A customer brought in a Ksyrium Elite for service.
They shipped it from another prefecture,
and they're looking for a complete overhaul.
The customer wrote what appears to be the purchase date on the outside of the rim,
and from what I can see, it's been over a year since then.
Yet it's extremely clean.
What surprised me was that both wheels had perfect centering.
I mean, they didn't just have centering—they had *perfect* centering.
It's not about Mavic or anything like that, but for a complete wheel
to have this level of perfect centering is nearly unbelievable,
so maybe they either bought it from a quality shop
or had someone dial in the centering after.
Though if the customer could do the latter themselves,
they probably wouldn't have sent it to us...
The truth is unknown, but if we're just talking about "they bought it and it happened to be like this,"
they've hit quite the jackpot.
Speaking frankly about centering precision, in my rough estimate this is in the top 10% of builds,
so if you think about it simply, combining a front wheel in the top 10% with a rear wheel in the top 10%
means they've hit a 1-in-100 lucky draw.
Both wheels had just the slightest bit of runout. And it came right out.
It might sound disrespectful to say this, but I was actually glad there was runout.
If there had been no runout, I would've just put the wheel on the truing stand,
spun it with a "whoosh," and that would've been the end of it—
the entire job would've been just that.
But whether centering is correct or if there's runout—you can't know either of those
without using specialized measuring tools, so that kind of work is legitimately specialized labor.
When I was in middle school, we had guitar lessons in music class.
Before class, the teacher would hand guitars to students, line them up,
and compare them against the piano sound, tuning each string's tension one by one.
My friend and I conspired to swap out one of the guitars,
passing the same guitar to the teacher multiple times.
Since there's almost no visible difference between guitars, the teacher couldn't tell they were the same one.
If the teacher had perfect pitch, he shouldn't have needed to adjust the strings after the first time,
but he fiddled with them on the second and third attempts too.
I was reminded of that story by how well-adjusted this wheel already seemed to be.
I did everything I could inside the hub.
This was also barely dirty.
I regreased all the bearings.
↑This is the Mavic "FTS-L Freebody," and with age and use,
the area between the two pawls on the hub body wears down.
And in most cases it develops this kind of one-sided wear marks.
But in this case it's like new, so this isn't a "reference photo of what happens when it gets damaged."
As a side note, complete wheels normally don't have braided spoke crossings.
Black spokes tend to make scratching sounds where they cross, so
they especially don't braid them. But the previous generation Ksyrium Elite
was the first Mavic complete wheel to have braided spoke crossings.
Round spoke-to-spoke crossings are line-to-line contact, which tends to create noise.
Even with aero spokes, if they have a cross-sectional shape like CX-RAY,
it's still line-to-line contact at the crossing, so there's not much difference from round spokes in that respect.
But with Ksyrium Elite's face-to-face contact at the crossings,
noise seems to occur much less frequently.
Even when I flex it manually, there's no creaking sound.
Moving on to a separate case, I also took in a Ksyrium SR.
This is a customer from around our shop area.
They're also looking for a complete overhaul.
How could they let it get like this
Wow, this is gonna be rewarding work.
The rear wheel's off-center, both wheels have some runout,
the front hub's got play, the hub internals need regreasing,
and there's plenty to dig into. Plus there's plenty of cleaning to be done (※).
※Plenty to clean =
a euphemism for "it's filthy"
I used the ninja technique of ○ auction photography on these.
Why it has such an ominous name is a secret.
It's like a technique for taking flattering engagement photos.
Not that we're actually selling it or anything.
☆ ☆ MINT CONDITION ☆ ☆
A F T E R O V E R H A U L
UNDER 100 km ridden
↑Don't select this with your mouse!
They shipped it from another prefecture,
and they're looking for a complete overhaul.
The customer wrote what appears to be the purchase date on the outside of the rim,
and from what I can see, it's been over a year since then.
Yet it's extremely clean.
What surprised me was that both wheels had perfect centering.
I mean, they didn't just have centering—they had *perfect* centering.
It's not about Mavic or anything like that, but for a complete wheel
to have this level of perfect centering is nearly unbelievable,
so maybe they either bought it from a quality shop
or had someone dial in the centering after.
Though if the customer could do the latter themselves,
they probably wouldn't have sent it to us...
The truth is unknown, but if we're just talking about "they bought it and it happened to be like this,"
they've hit quite the jackpot.
Speaking frankly about centering precision, in my rough estimate this is in the top 10% of builds,
so if you think about it simply, combining a front wheel in the top 10% with a rear wheel in the top 10%
means they've hit a 1-in-100 lucky draw.
Both wheels had just the slightest bit of runout. And it came right out.
It might sound disrespectful to say this, but I was actually glad there was runout.
If there had been no runout, I would've just put the wheel on the truing stand,
spun it with a "whoosh," and that would've been the end of it—
the entire job would've been just that.
But whether centering is correct or if there's runout—you can't know either of those
without using specialized measuring tools, so that kind of work is legitimately specialized labor.
When I was in middle school, we had guitar lessons in music class.
Before class, the teacher would hand guitars to students, line them up,
and compare them against the piano sound, tuning each string's tension one by one.
My friend and I conspired to swap out one of the guitars,
passing the same guitar to the teacher multiple times.
Since there's almost no visible difference between guitars, the teacher couldn't tell they were the same one.
If the teacher had perfect pitch, he shouldn't have needed to adjust the strings after the first time,
but he fiddled with them on the second and third attempts too.
I was reminded of that story by how well-adjusted this wheel already seemed to be.
I did everything I could inside the hub.
This was also barely dirty.
I regreased all the bearings.
↑This is the Mavic "FTS-L Freebody," and with age and use,
the area between the two pawls on the hub body wears down.
And in most cases it develops this kind of one-sided wear marks.
But in this case it's like new, so this isn't a "reference photo of what happens when it gets damaged."
As a side note, complete wheels normally don't have braided spoke crossings.
Black spokes tend to make scratching sounds where they cross, so
they especially don't braid them. But the previous generation Ksyrium Elite
was the first Mavic complete wheel to have braided spoke crossings.
Round spoke-to-spoke crossings are line-to-line contact, which tends to create noise.
Even with aero spokes, if they have a cross-sectional shape like CX-RAY,
it's still line-to-line contact at the crossing, so there's not much difference from round spokes in that respect.
But with Ksyrium Elite's face-to-face contact at the crossings,
noise seems to occur much less frequently.
Even when I flex it manually, there's no creaking sound.
Moving on to a separate case, I also took in a Ksyrium SR.
This is a customer from around our shop area.
They're also looking for a complete overhaul.
How could they let it get like this
Wow, this is gonna be rewarding work.
The rear wheel's off-center, both wheels have some runout,
the front hub's got play, the hub internals need regreasing,
and there's plenty to dig into. Plus there's plenty of cleaning to be done (※).
※Plenty to clean =
a euphemism for "it's filthy"
I used the ninja technique of ○ auction photography on these.
Why it has such an ominous name is a secret.
It's like a technique for taking flattering engagement photos.
Not that we're actually selling it or anything.
☆ ☆ MINT CONDITION ☆ ☆
A F T E R O V E R H A U L
UNDER 100 km ridden
↑Don't select this with your mouse!