same as SRAM XD. With SRAM XD, if you widen the hub end width (ignoring chainline and other concerns), you could theoretically make 14-speed or 15-speed sprockets. Whereas with Shimano freehub bodies, the number of gears is limited by the spline depth. But freewheel hubs have narrow bearing widths, and especially with cheaper ones, the hub axle tends to snap right below the end surface of the hub body on the right side—which is one reason Shimano invented the freehub to widen the hub bearing width.
What makes the freewheel sprocket different from a freehub plus sprocket (including SRAM XD) is:
The freewheel mechanism (coasting function) is located on the sprocket side itself.
The hub is a Dura-Ace HB-7110-R. By the way, when the model number becomes 7120, it becomes a large-flange hub.
The frame this was on is estimated to date to around 1979, but looking at the manufacturing date stamp on the hub, it reads "ZD," where D is April and Z is either 1975, 2001, or 2027—so the answer is obvious.
The rim has correct hole alignment, and the spokes were threaded through properly according to the hole alignment. So from the wheel's right side, clockwise from the valve hole, the next spoke is on the anti-freewheel side. When I look at the rim holes clockwise from the outside:
↑Anti-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
↑Anti-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
The freewheel side spokes are way too short, and to make matters worse, they used the same length spokes on both sides to build the wheel. Talk about cutting corners.
I'm shooting with the valve hole in frame, and checking the nipples clockwise as before, the image above is the anti-freewheel side:
↑Freewheel side
↑Anti-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
So the anti-freewheel side spoke length is quite short.
Moreover, this wheel has the valve hole sitting right in the middle of the bundle of the final 4-spoke crossing pair on both sides—an ugly state. With identical-flange lacing patterns, the rules are:
A. First step: thread spokes left-drop
B. Use Italian lacing
C. Thread spokes according to the rim's correct hole alignment
D. If A, B, and C are all satisfied, the valve hole phase will be either outside the final crossing bundle or offset by two rim holes from it—choosing the former
This wheel satisfies the A condition (left-drop) but uses JIS lacing instead of Italian lacing at step B, so if it follows C (the hole alignment), D becomes "the valve hole phase is offset by 1 or 3 rim holes from the bundle edge"—exactly what we see in the image above.
The timeline jumps around here—the freewheel sprocket is still on in this image. I'm placing a black spoke in the outpoke hole on the freewheel-side (using "freewheel-side" loosely here for clarity) flange. When the outpoke on the freewheel side looks the same from one perspective, and the inpoke on the anti-freewheel side is on the left—that's "left-drop." The image above shows that state. If it were reversed, it would be "right-drop." So this wheel has Italian lacing hand geometry but JIS lacing pattern, which is why the valve hole ends up in the wrong spot. Maybe it was a temporary build just to get the frame off the ground?
The customer told me to just do a check and respect the shop owner's work, but I can't respect this spoke length and lacing pattern. I'm too nervous about returning the wheel in this condition with "the last person to touch it being me."
I tape up the intersection angle of the final crossing on the anti-freewheel side and do a squeeze test:
Abnormally loose. But this is just the result of decades of static storage, not something to get worked up about.
The spokes are Star #15-base stainless butted spokes. If the spoke head stamp is "H," it's Starlight; if it's a ☆ mark, it's stainless. As I always mention, Starlight is technically also stainless steel, and "stainless" spokes from Star are not a generic term—it's a product name.
Star stainless with ☆ head stamps are basically non-responsive to magnets—they don't stick as if you held them to rubber or plastic. But these spokes stuck to the magnet. Though the magnet in the image is pretty powerful—it's the kind I use to guide nipples on rims without edge holes besides the valve hole.
Starlight spokes are supposed to stick very well to magnets, and I call the supposedly-Starlight ones that barely react "fake Starlight" or "crap Starlight." But since "stainless that sticks to magnets" is actually mechanically preferable, I'll just call it "fake stainless" rather than "crap stainless."
The reason for the abnormally short spoke length became clear. Star's longest spoke length is basically 305mm. Longer current options include DT Champion at 315mm and Sapim CX Sprint at 310mm. The 305mm length is the only length available in round-butted or flat-butted Starlight for NJS keirin spokes, and it's within acceptable range for building Arai 16B Gold rims 36H in 8-spoke configuration with either small or large flange hubs.
The inner rim diameter of the most low-profile tubular rims doesn't vary much across manufacturers. Whether it's Mavic Record Mond, Arai 16B Gold, Sugino Metador Oro, Campagnolo Victory, Fiamme Ilide, Niji Countach—they're all within 1mm if the hub and lacing pattern are the same.
So why were the spokes short on this wheel? Because the hole count is 32H, not 36H. Someone must have thought "low-profile tubular in 8-spoke means 305mm" and built it by habit.
I disassembled the wheel. I pulled one spoke from each flange:
And they were indeed the same length. Also, no thread-locking compound was applied, and when I loosened the nipples until the face pressure released completely, after that they loosened easily by hand.
Even though these stick to magnets, #15-base "stainless" is the condition most prone to spoke breakage at the head, so instead of reusing the original spokes, I had Star #15 plain Starlight (SB) brought in—actually, I went to pick them up from the supplier.
I was worried about getting stuck with crap-Starlight that doesn't stick to magnets, but the real stuff arrived, and it sticks really well. All current stock at the suppliers should be proper Starlight. The slip of paper with management numbers in the image reflects a time when Star Industries actually said to my face they were doing things properly, after I'd repeatedly complained about fake Starlight being mixed in. That was way back.
Knowing all this, I once told someone from Star Industries: "I have absolute distrust in Star, so unless there's a reason, I'm not buying your spokes." If I'd gotten crap-Starlight this time, I was planning to use Sapim Leader #15 plain or Race #14-base round-butted instead. DT Silver Comp's current maximum available length is 298mm, which is too short even for 6-spoke lacing on this wheel. By the way, the proper length for 8-spoke lacing with this hub and rim is 309mm and 310mm.
Built.
HB-7110-R 32H Starlight #15 plain, 6-6 Italian lacing with included brass nipples, left-drop initial hand following the rim's correct hole alignment with the valve hole outside the final crossing bundle, and thread-locking compound applied to the spoke threads.
No wire spoke or result lacing (tying). I just built a "normal wheel" for once. The freewheel side is tight and the anti-freewheel side is soft, but that's the normal state of a normal wheel. Since I'm building a separate wired wheel for this customer anyway, this is fine as-is.
This rim wasn't ultra-light for its era. There's a Record Mond Oro 7 (Seven) in gold that weighs under 300g. If this were a current product—and there's no way I could pay for it if I messed up—I'd have tensioned it a bit more, but I was a bit scared. That said, it's way more tensioned than the original.
Perfectly centered.
From the wheel's right side, clockwise from the valve hole:
↑Anti-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
↑Anti-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
The little bumps on the nipple end faces, like the et-legs on the back of a watch dial, distinguish them as #15 nipples.
With Star's "stainless" spokes, I've seen enough wheels to say confidently that they have higher risk of spoke breakage at the head compared to Starlight. In terms of relative factors, I think even #15 Starlight is stronger than #14 stainless. When comparing decent-sized bundles of stainless versus Starlight, stainless does have better shine. But without looking at the head stamp, I can't tell which is which on a single spoke.
Starlight doesn't rust brown over time like steel mama-chari spokes do, so I can't think of any merit to stainless spokes.
A customer brought in a wheel built with Mavic Record Mond rims.
According to them, it came from a vintage bike that hung on the wall of an old shop, and they asked the shop owner for the whole bike and got it.
Someone might suggest the rim name should be read as "Record du Monde," but the "Record Mond" name stuck because that's how it appeared in katakana in catalogs from back then.
The sprocket is a Regina Oro 6-speed with teeth configured as 13-14-15-17-19-21T. That's truly the gear ratio you'd see on a road racer from before the term "road bike" was even coined.
I've had windsurfers ask me "Wait, there's Neil Pryde for bicycles too?" and skiers ask "Wait, there's POC helmets for bicycles too?" The latter example includes Uvex as well. I've never been asked by equestrians "Wait, there's LAS helmets for bicycles too?" either.
When it comes to the motorcycle industry, Suomy helmets and Sidi shoes (or boots in the motorcycle world) fall into the "they make bicycle gear too" category. But Regina, the chain and sprocket maker, has withdrawn from the bicycle industry while remaining active in the motorcycle world. Over there, the katakana spelling "Regina" is now standard.
The customer asked to have the freewheel removed. Regina's two-claw freewheel (not the fine spline type) can be tricky to remove without stripping the notches if it's jammed in—but this one came off very easily. Once you pedal hard even once, the threads engage in the tightening direction, so this wheel is definitely unused.
I removed the freewheel sprocket. Someone might think it resembles a SRAM XD. That's more like the best of both worlds—freewheel and freehub combined. The point that "the number of sprockets doesn't depend on the thread depth on the hub side" is the same as SRAM XD. With SRAM XD, if you widen the hub end width (ignoring chainline and other concerns), you could theoretically make 14-speed or 15-speed sprockets. Whereas with Shimano freehub bodies, the number of gears is limited by the spline depth. But freewheel hubs have narrow bearing widths, and especially with cheaper ones, the hub axle tends to snap right below the end surface of the hub body on the right side—which is one reason Shimano invented the freehub to widen the hub bearing width.
What makes the freewheel sprocket different from a freehub plus sprocket (including SRAM XD) is:
The freewheel mechanism (coasting function) is located on the sprocket side itself.
The hub is a Dura-Ace HB-7110-R. By the way, when the model number becomes 7120, it becomes a large-flange hub.
The frame this was on is estimated to date to around 1979, but looking at the manufacturing date stamp on the hub, it reads "ZD," where D is April and Z is either 1975, 2001, or 2027—so the answer is obvious.
The rim has correct hole alignment, and the spokes were threaded through properly according to the hole alignment. So from the wheel's right side, clockwise from the valve hole, the next spoke is on the anti-freewheel side. When I look at the rim holes clockwise from the outside:
↑Anti-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
↑Anti-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
The freewheel side spokes are way too short, and to make matters worse, they used the same length spokes on both sides to build the wheel. Talk about cutting corners.
I'm shooting with the valve hole in frame, and checking the nipples clockwise as before, the image above is the anti-freewheel side:
↑Freewheel side
↑Anti-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
So the anti-freewheel side spoke length is quite short.
Moreover, this wheel has the valve hole sitting right in the middle of the bundle of the final 4-spoke crossing pair on both sides—an ugly state. With identical-flange lacing patterns, the rules are:
A. First step: thread spokes left-drop
B. Use Italian lacing
C. Thread spokes according to the rim's correct hole alignment
D. If A, B, and C are all satisfied, the valve hole phase will be either outside the final crossing bundle or offset by two rim holes from it—choosing the former
This wheel satisfies the A condition (left-drop) but uses JIS lacing instead of Italian lacing at step B, so if it follows C (the hole alignment), D becomes "the valve hole phase is offset by 1 or 3 rim holes from the bundle edge"—exactly what we see in the image above.
The timeline jumps around here—the freewheel sprocket is still on in this image. I'm placing a black spoke in the outpoke hole on the freewheel-side (using "freewheel-side" loosely here for clarity) flange. When the outpoke on the freewheel side looks the same from one perspective, and the inpoke on the anti-freewheel side is on the left—that's "left-drop." The image above shows that state. If it were reversed, it would be "right-drop." So this wheel has Italian lacing hand geometry but JIS lacing pattern, which is why the valve hole ends up in the wrong spot. Maybe it was a temporary build just to get the frame off the ground?
The customer told me to just do a check and respect the shop owner's work, but I can't respect this spoke length and lacing pattern. I'm too nervous about returning the wheel in this condition with "the last person to touch it being me."
I tape up the intersection angle of the final crossing on the anti-freewheel side and do a squeeze test:
Abnormally loose. But this is just the result of decades of static storage, not something to get worked up about.
The spokes are Star #15-base stainless butted spokes. If the spoke head stamp is "H," it's Starlight; if it's a ☆ mark, it's stainless. As I always mention, Starlight is technically also stainless steel, and "stainless" spokes from Star are not a generic term—it's a product name.
Star stainless with ☆ head stamps are basically non-responsive to magnets—they don't stick as if you held them to rubber or plastic. But these spokes stuck to the magnet. Though the magnet in the image is pretty powerful—it's the kind I use to guide nipples on rims without edge holes besides the valve hole.
Starlight spokes are supposed to stick very well to magnets, and I call the supposedly-Starlight ones that barely react "fake Starlight" or "crap Starlight." But since "stainless that sticks to magnets" is actually mechanically preferable, I'll just call it "fake stainless" rather than "crap stainless."
The reason for the abnormally short spoke length became clear. Star's longest spoke length is basically 305mm. Longer current options include DT Champion at 315mm and Sapim CX Sprint at 310mm. The 305mm length is the only length available in round-butted or flat-butted Starlight for NJS keirin spokes, and it's within acceptable range for building Arai 16B Gold rims 36H in 8-spoke configuration with either small or large flange hubs.
The inner rim diameter of the most low-profile tubular rims doesn't vary much across manufacturers. Whether it's Mavic Record Mond, Arai 16B Gold, Sugino Metador Oro, Campagnolo Victory, Fiamme Ilide, Niji Countach—they're all within 1mm if the hub and lacing pattern are the same.
So why were the spokes short on this wheel? Because the hole count is 32H, not 36H. Someone must have thought "low-profile tubular in 8-spoke means 305mm" and built it by habit.
I disassembled the wheel. I pulled one spoke from each flange:
And they were indeed the same length. Also, no thread-locking compound was applied, and when I loosened the nipples until the face pressure released completely, after that they loosened easily by hand.
Even though these stick to magnets, #15-base "stainless" is the condition most prone to spoke breakage at the head, so instead of reusing the original spokes, I had Star #15 plain Starlight (SB) brought in—actually, I went to pick them up from the supplier.
I was worried about getting stuck with crap-Starlight that doesn't stick to magnets, but the real stuff arrived, and it sticks really well. All current stock at the suppliers should be proper Starlight. The slip of paper with management numbers in the image reflects a time when Star Industries actually said to my face they were doing things properly, after I'd repeatedly complained about fake Starlight being mixed in. That was way back.
Knowing all this, I once told someone from Star Industries: "I have absolute distrust in Star, so unless there's a reason, I'm not buying your spokes." If I'd gotten crap-Starlight this time, I was planning to use Sapim Leader #15 plain or Race #14-base round-butted instead. DT Silver Comp's current maximum available length is 298mm, which is too short even for 6-spoke lacing on this wheel. By the way, the proper length for 8-spoke lacing with this hub and rim is 309mm and 310mm.
Built.
HB-7110-R 32H Starlight #15 plain, 6-6 Italian lacing with included brass nipples, left-drop initial hand following the rim's correct hole alignment with the valve hole outside the final crossing bundle, and thread-locking compound applied to the spoke threads.
No wire spoke or result lacing (tying). I just built a "normal wheel" for once. The freewheel side is tight and the anti-freewheel side is soft, but that's the normal state of a normal wheel. Since I'm building a separate wired wheel for this customer anyway, this is fine as-is.
This rim wasn't ultra-light for its era. There's a Record Mond Oro 7 (Seven) in gold that weighs under 300g. If this were a current product—and there's no way I could pay for it if I messed up—I'd have tensioned it a bit more, but I was a bit scared. That said, it's way more tensioned than the original.
Perfectly centered.
From the wheel's right side, clockwise from the valve hole:
↑Anti-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
↑Anti-freewheel side
↑Freewheel side
The little bumps on the nipple end faces, like the et-legs on the back of a watch dial, distinguish them as #15 nipples.
With Star's "stainless" spokes, I've seen enough wheels to say confidently that they have higher risk of spoke breakage at the head compared to Starlight. In terms of relative factors, I think even #15 Starlight is stronger than #14 stainless. When comparing decent-sized bundles of stainless versus Starlight, stainless does have better shine. But without looking at the head stamp, I can't tell which is which on a single spoke.
Starlight doesn't rust brown over time like steel mama-chari spokes do, so I can't think of any merit to stainless spokes.