Another wheel day (and so on...).
A customer brought in a front wheel built with Planet X
rim and hub.
The rim is an R50—a 50mm-deep
carbon tubular rim.
The hub is also Planet X,
20H Sapim Race outpoke radial lacing with
brass nipples.
The customer wanted this front wheel converted for disc brakes.
For a 20H disc front hub,
about the only option we can propose in-house is
the Tni LW Super,
but that's been on long-term backorder, so
the customer sourced a hub themselves...
↑This one.
But according to the customer, it's a sketchy hub,
so they asked me to first check whether
it's even possible to build a wheel with it.
The flange holes for straight spokes are
quite large and have an unusual shape.
According to the customer,
these look like T-head spokes—
straight spoke heads flattened down like
sliced king trumpet mushrooms.
So I did some investigating.
Sure enough, there is an angle where the spoke head can catch,
but the engagement is so shallow it's scary, and
at this angle, the spoke just pulls right out.
I tried inserting a cup-shaped washer
under the spoke head neck,
but that didn't fit quite right either.
Next, I tried treating it as hub-side nipple style,
and it fit perfectly.
I suspect this hub was designed
for carbon spokes using a hub-side nipple profile
similar to universal nipples.
It built up.
Mystery hub, 20H, semi-CX sprint,
forced left-right 2-cross lacing.
The spoke path had strong directional bias,
so I couldn't complete the final crossings.
Therefore, lacing cannot be done.
The customer wanted all silver spokes and silver nipples,
but this was actually a rare opportunity to play with
the hub-side nipple color palette
(since hub-side nipples are usually proprietary, so hubs using
universal nipples are quite uncommon).
A customer brought in a front wheel built with Planet X
rim and hub.
The rim is an R50—a 50mm-deep
carbon tubular rim.
The hub is also Planet X,
20H Sapim Race outpoke radial lacing with
brass nipples.
The customer wanted this front wheel converted for disc brakes.
For a 20H disc front hub,
about the only option we can propose in-house is
the Tni LW Super,
but that's been on long-term backorder, so
the customer sourced a hub themselves...
↑This one.
But according to the customer, it's a sketchy hub,
so they asked me to first check whether
it's even possible to build a wheel with it.
The flange holes for straight spokes are
quite large and have an unusual shape.
According to the customer,
these look like T-head spokes—
straight spoke heads flattened down like
sliced king trumpet mushrooms.
So I did some investigating.
Sure enough, there is an angle where the spoke head can catch,
but the engagement is so shallow it's scary, and
at this angle, the spoke just pulls right out.
I tried inserting a cup-shaped washer
under the spoke head neck,
but that didn't fit quite right either.
Next, I tried treating it as hub-side nipple style,
and it fit perfectly.
I suspect this hub was designed
for carbon spokes using a hub-side nipple profile
similar to universal nipples.
It built up.
Mystery hub, 20H, semi-CX sprint,
forced left-right 2-cross lacing.
The spoke path had strong directional bias,
so I couldn't complete the final crossings.
Therefore, lacing cannot be done.
The customer wanted all silver spokes and silver nipples,
but this was actually a rare opportunity to play with
the hub-side nipple color palette
(since hub-side nipples are usually proprietary, so hubs using
universal nipples are quite uncommon).