Another day of wheels (and so on).
A customer brought in a rear wheel from a Racing Zero 2WAY-FIT.
Part of the rim is dented in.
↑It's like this
...Damn it, I focused on the hub instead!
↑Skipping ahead in the timeline, but here's the rim by itself after disassembly.
Separately, I also received a rear wheel from a Racing 1 2WAY-FIT.
The customer wants me to build a wheel using this rim
by combining parts from both wheels.
The fact that this is a Racing 1 "2WAY-FIT" is
crucial to this job.
↑The spoke hole spacing isn't even—
there's a rest phase section.
The spacing in the rest phase section is
double that of the other sections, so
it forms a seven-fold repetition of right-left-right-rest pattern.
In theory, it's like taking a standard 28-hole
rear wheel with radial spokes on the non-drive side
and removing every other spoke on the non-drive side.
The differences between the original Racing Zero and Racing 1 are:
・Both have tie spokes; Zero is red, 1 is black
・Zero has aluminum nipples, 1 has brass nipples,
and the rim holes are smaller on the 1
・Both have aluminum hub flanges, but Zero has straight lines,
1 has curved lines
However, with the original 2WAY-FIT models,
・They ditched tie spokes in favor of
Campagnolo-style aluminum spokes—
Zero is red, 1 is black
・The 1 also got aluminum nipples, making the rims compatible
・Zero has a carbon hub flange and USB bearings
These became the differences.
The customer wants to keep using the Racing Zero hub and red spokes.
Otherwise, we could just inspect the Racing 1 rear wheel
and use it as-is.
If the Racing 1 wheel I was extracting the rim from
wasn't a 2WAY-FIT model,
I might not have been able to rebuild it.
I got it built.
Everything but the rim is Racing Zero,
only the rim is Racing 1.
I carefully disassembled both wheels.
This took more time than
the wheel building itself.
Since these are wheels from over 15 years ago,
many nipples were on the verge of seizing, but
I recovered 20 out of 21 black spokes,
and all 21 out of 21 red spokes—
I achieved 100% recovery on the reds.
The original hub is useful as a parts donor,
and the 20 black spokes are the right length, so
I'm returning them to the customer.
Regarding reusing spokes as much as possible,
I've written many times that "shops claiming that Racing Zero or Shamal Ultra
rim replacements require complete spoke replacement are fraudsters,"
but apparently the customer's local shop told them the same thing.
However, the customer noted that regarding the reason for that—
they think the shop is jacking up the price (adding 80-90,000 yen)
to make it seem like buying a new wheel is a better deal.
In my view, on top of that,
there's also the fact that
"they don't want the customer to find out that they actually can't build
wheels to factory quality standards,"
which is why they're desperately pushing the purchase of a different wheel.
With a model close to this one,
the Racing Zero 2WAY-FIT has been in continuous production since 2022,
though the rim changed from C15 to C17,
and at a retail price of 200,200 yen,
it's technically available.
I don't know what the customer paid for the used Racing 1 rear wheel,
but this job's labor was 14,000 yen,
and since we recovered all the red spokes,
there were no additional costs.
And I say this with certainty: the assembly precision
exceeds the factory standard.
This was possible because the Racing 1 rim
shows no distortion detectable against a glass surface plate,
the brake zone wear is minimal,
and it was a rim in good condition overall.
Indeed, it would be easier to just
get a new wheel instead of rebuilding....
That is, from the shop's perspective of making money without effort
while hiding their lack of technical skill.
A customer brought in a rear wheel from a Racing Zero 2WAY-FIT.
Part of the rim is dented in.
↑It's like this
...Damn it, I focused on the hub instead!
↑Skipping ahead in the timeline, but here's the rim by itself after disassembly.
Separately, I also received a rear wheel from a Racing 1 2WAY-FIT.
The customer wants me to build a wheel using this rim
by combining parts from both wheels.
The fact that this is a Racing 1 "2WAY-FIT" is
crucial to this job.
↑The spoke hole spacing isn't even—
there's a rest phase section.
The spacing in the rest phase section is
double that of the other sections, so
it forms a seven-fold repetition of right-left-right-rest pattern.
In theory, it's like taking a standard 28-hole
rear wheel with radial spokes on the non-drive side
and removing every other spoke on the non-drive side.
The differences between the original Racing Zero and Racing 1 are:
・Both have tie spokes; Zero is red, 1 is black
・Zero has aluminum nipples, 1 has brass nipples,
and the rim holes are smaller on the 1
・Both have aluminum hub flanges, but Zero has straight lines,
1 has curved lines
However, with the original 2WAY-FIT models,
・They ditched tie spokes in favor of
Campagnolo-style aluminum spokes—
Zero is red, 1 is black
・The 1 also got aluminum nipples, making the rims compatible
・Zero has a carbon hub flange and USB bearings
These became the differences.
The customer wants to keep using the Racing Zero hub and red spokes.
Otherwise, we could just inspect the Racing 1 rear wheel
and use it as-is.
If the Racing 1 wheel I was extracting the rim from
wasn't a 2WAY-FIT model,
I might not have been able to rebuild it.
I got it built.
Everything but the rim is Racing Zero,
only the rim is Racing 1.
I carefully disassembled both wheels.
This took more time than
the wheel building itself.
Since these are wheels from over 15 years ago,
many nipples were on the verge of seizing, but
I recovered 20 out of 21 black spokes,
and all 21 out of 21 red spokes—
I achieved 100% recovery on the reds.
The original hub is useful as a parts donor,
and the 20 black spokes are the right length, so
I'm returning them to the customer.
Regarding reusing spokes as much as possible,
I've written many times that "shops claiming that Racing Zero or Shamal Ultra
rim replacements require complete spoke replacement are fraudsters,"
but apparently the customer's local shop told them the same thing.
However, the customer noted that regarding the reason for that—
they think the shop is jacking up the price (adding 80-90,000 yen)
to make it seem like buying a new wheel is a better deal.
In my view, on top of that,
there's also the fact that
"they don't want the customer to find out that they actually can't build
wheels to factory quality standards,"
which is why they're desperately pushing the purchase of a different wheel.
With a model close to this one,
the Racing Zero 2WAY-FIT has been in continuous production since 2022,
though the rim changed from C15 to C17,
and at a retail price of 200,200 yen,
it's technically available.
I don't know what the customer paid for the used Racing 1 rear wheel,
but this job's labor was 14,000 yen,
and since we recovered all the red spokes,
there were no additional costs.
And I say this with certainty: the assembly precision
exceeds the factory standard.
This was possible because the Racing 1 rim
shows no distortion detectable against a glass surface plate,
the brake zone wear is minimal,
and it was a rim in good condition overall.
Indeed, it would be easier to just
get a new wheel instead of rebuilding....
That is, from the shop's perspective of making money without effort
while hiding their lack of technical skill.