A customer brought in a complete wheelset from Chikuwa Ringyō (a Japanese wheel builder).
These are wheels built with carbon spokes.
I have both front and rear wheels, but
let's start with the rear wheel first.
It has a hookless rim with no rim tape holes,
and only the rear rim is offset.
These are off-the-shelf wheels with no custom orders from the customer,
so the customer is the first owner of this wheelset.
Even when ridden by a woman weighing under 50kg,
the wheels feel noticeably mushy with an indescribable lack of responsiveness,
so the customer brought them in hoping we could improve things.
ZTTO straight-spoke rear hub, 24-hole
Built with forced 2-cross on both sides.
Both the hub and rim are standard items that can also be built with steel spokes
and generic nipples.
The carbon spokes are dimensioned so they can replace
the spoke section of a standard straight-spoke wheel.
To begin with, even the freewheel side, which should be high-tension,
felt slack and spongy when I squeezed the final crossings.
The non-freewheel side is even mushier.
It's not because the spokes are made of carbon—
they're simply under-tensioned.
In terms of spoke tension, this is basically an incomplete wheel.
Even accounting for the fact that I tend to build wheels with higher tension than most,
this is terrible.
The rim was offset to the right side.
With wheels from this manufacturer,
the wheel centers often come out off-center.
I could chalk up a paper-thin amount to measurement gauge precision,
but this is a "how did this pass quality control?" level of misalignment.
Whether these were built overseas in China or
"casually assembled" in Japan, I don't know.
If it's the former, they're not doing full QC checks on every wheel,
and if it's the latter, their standard for what counts as "finished" is far too low.
Wheels with runout originating from the freewheel body
will experience rim drift to the right with age and use—that's true—
but I only expect this to happen with
metal spokes (steel, aluminum, and probably titanium too).
With these carbon spokes with only minimal metal content,
I don't think the rim would drift due to spoke elongation over time.
Also, looking at the condition of the freewheel spline usage,
it doesn't look heavily used,
and I'll be asking the customer about their usage history,
so I can safely say
this center misalignment is the same as when the wheel left the factory.
Since both the hub and rim are generic items,
if weight increase is acceptable,
I'm 100% confident I could build a wheel that actually rides much better
using steel spokes with this same hub.
But this time, I'm going to do my best
by re-tensioning as much as possible
without changing this hub or these spokes.
That said, I'm not going to ignore the wheel's lifespan
and just crank it as tight as possible.
I'll be thoughtful about it and leave room
for future truing adjustments.
I tensioned the freewheel side as much as possible.
Even though the rim was originally offset to the right,
pulling the rim this far just by tensioning the freewheel side—
the side that produces minimal lateral movement—is normally impossible.
Specifically, I did seven 90-degree turns.
I broke those seven turns into four, two, and one.
From there, one-sided tensioning of the non-freewheel side
to center the wheel means all the nipples got tightened.
I centered the wheel and did both radial and lateral truing.
For radial runout, eight consecutive rim holes' worth of the rim
was dished outward.
Since it's 24-hole, roughly one-third of the wheel's circumference
was slightly bulging outward.
The amount is small, so on a non-rim-brake wheel, it would be undetectable.
Also, since these are hookless rims,
I'd guess the tires are run at under 4 bar pressure,
so you wouldn't feel the radial runout through the tire deformation and ride feel.
The nipple wrench grip also hasn't stripped the corners,
but the black anodizing is scuffed and peeling in places—
that was already the case when I received it.
I can't tell if the tool edge is too sharp
or if the dimension tolerances are loose.
When I pulled the rim all the way to the right,
the original center misalignment plus 1.75 turns of tightening,
and then the non-freewheel side tightening needed to get it dead center
was just over one turn—
four 90-degree turns plus fine truing adjustments
weighted toward the non-freewheel side,
and the center came out perfectly.
I could tension it more,
but beyond this point, the spoke deformation per nipple rotation
decreases dramatically,
so there's not much point.
Of the spokes on the high-tension (freewheel) side,
one spoke had a different flattened profile shape from the others.
The cross-sectional area looks nearly the same,
and since these are carbon spokes,
even if they were both around 65% relative density,
I don't think you'd get the kind of issues you see
when mixing CX-RAY with Lasers in the same wheel.
But I can't tell if this is just
dimensional variation within the same spoke model
or if a different spoke got mixed in.
If someone said "that's just how precise this manufacturer's carbon spokes are,"
I wouldn't care,
but whether the user will accept it is another story.
A wider shot might make it clearer.
This spoke, while not truly round in cross-section,
has a slightly stockier flattened profile than the others—
I marked it with tape for reference.
Now for the front wheel.
This one has an unbranded hub,
24-hole, forced 2-cross on both sides.
It's not as bad as the rear wheel,
but it's still under-tensioned—not catastrophically so, but noticeably.
If both wheels had been this soft,
the customer might not have decided to send them to us.
Given what happened with the rear wheel,
I checked all the spokes, and unlike the rear wheel,
I found one spoke on the low-tension right side
that's almost round in profile.
The rear wheel's mismatched spoke was
slightly stockier but could still be called flattened,
but this one is much rounder,
nearly circular. When I measured the thinnest part
of the other flattened spokes with calipers,
this nearly-round spoke
won't pass through the calipers from any angle.
Since both of the two wheels I received
have this issue,
I'd recommend anyone using the same wheels
check theirs carefully.
Though honestly, if they say "it's the spec,"
there's not much users can do about it.
The front wheel also had center misalignment, though not as severe as the rear.
↑About this much
However, there was lateral runout on both sides,
so if you looked hard enough, there might be a phase
where the temporary center is dead-on.
I can't say for certain whether the lateral runout was there from the start
or developed with use,
but since the rear wheel had almost no lateral runout,
I think it was there from day one.
By tensioning the high-tension side,
I pulled the rim as far as I could.
Five 90-degree turns plus
lateral truing weighted heavily on the high-tension side,
which already took out most of the runout at this point,
so that's about 1.25 turns of tightening.
Then I tightened the low-tension side
by two 90-degree turns—half a turn.
I thought it needed maybe another half-turn to center,
so I tried it.
The rim drifted past center
to the opposite side.
↑About this much
In cases like this, I usually back off slightly
on the over-tightened low-tension side,
but this time I slightly tightened the high-tension side more
to center the wheel.
As for this wheel, setting aside the apparent spoke mix-up,
I don't think the carbon spokes themselves are the problem.
The issues are spoke tension and assembly precision.
The former was noticeable to the customer,
which is why we're addressing it.
With this hub and these spokes,
I've done the best I can.
These are wheels built with carbon spokes.
I have both front and rear wheels, but
let's start with the rear wheel first.
It has a hookless rim with no rim tape holes,
and only the rear rim is offset.
These are off-the-shelf wheels with no custom orders from the customer,
so the customer is the first owner of this wheelset.
Even when ridden by a woman weighing under 50kg,
the wheels feel noticeably mushy with an indescribable lack of responsiveness,
so the customer brought them in hoping we could improve things.
ZTTO straight-spoke rear hub, 24-hole
Built with forced 2-cross on both sides.
Both the hub and rim are standard items that can also be built with steel spokes
and generic nipples.
The carbon spokes are dimensioned so they can replace
the spoke section of a standard straight-spoke wheel.
To begin with, even the freewheel side, which should be high-tension,
felt slack and spongy when I squeezed the final crossings.
The non-freewheel side is even mushier.
It's not because the spokes are made of carbon—
they're simply under-tensioned.
In terms of spoke tension, this is basically an incomplete wheel.
Even accounting for the fact that I tend to build wheels with higher tension than most,
this is terrible.
The rim was offset to the right side.
With wheels from this manufacturer,
the wheel centers often come out off-center.
I could chalk up a paper-thin amount to measurement gauge precision,
but this is a "how did this pass quality control?" level of misalignment.
Whether these were built overseas in China or
"casually assembled" in Japan, I don't know.
If it's the former, they're not doing full QC checks on every wheel,
and if it's the latter, their standard for what counts as "finished" is far too low.
Wheels with runout originating from the freewheel body
will experience rim drift to the right with age and use—that's true—
but I only expect this to happen with
metal spokes (steel, aluminum, and probably titanium too).
With these carbon spokes with only minimal metal content,
I don't think the rim would drift due to spoke elongation over time.
Also, looking at the condition of the freewheel spline usage,
it doesn't look heavily used,
and I'll be asking the customer about their usage history,
so I can safely say
this center misalignment is the same as when the wheel left the factory.
Since both the hub and rim are generic items,
if weight increase is acceptable,
I'm 100% confident I could build a wheel that actually rides much better
using steel spokes with this same hub.
But this time, I'm going to do my best
by re-tensioning as much as possible
without changing this hub or these spokes.
That said, I'm not going to ignore the wheel's lifespan
and just crank it as tight as possible.
I'll be thoughtful about it and leave room
for future truing adjustments.
I tensioned the freewheel side as much as possible.
Even though the rim was originally offset to the right,
pulling the rim this far just by tensioning the freewheel side—
the side that produces minimal lateral movement—is normally impossible.
Specifically, I did seven 90-degree turns.
I broke those seven turns into four, two, and one.
From there, one-sided tensioning of the non-freewheel side
to center the wheel means all the nipples got tightened.
I centered the wheel and did both radial and lateral truing.
For radial runout, eight consecutive rim holes' worth of the rim
was dished outward.
Since it's 24-hole, roughly one-third of the wheel's circumference
was slightly bulging outward.
The amount is small, so on a non-rim-brake wheel, it would be undetectable.
Also, since these are hookless rims,
I'd guess the tires are run at under 4 bar pressure,
so you wouldn't feel the radial runout through the tire deformation and ride feel.
The nipple wrench grip also hasn't stripped the corners,
but the black anodizing is scuffed and peeling in places—
that was already the case when I received it.
I can't tell if the tool edge is too sharp
or if the dimension tolerances are loose.
When I pulled the rim all the way to the right,
the original center misalignment plus 1.75 turns of tightening,
and then the non-freewheel side tightening needed to get it dead center
was just over one turn—
four 90-degree turns plus fine truing adjustments
weighted toward the non-freewheel side,
and the center came out perfectly.
I could tension it more,
but beyond this point, the spoke deformation per nipple rotation
decreases dramatically,
so there's not much point.
Of the spokes on the high-tension (freewheel) side,
one spoke had a different flattened profile shape from the others.
The cross-sectional area looks nearly the same,
and since these are carbon spokes,
even if they were both around 65% relative density,
I don't think you'd get the kind of issues you see
when mixing CX-RAY with Lasers in the same wheel.
But I can't tell if this is just
dimensional variation within the same spoke model
or if a different spoke got mixed in.
If someone said "that's just how precise this manufacturer's carbon spokes are,"
I wouldn't care,
but whether the user will accept it is another story.
A wider shot might make it clearer.
This spoke, while not truly round in cross-section,
has a slightly stockier flattened profile than the others—
I marked it with tape for reference.
Now for the front wheel.
This one has an unbranded hub,
24-hole, forced 2-cross on both sides.
It's not as bad as the rear wheel,
but it's still under-tensioned—not catastrophically so, but noticeably.
If both wheels had been this soft,
the customer might not have decided to send them to us.
Given what happened with the rear wheel,
I checked all the spokes, and unlike the rear wheel,
I found one spoke on the low-tension right side
that's almost round in profile.
The rear wheel's mismatched spoke was
slightly stockier but could still be called flattened,
but this one is much rounder,
nearly circular. When I measured the thinnest part
of the other flattened spokes with calipers,
this nearly-round spoke
won't pass through the calipers from any angle.
Since both of the two wheels I received
have this issue,
I'd recommend anyone using the same wheels
check theirs carefully.
Though honestly, if they say "it's the spec,"
there's not much users can do about it.
The front wheel also had center misalignment, though not as severe as the rear.
↑About this much
However, there was lateral runout on both sides,
so if you looked hard enough, there might be a phase
where the temporary center is dead-on.
I can't say for certain whether the lateral runout was there from the start
or developed with use,
but since the rear wheel had almost no lateral runout,
I think it was there from day one.
By tensioning the high-tension side,
I pulled the rim as far as I could.
Five 90-degree turns plus
lateral truing weighted heavily on the high-tension side,
which already took out most of the runout at this point,
so that's about 1.25 turns of tightening.
Then I tightened the low-tension side
by two 90-degree turns—half a turn.
I thought it needed maybe another half-turn to center,
so I tried it.
The rim drifted past center
to the opposite side.
↑About this much
In cases like this, I usually back off slightly
on the over-tightened low-tension side,
but this time I slightly tightened the high-tension side more
to center the wheel.
As for this wheel, setting aside the apparent spoke mix-up,
I don't think the carbon spokes themselves are the problem.
The issues are spoke tension and assembly precision.
The former was noticeable to the customer,
which is why we're addressing it.
With this hub and these spokes,
I've done the best I can.