A customer dropped off the front and rear wheels of a Racing Zero Carbon DB for service.
The rear wheel is quite complex work, but I'll start with the front wheel for logistical reasons.
The customer provided red spokes and wants a spoke pattern with alternating colors.
This wheel has a complex spoke setup—the multi-spoke tangential lacing (2:1 ratio) is shared front-to-back and left-to-right, but the radial lacing with fewer spokes differs in length between front and rear. This means four locations use three different spoke lengths. We stock all the black spokes needed for this design.
Since the red spokes the customer provided were the tangential lacing type, I decided to make every other spoke red, starting from the valve hole and going counterclockwise when viewed from the right side of the wheel.
After replacing the spokes, I trued the wheel and centered it. I didn't photograph the original state, but there was a slight centering offset.
The reason the centering gauge position differs from the hub end is that there's reinforcing carbon fiber tape along the rim holes, and it's fairly thick, so
I position the centering gauge to avoid that tape.
Spokes replaced. I did the front wheel first because the black spokes I removed will be needed for the rear wheel's alternating pattern.
Now for the rear wheel.
The customer had tape on the wheel, but two spokes are bent. One is on the freewheel side and one on the non-freewheel side, but
two spokes back in the rotation direction also have damage severe enough to warrant replacement. Since there's wrap-around damage on both flanges across four consecutive spokes, the customer may have caught a thick branch while riding.
↑One of the spokes just before the taped ones
↑The spoke before that
The four consecutive spokes to replace are:
non-freewheel side
freewheel side
freewheel side
non-freewheel side
Since the rear wheel's red spoke will also be next to the valve hole, I can remove the black freewheel-side spoke from there. Combined with the tangential lacing black spokes removed from the front wheel that work on the rear freewheel side, the customer only needs to purchase two replacement spokes—the radial lacing non-freewheel side spokes.
Both wheels use CULT bearings, but the rear hub rotation was rough—the freewheel body bearings were clearly damaged.
In the photo above, I've removed the right end cap, but there's corrosion and the freewheel body won't come out by hand. So I extracted the hub axle from the hub body with the freewheel body still attached, then knocked the freewheel body out.
The rear hub axle.
After wiping away dirt. There's a corrosion ring directly below the bearing on the outside of the freewheel body.
After cleaning and derusting.
The right end cap had no obvious looseness, but the bearing play was large, causing the freewheel body to run eccentric during pedaling. This left scuff marks on the ratchet teeth of the hub body.
After replacing the spokes and truing. I'd noted the phase of the bent spokes beforehand and avoided it with my initial centering estimate—it turned out perfect. After all spoke replacement and truing, when I applied the centering gauge, the original centerline was right on. Aside from the five replaced or initially removed spokes, I barely touched any other nipples.
Fixed.
↑The section where I replaced four consecutive spokes
The red spokes obviously show where replacements were made, so tape markers aren't strictly necessary. But marking them anyway makes the work easier.
When I line up the front and rear wheels viewed from the right side,
The red spokes are on opposite sides—left on the front wheel, right on the rear—but they share one characteristic: the red spoke in the "porcupine direction" at the final non-interlaced crossing is visible without being blocked by black spokes.
↑Both wheels viewed from the left side look like this. In both images at the bottom, you can see the centerlock rotor mount and lock ring.
↑The replaced spokes. The nipples were somewhat seized, so I cut some of them to save time.
↑The replaced bearings. The one on the right is the front bearing (closer to the freewheel body), and the one on the left is the rear bearing. The rear bearing wasn't severely damaged, but it's the old specification with no seal on the inward-facing side. When eventually only the rear bearing fails in the future, I'd have to knock out the front bearing—which will hopefully still be healthy then. So it made sense to replace both now.
When Racing Zero Carbon DB first came out, the 6803-size bearings on the freewheel body should have been double-sealed. But this might be from the transition period when spare parts switched to the new spec first. Or perhaps due to overseas distributors only having Campagnolo-spec freewheel bodies in stock, the customer sourced a freewheel body from an older rim-brake Racing Zero and installed just the freewheel body. Some circumstance like that seems likely.
The rear wheel is quite complex work, but I'll start with the front wheel for logistical reasons.
The customer provided red spokes and wants a spoke pattern with alternating colors.
This wheel has a complex spoke setup—the multi-spoke tangential lacing (2:1 ratio) is shared front-to-back and left-to-right, but the radial lacing with fewer spokes differs in length between front and rear. This means four locations use three different spoke lengths. We stock all the black spokes needed for this design.
Since the red spokes the customer provided were the tangential lacing type, I decided to make every other spoke red, starting from the valve hole and going counterclockwise when viewed from the right side of the wheel.
After replacing the spokes, I trued the wheel and centered it. I didn't photograph the original state, but there was a slight centering offset.
The reason the centering gauge position differs from the hub end is that there's reinforcing carbon fiber tape along the rim holes, and it's fairly thick, so
I position the centering gauge to avoid that tape.
Spokes replaced. I did the front wheel first because the black spokes I removed will be needed for the rear wheel's alternating pattern.
Now for the rear wheel.
The customer had tape on the wheel, but two spokes are bent. One is on the freewheel side and one on the non-freewheel side, but
two spokes back in the rotation direction also have damage severe enough to warrant replacement. Since there's wrap-around damage on both flanges across four consecutive spokes, the customer may have caught a thick branch while riding.
↑One of the spokes just before the taped ones
↑The spoke before that
The four consecutive spokes to replace are:
non-freewheel side
freewheel side
freewheel side
non-freewheel side
Since the rear wheel's red spoke will also be next to the valve hole, I can remove the black freewheel-side spoke from there. Combined with the tangential lacing black spokes removed from the front wheel that work on the rear freewheel side, the customer only needs to purchase two replacement spokes—the radial lacing non-freewheel side spokes.
Both wheels use CULT bearings, but the rear hub rotation was rough—the freewheel body bearings were clearly damaged.
In the photo above, I've removed the right end cap, but there's corrosion and the freewheel body won't come out by hand. So I extracted the hub axle from the hub body with the freewheel body still attached, then knocked the freewheel body out.
The rear hub axle.
After wiping away dirt. There's a corrosion ring directly below the bearing on the outside of the freewheel body.
After cleaning and derusting.
The right end cap had no obvious looseness, but the bearing play was large, causing the freewheel body to run eccentric during pedaling. This left scuff marks on the ratchet teeth of the hub body.
After replacing the spokes and truing. I'd noted the phase of the bent spokes beforehand and avoided it with my initial centering estimate—it turned out perfect. After all spoke replacement and truing, when I applied the centering gauge, the original centerline was right on. Aside from the five replaced or initially removed spokes, I barely touched any other nipples.
Fixed.
↑The section where I replaced four consecutive spokes
The red spokes obviously show where replacements were made, so tape markers aren't strictly necessary. But marking them anyway makes the work easier.
When I line up the front and rear wheels viewed from the right side,
The red spokes are on opposite sides—left on the front wheel, right on the rear—but they share one characteristic: the red spoke in the "porcupine direction" at the final non-interlaced crossing is visible without being blocked by black spokes.
↑Both wheels viewed from the left side look like this. In both images at the bottom, you can see the centerlock rotor mount and lock ring.
↑The replaced spokes. The nipples were somewhat seized, so I cut some of them to save time.
↑The replaced bearings. The one on the right is the front bearing (closer to the freewheel body), and the one on the left is the rear bearing. The rear bearing wasn't severely damaged, but it's the old specification with no seal on the inward-facing side. When eventually only the rear bearing fails in the future, I'd have to knock out the front bearing—which will hopefully still be healthy then. So it made sense to replace both now.
When Racing Zero Carbon DB first came out, the 6803-size bearings on the freewheel body should have been double-sealed. But this might be from the transition period when spare parts switched to the new spec first. Or perhaps due to overseas distributors only having Campagnolo-spec freewheel bodies in stock, the customer sourced a freewheel body from an older rim-brake Racing Zero and installed just the freewheel body. Some circumstance like that seems likely.