A customer dropped off a
CADEX 42mm high rim wheel with us.
Since this isn't the first owner's wheel
in other words, it was bought at auction,
they wanted an inspection before using it.
The model name is "CADEX 42 Tubeless",
and it's a rim brake model.
The disc brake version
is called "CADEX 42 Disc Tubeless", so
they still follow
the naming convention of
"rim brake unless otherwise noted,
and if it's disc brake,
then it's specified in the model name".
It's a hookless rim with an internal width of 19.4mm.
At this point, you could say there are virtually no newly developed rim brake framesets anymore,
and many manufacturers and brands don't even have rim brake framesets in their lineup,
but if you were to take a 25mm internal width hookless rim like a ZIPP
for a rim brake wheel and install it on
one of those final generation framesets,
a 28mm tire would measure around 30mm wide
and could interfere with the frame or fork.
Considering that possibility,
I thought they might have prepared a somewhat narrower internal width
for rim brake use compared to modern rims,
but it turns out the tubeless model
also has the same 19.4mm internal width.
With models that came after this,
both rim brake and disc brake versions
have an internal width of 22.4mm.
For a rim brake front wheel,
it had significant hub centering issues.
At GIANT dealerships,
not only CADEX spoke replacements but even simple truing
are often sent to the distributor rather than done in-shop
(I don't know if they're explicitly told not to touch them),
but with CADEX wheels that just came back from
GIANT's distributor and haven't been touched by the customer or shop since,
from what I've seen, a considerable proportion
have wheel center misalignment.
If it were 1 out of 10, I wouldn't say something like this.
They need to improve their work.
I don't know if this wheel was touched by GIANT's distributor,
but I doubt it.
Someone had done a half-hearted truing job focusing "only" on lateral runout,
and there was not only hub centering issues but also radial runout.
The customer saw the radial runout before correction.
And in particular, at the phase where radial runout was severe,
the nipple gripping surfaces used to hold rotation in check with the tool were stripped.
On carbon spoke wheels, this part can be either 3.4mm or 3.2mm across flats,
and I've even seen the ridiculous wheels where they're mixed
(→here),
but on the CADEX, all of them were 3.4mm.
If they had been 3.2mm, there would be a possibility the stripping happened from
the mistake or shortcut of putting a 3.4mm tool on
3.2mm across flats,
but a 3.2mm tool would never fit on 3.4mm across flats,
so that's not possible.
So the only reason the nipples are stripped
is because whoever did it was just incompetent.
I did the truing and hub centering.
Most of the truing work was radial runout correction,
and the process was like fixing a Rubik's cube that a monkey had scrambled.
I can't solve a Rubik's cube myself,
but if there's a sequence of steps that were overdone on a wheel,
I can usually figure it out.
I didn't take an overall photo of the rear wheel,
but the initial center was spot on and the runout was minimal.
I thought maybe nobody had messed with it unlike the front wheel,
but while it's better than the front, for some reason
most of the nipples had light stripping marks. What the heck.
CADEX 42mm high rim wheel with us.
Since this isn't the first owner's wheel
they wanted an inspection before using it.
The model name is "CADEX 42 Tubeless",
and it's a rim brake model.
The disc brake version
is called "CADEX 42 Disc Tubeless", so
they still follow
the naming convention of
"rim brake unless otherwise noted,
and if it's disc brake,
then it's specified in the model name".
It's a hookless rim with an internal width of 19.4mm.
At this point, you could say there are virtually no newly developed rim brake framesets anymore,
and many manufacturers and brands don't even have rim brake framesets in their lineup,
but if you were to take a 25mm internal width hookless rim like a ZIPP
for a rim brake wheel and install it on
one of those final generation framesets,
a 28mm tire would measure around 30mm wide
and could interfere with the frame or fork.
Considering that possibility,
I thought they might have prepared a somewhat narrower internal width
for rim brake use compared to modern rims,
but it turns out the tubeless model
also has the same 19.4mm internal width.
With models that came after this,
both rim brake and disc brake versions
have an internal width of 22.4mm.
For a rim brake front wheel,
it had significant hub centering issues.
At GIANT dealerships,
not only CADEX spoke replacements but even simple truing
are often sent to the distributor rather than done in-shop
(I don't know if they're explicitly told not to touch them),
but with CADEX wheels that just came back from
GIANT's distributor and haven't been touched by the customer or shop since,
from what I've seen, a considerable proportion
have wheel center misalignment.
If it were 1 out of 10, I wouldn't say something like this.
They need to improve their work.
I don't know if this wheel was touched by GIANT's distributor,
but I doubt it.
Someone had done a half-hearted truing job focusing "only" on lateral runout,
and there was not only hub centering issues but also radial runout.
The customer saw the radial runout before correction.
And in particular, at the phase where radial runout was severe,
the nipple gripping surfaces used to hold rotation in check with the tool were stripped.
On carbon spoke wheels, this part can be either 3.4mm or 3.2mm across flats,
and I've even seen the ridiculous wheels where they're mixed
(→here),
but on the CADEX, all of them were 3.4mm.
If they had been 3.2mm, there would be a possibility the stripping happened from
the mistake or shortcut of putting a 3.4mm tool on
3.2mm across flats,
but a 3.2mm tool would never fit on 3.4mm across flats,
so that's not possible.
So the only reason the nipples are stripped
is because whoever did it was just incompetent.
I did the truing and hub centering.
Most of the truing work was radial runout correction,
and the process was like fixing a Rubik's cube that a monkey had scrambled.
I can't solve a Rubik's cube myself,
but if there's a sequence of steps that were overdone on a wheel,
I can usually figure it out.
I didn't take an overall photo of the rear wheel,
but the initial center was spot on and the runout was minimal.
I thought maybe nobody had messed with it unlike the front wheel,
but while it's better than the front, for some reason
most of the nipples had light stripping marks. What the heck.