A customer dropped off a rear wheel from a Campagnolo Eurus.
It had a clear lateral runout, enough that the customer had already pointed out the wobble themselves.
Upon inspection, I found that one spoke directly below the point of maximum runout was bent.
I was actually relieved the spoke was bent.
Because if the spoke weren't bent with that amount of runout,
there'd be a very high probability that the rim itself was warped.
↑The bent spoke
To make it clearer,
I've released the spoke tension.
I had a silver aluminum spoke of the same length in stock.
Fixed.
Next, the same customer brought in a front wheel from a Fulcrum Racing 1.
This was also pointed out by the customer first—I didn't spot it before they mentioned it—
but one spoke is deformed.
Unlike the Eurus, where the deformation was mainly in the left-right direction causing lateral rim runout,
this spoke didn't show much lateral runout directly below it.
Beyond just spoke replacement,
I also need to grease the hub, so
I need to remove the dust caps on both sides.
The dust caps have deteriorated from hydrolysis over the years and become brittle.
Plus, hubs from this era had
an adhesive like G17 applied generously to the hub flanges
to reduce noise from the spoke contact points,
and if this sticks to the back of the dust cap,
it becomes extremely difficult to remove without cracking it.
The hydrolysis challenge, but
I lost on the left-side cap.
But since I make a point of keeping this part in stock,
there's no real need to panic.
I had a black tie-type spoke of the same length in stock.
Fixed.
↑The replaced spoke
Setting aside front-to-back deformation,
if the deformation is clean and only in the left-right direction,
you can bend it back nearly straight
and apply spoke tension until
even the person who did the repair can't tell where the spoke was replaced.
But this spoke was severely crumpled in a complex way,
so that wasn't going to work.
Now to get back to the title.
Both of these wheels are tubular rim spec,
but tubular aluminum rims were only released as flagship models for aluminum rim wheelsets,
so these wheels represent the aluminum rim flagship models from before
Shamal Ultra and Racing Zero came out.
The other work I did besides spoke replacement was
inspection of the matching Eurus front wheel and Racing 1 rear wheel,
inspection of the front and rear wheels of the nomulabo Wheel No. 2,
and repair of an SKS floor pump.
I couldn't fix the floor pump though—it needed a 24mm socket that I didn't have.
The customer is from Hiroshima but came to Osaka for errands,
and while they were here dropped off 3 pairs of wheels and a floor pump at our shop.
His wife, waiting in the car parked out front, was getting irritated and
came into the shop once to ask
"Is it going to take much longer?"
I worked pretty fast, but I asked the customer
to tell her:
"There are only two spoke replacements here, and there's probably no other shop in Japan
that would fix them on the spot like we're doing,
so please wait a bit longer."
I'm pretty sure I wasn't lying.
It had a clear lateral runout, enough that the customer had already pointed out the wobble themselves.
Upon inspection, I found that one spoke directly below the point of maximum runout was bent.
I was actually relieved the spoke was bent.
Because if the spoke weren't bent with that amount of runout,
there'd be a very high probability that the rim itself was warped.
↑The bent spoke
To make it clearer,
I've released the spoke tension.
I had a silver aluminum spoke of the same length in stock.
Fixed.
Next, the same customer brought in a front wheel from a Fulcrum Racing 1.
This was also pointed out by the customer first—I didn't spot it before they mentioned it—
but one spoke is deformed.
Unlike the Eurus, where the deformation was mainly in the left-right direction causing lateral rim runout,
this spoke didn't show much lateral runout directly below it.
Beyond just spoke replacement,
I also need to grease the hub, so
I need to remove the dust caps on both sides.
The dust caps have deteriorated from hydrolysis over the years and become brittle.
Plus, hubs from this era had
an adhesive like G17 applied generously to the hub flanges
to reduce noise from the spoke contact points,
and if this sticks to the back of the dust cap,
it becomes extremely difficult to remove without cracking it.
The hydrolysis challenge, but
I lost on the left-side cap.
But since I make a point of keeping this part in stock,
there's no real need to panic.
I had a black tie-type spoke of the same length in stock.
Fixed.
↑The replaced spoke
Setting aside front-to-back deformation,
if the deformation is clean and only in the left-right direction,
you can bend it back nearly straight
and apply spoke tension until
even the person who did the repair can't tell where the spoke was replaced.
But this spoke was severely crumpled in a complex way,
so that wasn't going to work.
Now to get back to the title.
Both of these wheels are tubular rim spec,
but tubular aluminum rims were only released as flagship models for aluminum rim wheelsets,
so these wheels represent the aluminum rim flagship models from before
Shamal Ultra and Racing Zero came out.
The other work I did besides spoke replacement was
inspection of the matching Eurus front wheel and Racing 1 rear wheel,
inspection of the front and rear wheels of the nomulabo Wheel No. 2,
and repair of an SKS floor pump.
I couldn't fix the floor pump though—it needed a 24mm socket that I didn't have.
The customer is from Hiroshima but came to Osaka for errands,
and while they were here dropped off 3 pairs of wheels and a floor pump at our shop.
His wife, waiting in the car parked out front, was getting irritated and
came into the shop once to ask
"Is it going to take much longer?"
I worked pretty fast, but I asked the customer
to tell her:
"There are only two spoke replacements here, and there's probably no other shop in Japan
that would fix them on the spot like we're doing,
so please wait a bit longer."
I'm pretty sure I wasn't lying.