A customer brought in a wheel from Elite (エリート), a wheel brand unrelated to the bottle cage brand Elite, called the Drive.
It's a wheel with carbon fiber spokes.
Both wheels are severely out of true.
Just an aside, but because the DRIVE lettering on the rim runs straight vertically
while the rim itself curves, it creates an optical illusion
making it look like it's warped opposite to the rim's curve.
I aligned a straight spoke with the top line of the lettering.
The apparent bend in the spoke is just an optical illusion.
Also, I only just found out this wheel comes in a rim brake version.
The brake zone has a surface treatment similar to Campagnolo's
AC3 finish.
As I mentioned, this has carbon fiber spokes.
It's a Radial spoke pattern, but between the radial sections
there was pronounced radial runout in the phase where consecutive
spokes crossed to the right and right.
left rightright rightleft right
↑the red part here
Temporary centering.
The rim has shifted toward the non-freehub side,
but that's not all.
The runout was so severe that if you looked hard enough
you could find phases where the rim was shifted toward the freehub side too.
According to the customer, they took this wheel to a local shop for truing
and were told,
"We can't true this any further.
You should consult with the manufacturer or the distributor."
When I asked which local shop, they said
it was that idiot Shinoyama Highland Riders.
The customer claims that Murakami didn't adjust the wheel
when it was dropped off,
but that's absolutely not true.
This wheel requires removing the rim tape to turn the nipples,
and the tape had been peeled off and then a 23mm width Panaracer one
was applied afterward.
The original tape is 25mm wide, by the way.
It's way too unnatural for a wheel that's just been ridden,
and there's radial runout so severe in one of those right-right spoke phases
that you can see the rim bouncing on the truing stand.
That asshole Murakami is someone who has spent his entire life
repeatedly, again and again, again and again
without ever learning, blaming people for his own irreversible mistakes
he's fully aware of (→here）（→here），
so it's quite likely this wheel is another example of that.
I told the customer: "For example, if there were cracks or splinters
in the carbon spokes that Murakami caused,
and I only noticed them after starting work,
then I couldn't definitively rule out the possibility
that my work caused them.
So before I start working now, right in front of you,
I'm going to thoroughly, thoroughly examine the spokes for any defects,
check if the nipples are stripped,
and inspect everything else in detail before I begin."
And I examined that wheel very carefully.
This is advice for fellow mechanics:
be very careful with any equipment that Murakami has touched,
because if you don't approach it with suspicion
you might end up getting caught in unnecessary fallout.
You might even be justified in refusing the job
(even though the customer went to the trouble of bringing it in
seeking a second opinion, so it feels bad to turn them down).
After examining the wheel thoroughly
I determined there were no such defects,
so I started work and did radial and lateral truing and centering.
Even excluding the examination time,
just the actual work on the truing stand took
about as long as it would to build a front wheel from noM Lab (のむラボ).
Since the radial and lateral runout are now gone
and the centering is spot-on,
I showed the customer that result
so I won't post pictures here.
Moving on to the front wheel—it had almost no runout
and just slight lateral center shift.
The original rim tape hadn't been removed,
and to center it I tightened all the nipples on one side
(the left side, which had drifted, so the side with more spokes)
slightly, and I only had to turn nipples on about 3 spokes for lateral truing.
Of course, there's no radial runout—nothing like the rim bouncing visibly on the stand.
Given that these wheels had been used simultaneously at the same frequency,
yet their condition differed so drastically,
and given the presence of radial runout that simply couldn't develop from just riding,
the customer says Murakami didn't adjust the wheel,
never even took it, and brought it home the same day it was dropped off—
but he definitely touched it.
About 90% of the time I spent on the rear wheel truing stand
was, as I often compare it, undoing the random steps
some idiot had already messed with,
like solving a Rubik's Cube in reverse.
If the rear wheel had arrived at our shop
in the exact condition it actually is,
even without removing the rim tape after taking the tire off,
it would be obvious it's beyond what he can handle,
so there would be no need to remove the rim tape in the first place.
I've told this guy this countless times, but—
Don't tell lies that are this easy to see through.
It's a wheel with carbon fiber spokes.
Both wheels are severely out of true.
Just an aside, but because the DRIVE lettering on the rim runs straight vertically
while the rim itself curves, it creates an optical illusion
making it look like it's warped opposite to the rim's curve.
I aligned a straight spoke with the top line of the lettering.
The apparent bend in the spoke is just an optical illusion.
Also, I only just found out this wheel comes in a rim brake version.
The brake zone has a surface treatment similar to Campagnolo's
AC3 finish.
As I mentioned, this has carbon fiber spokes.
It's a Radial spoke pattern, but between the radial sections
there was pronounced radial runout in the phase where consecutive
spokes crossed to the right and right.
left rightright rightleft right
↑the red part here
Temporary centering.
The rim has shifted toward the non-freehub side,
but that's not all.
The runout was so severe that if you looked hard enough
you could find phases where the rim was shifted toward the freehub side too.
According to the customer, they took this wheel to a local shop for truing
and were told,
"We can't true this any further.
You should consult with the manufacturer or the distributor."
When I asked which local shop, they said
it was that idiot Shinoyama Highland Riders.
The customer claims that Murakami didn't adjust the wheel
when it was dropped off,
but that's absolutely not true.
This wheel requires removing the rim tape to turn the nipples,
and the tape had been peeled off and then a 23mm width Panaracer one
was applied afterward.
It's way too unnatural for a wheel that's just been ridden,
and there's radial runout so severe in one of those right-right spoke phases
that you can see the rim bouncing on the truing stand.
That asshole Murakami is someone who has spent his entire life
repeatedly, again and again, again and again
without ever learning, blaming people for his own irreversible mistakes
he's fully aware of (→here）（→here），
so it's quite likely this wheel is another example of that.
I told the customer: "For example, if there were cracks or splinters
in the carbon spokes that Murakami caused,
and I only noticed them after starting work,
then I couldn't definitively rule out the possibility
that my work caused them.
So before I start working now, right in front of you,
I'm going to thoroughly, thoroughly examine the spokes for any defects,
check if the nipples are stripped,
and inspect everything else in detail before I begin."
And I examined that wheel very carefully.
This is advice for fellow mechanics:
be very careful with any equipment that Murakami has touched,
because if you don't approach it with suspicion
you might end up getting caught in unnecessary fallout.
You might even be justified in refusing the job
(even though the customer went to the trouble of bringing it in
seeking a second opinion, so it feels bad to turn them down).
After examining the wheel thoroughly
I determined there were no such defects,
so I started work and did radial and lateral truing and centering.
Even excluding the examination time,
just the actual work on the truing stand took
about as long as it would to build a front wheel from noM Lab (のむラボ).
Since the radial and lateral runout are now gone
and the centering is spot-on,
I showed the customer that result
so I won't post pictures here.
Moving on to the front wheel—it had almost no runout
and just slight lateral center shift.
The original rim tape hadn't been removed,
and to center it I tightened all the nipples on one side
(the left side, which had drifted, so the side with more spokes)
slightly, and I only had to turn nipples on about 3 spokes for lateral truing.
Of course, there's no radial runout—nothing like the rim bouncing visibly on the stand.
Given that these wheels had been used simultaneously at the same frequency,
yet their condition differed so drastically,
and given the presence of radial runout that simply couldn't develop from just riding,
the customer says Murakami didn't adjust the wheel,
never even took it, and brought it home the same day it was dropped off—
but he definitely touched it.
About 90% of the time I spent on the rear wheel truing stand
was, as I often compare it, undoing the random steps
some idiot had already messed with,
like solving a Rubik's Cube in reverse.
If the rear wheel had arrived at our shop
in the exact condition it actually is,
even without removing the rim tape after taking the tire off,
it would be obvious it's beyond what he can handle,
so there would be no need to remove the rim tape in the first place.
I've told this guy this countless times, but—
Don't tell lies that are this easy to see through.