Another wheel day (you know the drill).
I built the front wheel for Nomu Lab Wheel #5 using a hub
that came from a Shimano complete wheelset
a customer had given me.
WH-R501 front hub, 20H, CX-RAY
laced radial with outpoke.
Silver rim and turquoise nipples.
Shimano has never actually sold
a 20H front hub as a standalone hub.
The next spoke count down from 24H is, oddly enough, 18H.
Aside from the 7801 rear wheel and their current
disc brake front wheels, Shimano wheels are
pretty much garbage—worse than your average hand-built wheel.
It's honestly harder to build a wheel that doesn't ride better than a Shimano wheel.
Back during the rim brake era, if Shimano had only offered
20H front and 24H rear hubs from Dura-Ace down to 105,
then proper shops could have built decent wheels using those hubs,
while shops that couldn't would be exposed for peddling
the Shimano dreck—you know, as punishment for not actually
knowing how to build wheels. That would've been a nice way
to sort everyone out, is what I thought.
I built the front wheel for Nomu Lab Wheel #5 using a hub
that came from a Shimano complete wheelset
a customer had given me.
WH-R501 front hub, 20H, CX-RAY
laced radial with outpoke.
Silver rim and turquoise nipples.
Shimano has never actually sold
a 20H front hub as a standalone hub.
The next spoke count down from 24H is, oddly enough, 18H.
Aside from the 7801 rear wheel and their current
disc brake front wheels, Shimano wheels are
pretty much garbage—worse than your average hand-built wheel.
It's honestly harder to build a wheel that doesn't ride better than a Shimano wheel.
Back during the rim brake era, if Shimano had only offered
20H front and 24H rear hubs from Dura-Ace down to 105,
then proper shops could have built decent wheels using those hubs,
while shops that couldn't would be exposed for peddling
the Shimano dreck—you know, as punishment for not actually
knowing how to build wheels. That would've been a nice way
to sort everyone out, is what I thought.