Another day of wheel building (and so on).
I received an MTB front wheel from a customer.
The rim is a WTB CZR i30,
and that wavy profile on the inner rim edge
isn't a crosswind-conscious design—
it's just the rim hole reinforcement
bulging up and creating that appearance.
It's an offset rim, but it's unusual that
not just the rim holes but also the valve hole is offset.
Since it's a hookless rim, I guess they're not planning
to run it tubeless with a tube backup.
The tires have a large cross-sectional area
and run at low pressure, so puncture repair
probably isn't meant to be a makeshift tube insertion,
but rather a proper sticky plug installation.
XTR BOOST hub HB-M9110-B 32H
fully butted spokes, reverse Italian lacing.
They want this rebuilt with a different hub.
The spokes were on the short side—about 2mm shorter
than what I'd use for this rim and this hub
with this lacing pattern.
The lengths are different left and right,
so they weren't cutting corners on spoke length.
It was built quite loose, but when tensioned properly,
the spoke end wouldn't reach the nipple end
no matter what.
The wheel center is spot on, and the radial runout—
that telltale sign of builder skill—was minimal,
so this looseness might not be sloppy work
but rather the builder's philosophy.
Even for an MTB wheel, this level of looseness
makes me skeptical, and since the customer
sent it to our shop, that speaks for itself.
I'll build it my way, to my standards.
Built.
ONYX Vesper MTB BOOST ISO hub
(ISO basically means a 6-bolt rotor interface)
32H, semi-CX sprint pattern, reverse Italian lacing,
no tie-ins.
With the high-low flanges, offset rim, and asymmetrical spoke lengths,
when I squeezed the final crosses on both sides simultaneously,
the deflection was so similar that the difference was imperceptible—
so I determined tie-ins were unnecessary.
I received an MTB front wheel from a customer.
The rim is a WTB CZR i30,
and that wavy profile on the inner rim edge
isn't a crosswind-conscious design—
it's just the rim hole reinforcement
bulging up and creating that appearance.
It's an offset rim, but it's unusual that
not just the rim holes but also the valve hole is offset.
Since it's a hookless rim, I guess they're not planning
to run it tubeless with a tube backup.
The tires have a large cross-sectional area
and run at low pressure, so puncture repair
probably isn't meant to be a makeshift tube insertion,
but rather a proper sticky plug installation.
XTR BOOST hub HB-M9110-B 32H
fully butted spokes, reverse Italian lacing.
They want this rebuilt with a different hub.
The spokes were on the short side—about 2mm shorter
than what I'd use for this rim and this hub
with this lacing pattern.
The lengths are different left and right,
so they weren't cutting corners on spoke length.
It was built quite loose, but when tensioned properly,
the spoke end wouldn't reach the nipple end
no matter what.
The wheel center is spot on, and the radial runout—
that telltale sign of builder skill—was minimal,
so this looseness might not be sloppy work
but rather the builder's philosophy.
Even for an MTB wheel, this level of looseness
makes me skeptical, and since the customer
sent it to our shop, that speaks for itself.
I'll build it my way, to my standards.
Built.
ONYX Vesper MTB BOOST ISO hub
(ISO basically means a 6-bolt rotor interface)
32H, semi-CX sprint pattern, reverse Italian lacing,
no tie-ins.
With the high-low flanges, offset rim, and asymmetrical spoke lengths,
when I squeezed the final crosses on both sides simultaneously,
the deflection was so similar that the difference was imperceptible—
so I determined tie-ins were unnecessary.