Another wheel day (and so on).
Continuing from yesterday.
I'm rebuilding the rear wheel for the 454NSW.
The hub is a Cognition V2.
V2 means Version Two, and
with ZIPP's other examples, the first model had
a claimed weight of 88g up front and
188g in the rear, which is where the
88/188 hub gets its name—they've made versions up to V9.
With later models, the actual weight
has become far heavier than the numbers in the model name would suggest.
This Cognition hub claims that during coasting
when you stop pedaling, the flat ratchet ring operates
using magnetic force rather than spring force,
allegedly resulting in lighter resistance and so on,
but in reality it's actually the opposite.
When you hold the freebody by hand and rotate it backward,
the resistance is clearly heavier than a typical
pole-spring hub, and the ratchet sound is absolutely deafening.
I put both ends of the rear wheel without a sprocket
in a truing stand and gave the rim a spin,
and for some reason the ratchet made a terrible grinding noise.
The hub shell and ratchet rotation weren't synchronized,
but it's hard to tell visually on a spinning wheel, so
I put alignment tape on matching positions
on the freebody and hub shell while stationary and spun it—
the hub shell was rotating faster (←the opposite would be impossible)
and every so often the freebody's ratchet would engage
as it was dragged along by the hub shell's rotation.
ZIPP claims this Cognition hub also has superior water-sealing,
but that's also a lie. Water enters the hub through
that large round seal visible deep in the freebody,
causing the bearings inside the freebody to fail,
which causes the freebody to rotate eccentrically
relative to the hub shaft. The steel ratchet ring then
grinds away at the aluminum parts, and
through years of careless use
the inside of the hub becomes completely covered
in aluminum dust particles.
I've seen this happen before.
I think ZIPP's rims are fine, but
their hubs often have poor dimensions and design.
In the past they've released hubs with
radial lacing on the non-freewheel side or
zero-trail lacing (very close to left-right radial lacing)
(they even issued recalls), and
they've made hubs with extremely poor durability
(I mean *extremely* poor, not just poor).
The early ones were at least light,
but even that's not true anymore these days.
If they'd just sell rims and nipples,
shops that can't build wheels hand-build
wheels better than their terrible design rear hub
complete wheelsets regardless, but
unfortunately they don't sell rims as individual items anymore.
The 353/454NSW has a saw-tooth shaped inner rim—
it's the model with a 5 in the tens place—
and this model uses the Cognition hub,
which ZIPP wanted to present to the world,
as the flagship model hub.
When you step down to the mid-range 303/404 Firecrest,
it uses the ZR1, a rear hub that's otherwise fairly standard
except for having a finer ratchet with 66 engagement points.
At the even more affordable 303S level,
they use the 76/176 hub following the traditional naming convention.
That was the situation until relatively recently though.
With the newly released 353/454/858NSW,
they're using the "ZR1 SL," a lighter version of the ZR1
that's pretty much a standard hub, and
the ratchet is also 66 engagement points.
ZIPP strongly emphasizes that "the ZR1 SL hub is 30g lighter
than the Cognition hub," focusing heavily on weight,
whereas with the Cognition hub they
were strongly touting its unique mechanism.
They've swapped what features they're bragging about.
Wait, that's the thing—
that thing Americans do without hesitation (←somewhat prejudiced)
where they just quietly change the specs to pretend
the previous model with its flaws never existed.
So, thinking about it over the long term,
the Cognition hub—which ZIPP tacitly acknowledges
would cause problems—
I decided not to use it for the rebuild.
When I did the front wheel, I mentioned how the off-the-rack 454NSW
was by far the slowest of the seven pairs of wheels the customer owns,
so I asked which one was fastest—
they said Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5, and second was
the Racing Zero for rim brakes.
I initially thought all seven pairs were disc brake wheels,
but they also had rim brake wheels in the collection.
Not to be modest, but I actually think theoretically
the Racing Zero rear wheel has better engagement than
the Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5 rear wheel, but
other customers have said
"the No. 5 transfers power better than the Racing Zero."
This customer also said "there's no way the Racing Zero
has better engagement than that,"
but then explained: "Against a friend where it's basically even
with the Racing Zero, I almost always beat them
with the Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5—results are everything."
I see.
It's rebuilt.
Revodisc hub, 24H, black semi-comp 2:1 JIS lacing.
The brake wiring will come later.
↑Hard to see, but the image shows the top half of the ZIPP Z
in the cosmetic design of the rim.
The recent cosmetic design splits the enormous ZIPP logo
at the opposite phase of the rim, and when it's a sticker,
you often see the corners of the letters peeling up.
That peeling seems to have aerodynamic drawbacks that
outweigh the benefits of the dimple pattern, so
if it were mine I'd probably peel off the entire sticker.
This rim has a printed logo, so it's free from that hassle.
I wrote earlier that "ZIPP's rims are good, but"—
whether it's the hookless design or not,
the rim weight for 53/58mm height (tooth depth)
is surprisingly light, which amazed me.
Because they're only supplied as complete wheels
and offer thick first-owner warranty coverage,
opportunities to disassemble ZIPP wheels are rare,
so the actual measured weight of the 454NSW rim
is valuable information, which is why I have no intention of sharing it.
↑ugh this guy has no manners
Sorry for the wait! Please take a look at this image!
It's the front rim!
It's the rear rim!
↑Stop it!
Continuing from yesterday.
I'm rebuilding the rear wheel for the 454NSW.
The hub is a Cognition V2.
V2 means Version Two, and
with ZIPP's other examples, the first model had
a claimed weight of 88g up front and
188g in the rear, which is where the
88/188 hub gets its name—they've made versions up to V9.
With later models, the actual weight
has become far heavier than the numbers in the model name would suggest.
This Cognition hub claims that during coasting
when you stop pedaling, the flat ratchet ring operates
using magnetic force rather than spring force,
allegedly resulting in lighter resistance and so on,
but in reality it's actually the opposite.
When you hold the freebody by hand and rotate it backward,
the resistance is clearly heavier than a typical
pole-spring hub, and the ratchet sound is absolutely deafening.
I put both ends of the rear wheel without a sprocket
in a truing stand and gave the rim a spin,
and for some reason the ratchet made a terrible grinding noise.
The hub shell and ratchet rotation weren't synchronized,
but it's hard to tell visually on a spinning wheel, so
I put alignment tape on matching positions
on the freebody and hub shell while stationary and spun it—
the hub shell was rotating faster (←the opposite would be impossible)
and every so often the freebody's ratchet would engage
as it was dragged along by the hub shell's rotation.
ZIPP claims this Cognition hub also has superior water-sealing,
but that's also a lie. Water enters the hub through
that large round seal visible deep in the freebody,
causing the bearings inside the freebody to fail,
which causes the freebody to rotate eccentrically
relative to the hub shaft. The steel ratchet ring then
grinds away at the aluminum parts, and
through years of careless use
the inside of the hub becomes completely covered
in aluminum dust particles.
I've seen this happen before.
I think ZIPP's rims are fine, but
their hubs often have poor dimensions and design.
In the past they've released hubs with
radial lacing on the non-freewheel side or
zero-trail lacing (very close to left-right radial lacing)
(they even issued recalls), and
they've made hubs with extremely poor durability
(I mean *extremely* poor, not just poor).
The early ones were at least light,
but even that's not true anymore these days.
If they'd just sell rims and nipples,
shops that can't build wheels hand-build
wheels better than their terrible design rear hub
complete wheelsets regardless, but
unfortunately they don't sell rims as individual items anymore.
The 353/454NSW has a saw-tooth shaped inner rim—
it's the model with a 5 in the tens place—
and this model uses the Cognition hub,
which ZIPP wanted to present to the world,
as the flagship model hub.
When you step down to the mid-range 303/404 Firecrest,
it uses the ZR1, a rear hub that's otherwise fairly standard
except for having a finer ratchet with 66 engagement points.
At the even more affordable 303S level,
they use the 76/176 hub following the traditional naming convention.
That was the situation until relatively recently though.
With the newly released 353/454/858NSW,
they're using the "ZR1 SL," a lighter version of the ZR1
that's pretty much a standard hub, and
the ratchet is also 66 engagement points.
ZIPP strongly emphasizes that "the ZR1 SL hub is 30g lighter
than the Cognition hub," focusing heavily on weight,
whereas with the Cognition hub they
were strongly touting its unique mechanism.
They've swapped what features they're bragging about.
Wait, that's the thing—
that thing Americans do without hesitation (←somewhat prejudiced)
where they just quietly change the specs to pretend
the previous model with its flaws never existed.
So, thinking about it over the long term,
the Cognition hub—which ZIPP tacitly acknowledges
would cause problems—
I decided not to use it for the rebuild.
When I did the front wheel, I mentioned how the off-the-rack 454NSW
was by far the slowest of the seven pairs of wheels the customer owns,
so I asked which one was fastest—
they said Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5, and second was
the Racing Zero for rim brakes.
I initially thought all seven pairs were disc brake wheels,
but they also had rim brake wheels in the collection.
Not to be modest, but I actually think theoretically
the Racing Zero rear wheel has better engagement than
the Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5 rear wheel, but
other customers have said
"the No. 5 transfers power better than the Racing Zero."
This customer also said "there's no way the Racing Zero
has better engagement than that,"
but then explained: "Against a friend where it's basically even
with the Racing Zero, I almost always beat them
with the Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5—results are everything."
I see.
It's rebuilt.
Revodisc hub, 24H, black semi-comp 2:1 JIS lacing.
The brake wiring will come later.
↑Hard to see, but the image shows the top half of the ZIPP Z
in the cosmetic design of the rim.
The recent cosmetic design splits the enormous ZIPP logo
at the opposite phase of the rim, and when it's a sticker,
you often see the corners of the letters peeling up.
That peeling seems to have aerodynamic drawbacks that
outweigh the benefits of the dimple pattern, so
if it were mine I'd probably peel off the entire sticker.
This rim has a printed logo, so it's free from that hassle.
I wrote earlier that "ZIPP's rims are good, but"—
whether it's the hookless design or not,
the rim weight for 53/58mm height (tooth depth)
is surprisingly light, which amazed me.
Because they're only supplied as complete wheels
and offer thick first-owner warranty coverage,
opportunities to disassemble ZIPP wheels are rare,
so the actual measured weight of the 454NSW rim
is valuable information, which is why I have no intention of sharing it.
↑ugh this guy has no manners
Sorry for the wait! Please take a look at this image!
It's the front rim!
It's the rear rim!
↑Stop it!