I received the front and rear wheels of a Racing Zero 2WAY-FIT from a customer.
They acquired it at auction, and asked me to return the wheels as-is if my assessment is that they're not worth fixing. However, since the rim's brake zone is clean with no wear or dents, they are worth repairing.
Starting with the front wheel.
The tape markers the customer applied indicate spokes with deformation.
They're marked with periodic table element stickers—quite stylish.
The spoke marked with potassium shows no twisting,
but the titanium and
hydrogen marked spokes show twisting caused by amateur truing attempts. They want these replaced.
The preliminary centering showed the rim shifted to the left,
but after replacing the spokes and doing truing and centering,
it's fixed.
Next, the rear wheel.
The customer reports the hub rotation feels sluggish.
It has a white anodized 11-speed Shimano freebody, but the generation doesn't match—it was swapped in later.
This rim is a tubeless-compatible rim, also known as a 2WAY-FIT rim.
With a standard clincher rim, nipples are inserted into the rim from the outer side of the valve hole during wheel building. But with a 2WAY-FIT rim, the outer hole is large enough to pass the nipple, which would interfere with tubeless valve installation. So they make a large hole on the inner side for the nipple and then seal it with a valve bushing afterward. That's why "a rim requiring a valve bushing = a 2WAY-FIT rim."
The rear wheel was missing its valve bushing, so
I supplied one.
This isn't just "nice to have"—it's an essential part.
I removed the hub axle.
In the image above, I've wiped away grease.
There's rust bloom just below the outer bearing of the freebody.
The ball race is from the era when they were black, before the current silver finish, but the ceramic bearing balls show only clean wear marks—no spalling.
The sluggish hub rotation should clear up with just replacing the freebody bearings.
I removed the outer bearing from the freebody.
This is from an era when the inner-facing side had no seal.
The interior was rusted, and when I spray parts cleaner, rust juice keeps coming out.
The bearing at the back of the freebody was in relatively better shape, but I expect that's the next one to fail, so I decided to replace it too.
↑The bearing on the right is the rear bearing.
I disassembled all the freebody parts and cleaned the interior.
I installed the rear bearing.
Current bearings are double-sealed, with the factory orientation being a black seal on the inner-facing side
and a blue seal on the outer-facing side, so I followed that orientation.
There's a bite mark on the spline at the only narrow tooth, from the next tooth clockwise. This came from installing the top cog with the wrong phase and then tightening the lockring.
For the preliminary centering, there was a significant amount of slack to take up (※).
※A delicate way of saying the wheel had drifted off-center over time
I did the truing and centering.
↑The replaced front wheel spokes.
The fact that they were recovered with their twist preserved proves the nipples were being turned without twisting the spokes.
As I mentioned at the start, the titanium and hydrogen marked spokes show twisting near the nipple, while the potassium marked spoke has almost no twist. However,
there's slight front-to-back deformation.
This is enough deformation to cause lateral runout, which is why whoever attempted amateur truing twisted this spoke in the first place.
Rather than replace this spoke, the lazy approach would be to adjust just its nipple to correct lateral runout only. Instead, whoever worked on it unnecessarily fiddled with two nearby nipples, twisting the spoke—that's what the wheel looked like when I received it.
They acquired it at auction, and asked me to return the wheels as-is if my assessment is that they're not worth fixing. However, since the rim's brake zone is clean with no wear or dents, they are worth repairing.
Starting with the front wheel.
The tape markers the customer applied indicate spokes with deformation.
They're marked with periodic table element stickers—quite stylish.
The spoke marked with potassium shows no twisting,
but the titanium and
hydrogen marked spokes show twisting caused by amateur truing attempts. They want these replaced.
The preliminary centering showed the rim shifted to the left,
but after replacing the spokes and doing truing and centering,
it's fixed.
Next, the rear wheel.
The customer reports the hub rotation feels sluggish.
It has a white anodized 11-speed Shimano freebody, but the generation doesn't match—it was swapped in later.
This rim is a tubeless-compatible rim, also known as a 2WAY-FIT rim.
With a standard clincher rim, nipples are inserted into the rim from the outer side of the valve hole during wheel building. But with a 2WAY-FIT rim, the outer hole is large enough to pass the nipple, which would interfere with tubeless valve installation. So they make a large hole on the inner side for the nipple and then seal it with a valve bushing afterward. That's why "a rim requiring a valve bushing = a 2WAY-FIT rim."
The rear wheel was missing its valve bushing, so
I supplied one.
This isn't just "nice to have"—it's an essential part.
I removed the hub axle.
In the image above, I've wiped away grease.
There's rust bloom just below the outer bearing of the freebody.
The ball race is from the era when they were black, before the current silver finish, but the ceramic bearing balls show only clean wear marks—no spalling.
The sluggish hub rotation should clear up with just replacing the freebody bearings.
I removed the outer bearing from the freebody.
This is from an era when the inner-facing side had no seal.
The interior was rusted, and when I spray parts cleaner, rust juice keeps coming out.
The bearing at the back of the freebody was in relatively better shape, but I expect that's the next one to fail, so I decided to replace it too.
↑The bearing on the right is the rear bearing.
I disassembled all the freebody parts and cleaned the interior.
I installed the rear bearing.
Current bearings are double-sealed, with the factory orientation being a black seal on the inner-facing side
and a blue seal on the outer-facing side, so I followed that orientation.
There's a bite mark on the spline at the only narrow tooth, from the next tooth clockwise. This came from installing the top cog with the wrong phase and then tightening the lockring.
For the preliminary centering, there was a significant amount of slack to take up (※).
※A delicate way of saying the wheel had drifted off-center over time
I did the truing and centering.
↑The replaced front wheel spokes.
The fact that they were recovered with their twist preserved proves the nipples were being turned without twisting the spokes.
As I mentioned at the start, the titanium and hydrogen marked spokes show twisting near the nipple, while the potassium marked spoke has almost no twist. However,
there's slight front-to-back deformation.
This is enough deformation to cause lateral runout, which is why whoever attempted amateur truing twisted this spoke in the first place.
Rather than replace this spoke, the lazy approach would be to adjust just its nipple to correct lateral runout only. Instead, whoever worked on it unnecessarily fiddled with two nearby nipples, twisting the spoke—that's what the wheel looked like when I received it.