Another day, another wheel (and so on).
A customer brought in the front and rear wheels from a Cannondale complete bike—
heavy-duty aluminum rims that were completely mismatched to the frame's quality level,
what you'd call "iron shoe wheels."
Today I'm rebuilding the front wheel.
In the photo above, the tire label and valve hole aren't positioned straight up because
I placed it with the Shimano logo on the hub body facing straight up.
This wheel wasn't built with any consideration for the positional relationship between
the hub body markings as seen through the valve hole.
HB-TC500-12 28H
14g plain black spokes
44 reverse Italian lacing.
This HB-TC500 hub comes in three versions:
HB-TC500-12 for 100×12mm thru-axle,
HB-TC500-15 for 100×15mm thru-axle,
and HB-TC500-15-B for the BOOST standard
110×15mm thru-axle.
Unusually for a Shimano hub,
it uses cartridge bearings.
The two 100mm-width hubs have
a flange width of 60.2mm, but
the 110mm BOOST hub has
a flange width of 70.2mm—
all the dimensional increase from the BOOST conversion
is absorbed in the flange width difference.
This serious approach is consistent with
traditional Shimano MTB hubs.
The available hole counts are
28H, 32H, and 36H for all three (12, 15, and 15B),
and it would be nice to at least see a 24H version in the 12,
but Shimano doesn't offer that.
Instead, they release a barely-seen 36H version—
typical Shimano hub lack of sense.
I suppose for 24H rims, you're supposed to build them
with 36H hub holes skipped. (→here)
This time, I'm using just the hub and rebuilding the wheel with
a Gravel Tack 40mm-depth tubeless-ready rim
that the customer provided.
The spokes are CN Spoke 14g plain.
It's common for all manufacturers to equip budget complete bikes with cheap wheels,
but as I mentioned at the start, Cannondale has a tendency to
spec inappropriately cheap and heavy wheels for the frame's price point.
Just because it's a carbon rim doesn't mean
the rim weight is light (in fact, some are heavier than lightweight aluminum rims)—
Cannondale consistently uses
HG (Hologram) brand XERO wheels
across their complete bikes from Tiagra all the way up to Ultegra.
The spoke length is on the short side,
and there's a reason for that.
With the front wheel, there was almost no visible trace of it,
but the rear wheel was pretty bad—I'll write about that when I get to that wheel.
Unnecessarily long nipples—not because the rim holes require it—
I interpret as a sign of bad conscience.
The included tire is
a Vittoria Zaffiro—their cheapest model—
and even cheaper in the steel-bead version.
Since the tire is Vittoria, you'd think they'd use a Vittoria tube too,
but they cut costs ruthlessly by switching to Kenda.
Finished.
HB-TC500-12 28H
Per the customer's request, deliberately with silver spokes,
semi-CX sprint 44 reverse Italian lacing with spoke ties
and green aluminum nipples.
A customer brought in the front and rear wheels from a Cannondale complete bike—
heavy-duty aluminum rims that were completely mismatched to the frame's quality level,
what you'd call "iron shoe wheels."
Today I'm rebuilding the front wheel.
In the photo above, the tire label and valve hole aren't positioned straight up because
I placed it with the Shimano logo on the hub body facing straight up.
This wheel wasn't built with any consideration for the positional relationship between
the hub body markings as seen through the valve hole.
HB-TC500-12 28H
14g plain black spokes
44 reverse Italian lacing.
This HB-TC500 hub comes in three versions:
HB-TC500-12 for 100×12mm thru-axle,
HB-TC500-15 for 100×15mm thru-axle,
and HB-TC500-15-B for the BOOST standard
110×15mm thru-axle.
Unusually for a Shimano hub,
it uses cartridge bearings.
The two 100mm-width hubs have
a flange width of 60.2mm, but
the 110mm BOOST hub has
a flange width of 70.2mm—
all the dimensional increase from the BOOST conversion
is absorbed in the flange width difference.
This serious approach is consistent with
traditional Shimano MTB hubs.
The available hole counts are
28H, 32H, and 36H for all three (12, 15, and 15B),
and it would be nice to at least see a 24H version in the 12,
but Shimano doesn't offer that.
Instead, they release a barely-seen 36H version—
typical Shimano hub lack of sense.
I suppose for 24H rims, you're supposed to build them
with 36H hub holes skipped. (→here)
This time, I'm using just the hub and rebuilding the wheel with
a Gravel Tack 40mm-depth tubeless-ready rim
that the customer provided.
The spokes are CN Spoke 14g plain.
It's common for all manufacturers to equip budget complete bikes with cheap wheels,
but as I mentioned at the start, Cannondale has a tendency to
spec inappropriately cheap and heavy wheels for the frame's price point.
Just because it's a carbon rim doesn't mean
the rim weight is light (in fact, some are heavier than lightweight aluminum rims)—
Cannondale consistently uses
HG (Hologram) brand XERO wheels
across their complete bikes from Tiagra all the way up to Ultegra.
The spoke length is on the short side,
and there's a reason for that.
With the front wheel, there was almost no visible trace of it,
but the rear wheel was pretty bad—I'll write about that when I get to that wheel.
Unnecessarily long nipples—not because the rim holes require it—
I interpret as a sign of bad conscience.
The included tire is
a Vittoria Zaffiro—their cheapest model—
and even cheaper in the steel-bead version.
Since the tire is Vittoria, you'd think they'd use a Vittoria tube too,
but they cut costs ruthlessly by switching to Kenda.
Finished.
HB-TC500-12 28H
Per the customer's request, deliberately with silver spokes,
semi-CX sprint 44 reverse Italian lacing with spoke ties
and green aluminum nipples.