Another wheel day (and so on).
A customer brought in a hub that they said was a Racing 3DB
rear hub.
The customer who brought it in is a regular from S Prefecture,
but this hub isn't actually theirs—it's a favor for a friend.
With the Racing 3DB, it has 21H with rest phase,
and the spoke hole spacing is even with R-rest-R-L,
so removing the rest hole leaves R-R-L.
Essentially, it's like taking a normal 28H rim
and removing every other spoke on the non-drive side.
Since Racing 3DB rims are expensive,
we ended up building it with an AL22W rim's 28H
using a skip-hole pattern.
That was the original plan, but
when I looked closely at the hub, it was actually a Racing 4DB,
and to be more precise, a 2018–2021 model.
The current version is 2022 and later,
which has a different hub flange shape.
The Racing 3DB has radial lacing on the non-drive side
(naturally, since it's 7H),
but the Racing 4DB—regardless of generation—
has tangent lacing on the non-drive side
with 24H total (2:1 ratio, left and right combined).
For disc brake rear wheels,
when builders get nervous about brake stress
and use tangent lacing on the non-drive side,
the drive-side spokes tend to deform more
on those wheels.
As I always write, Roval is like this.
Like the original wheel, I didn't weave the final cross,
and where the original used 2.0–1.6–2.0mm
round butted spokes with equal diameter lacing left and right,
I did opposite-diameter lacing—black CX Sprint on the drive side
and black Campagnolo on the non-drive side.
The Racing 4DB rim height is
33mm for 2018–2022 models and
34mm for 2019 and later models.
The AL22W rim is, as the name suggests, 22mm tall,
so I took the original wheel's spokes too,
but couldn't reuse them.
After rebuilding, spoke mass increased slightly,
but wheel stiffness has gone up noticeably.
The spoke weight increase won't be noticeable,
and the rim is considerably lighter,
which you'll definitely feel the difference,
so the new wheel is lighter, stiffer, and snappier than the original.
Even though it's tangent laced on the non-drive side,
the drive side is radial lacing with a blunt final cross angle,
so the drive-side spokes don't feel loose
even in the original wheel's condition.
That's the difference from Roval.
The relationship between the spoke path on the drive side
and the hub flange is roughly tangential too.
That's also different from Roval.
In the case of that ridiculous Roval,
when rebuilding, we weave the final cross
(it's already woven in the original spec) and lace it,
but with this wheel, I was confident it would reach a state
where lacing isn't needed,
so I didn't weave the final cross to begin with.
Man, this wheel is so good I'd want to keep it
as a handling sample (patting myself on the back).
A customer brought in a hub that they said was a Racing 3DB
rear hub.
The customer who brought it in is a regular from S Prefecture,
but this hub isn't actually theirs—it's a favor for a friend.
With the Racing 3DB, it has 21H with rest phase,
and the spoke hole spacing is even with R-rest-R-L,
so removing the rest hole leaves R-R-L.
Essentially, it's like taking a normal 28H rim
and removing every other spoke on the non-drive side.
Since Racing 3DB rims are expensive,
we ended up building it with an AL22W rim's 28H
using a skip-hole pattern.
That was the original plan, but
when I looked closely at the hub, it was actually a Racing 4DB,
and to be more precise, a 2018–2021 model.
The current version is 2022 and later,
which has a different hub flange shape.
The Racing 3DB has radial lacing on the non-drive side
(naturally, since it's 7H),
but the Racing 4DB—regardless of generation—
has tangent lacing on the non-drive side
with 24H total (2:1 ratio, left and right combined).
For disc brake rear wheels,
when builders get nervous about brake stress
and use tangent lacing on the non-drive side,
the drive-side spokes tend to deform more
on those wheels.
As I always write, Roval is like this.
Like the original wheel, I didn't weave the final cross,
and where the original used 2.0–1.6–2.0mm
round butted spokes with equal diameter lacing left and right,
I did opposite-diameter lacing—black CX Sprint on the drive side
and black Campagnolo on the non-drive side.
The Racing 4DB rim height is
33mm for 2018–2022 models and
34mm for 2019 and later models.
The AL22W rim is, as the name suggests, 22mm tall,
so I took the original wheel's spokes too,
but couldn't reuse them.
After rebuilding, spoke mass increased slightly,
but wheel stiffness has gone up noticeably.
The spoke weight increase won't be noticeable,
and the rim is considerably lighter,
which you'll definitely feel the difference,
so the new wheel is lighter, stiffer, and snappier than the original.
Even though it's tangent laced on the non-drive side,
the drive side is radial lacing with a blunt final cross angle,
so the drive-side spokes don't feel loose
even in the original wheel's condition.
That's the difference from Roval.
The relationship between the spoke path on the drive side
and the hub flange is roughly tangential too.
That's also different from Roval.
In the case of that ridiculous Roval,
when rebuilding, we weave the final cross
(it's already woven in the original spec) and lace it,
but with this wheel, I was confident it would reach a state
where lacing isn't needed,
so I didn't weave the final cross to begin with.
Man, this wheel is so good I'd want to keep it
as a handling sample (patting myself on the back).