Today it's wheels again (and so on).
A customer dropped off
the rear wheel from a Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5 a while back.
It wasn't the wheel by itself that was left with us—
it was removed from the bike they rode in on.
By the way, the owner of this wheel
every time a wheel built with green nipples
comes in,
they say "Hehe... those green nipples are nice"
and go on praising their own kind.
We call him the "green nipple guy."
Anyway, the reason he came was
that one spoke had lost its tension.
Since it was on the non-drive side,
I figured the nipple had loosened and rotated
(on rear wheels, when nipple loosening occurs,
it's almost always on the non-drive side where tension is lower),
but the real cause was different.
The rim had deformed due to buckling,
with the rim dented inward on the inside diameter,
and directly beneath that point the spoke tension
had gone slack—that was the culprit.
In the image above, around the "5" mark on the ruler
is the apex of the lateral deformation bulge,
and around the "TR" of "ETRTO" on the rim tape
is the dent—the non-drive side rim hole.
↑I positioned the ruler toward the left side of the rim image.
So a larger gap appears on the right side.
It's like a seesaw pivoting at the "5" mark—
there's a lot of wobble.
The rim needs to be replaced,
but the customer already had
a new rim on hand,
so that day we just did a temporary fix
and agreed to do the full job on the day
they brought the rim in.
And that was today.
Transferring the rim...
It's built.
We replaced not just the rim but all the green nipples too.
Also, the bearings on the freewheel body
were shot, so we swapped those out as well.
Last time they came in, they ordered
Fizik bar tape (フィジーク bar tape) in green,
3mm thick—the same as what they're using now—
but unfortunately that's been discontinued.
I told them that the exact same color and feel
is still available in 2mm thickness,
and they said that was fine.
Looks like the color matters more than the thickness.
A customer dropped off
the rear wheel from a Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5 a while back.
It wasn't the wheel by itself that was left with us—
it was removed from the bike they rode in on.
By the way, the owner of this wheel
every time a wheel built with green nipples
comes in,
they say "Hehe... those green nipples are nice"
and go on praising their own kind.
We call him the "green nipple guy."
Anyway, the reason he came was
that one spoke had lost its tension.
Since it was on the non-drive side,
I figured the nipple had loosened and rotated
(on rear wheels, when nipple loosening occurs,
it's almost always on the non-drive side where tension is lower),
but the real cause was different.
The rim had deformed due to buckling,
with the rim dented inward on the inside diameter,
and directly beneath that point the spoke tension
had gone slack—that was the culprit.
In the image above, around the "5" mark on the ruler
is the apex of the lateral deformation bulge,
and around the "TR" of "ETRTO" on the rim tape
is the dent—the non-drive side rim hole.
↑I positioned the ruler toward the left side of the rim image.
So a larger gap appears on the right side.
It's like a seesaw pivoting at the "5" mark—
there's a lot of wobble.
The rim needs to be replaced,
but the customer already had
a new rim on hand,
so that day we just did a temporary fix
and agreed to do the full job on the day
they brought the rim in.
And that was today.
Transferring the rim...
It's built.
We replaced not just the rim but all the green nipples too.
Also, the bearings on the freewheel body
were shot, so we swapped those out as well.
Last time they came in, they ordered
Fizik bar tape (フィジーク bar tape) in green,
3mm thick—the same as what they're using now—
but unfortunately that's been discontinued.
I told them that the exact same color and feel
is still available in 2mm thickness,
and they said that was fine.
Looks like the color matters more than the thickness.