A customer brought in a Nepest Nova
carbon spoke wheel rear rim for service.
When pedaling, there was a crunching sound,
so I took a close look at the wheel and...
Found a cracked carbon spoke.
The customer wants it replaced.
They brought the spare spokes that came as wheel accessories.
There's another carbon spoke wheel from a different brand—
Elite's Drive (→here)—and
the packaging format for the wheel's included spares
(one from front-right, front-left, rear-right, rear-left,
four spokes total) was identical.
The temporary truing was spot-on.
This wheel uses VONOA carbon spokes.
To prevent nipple rotation, it uses
a special tool that grips three of the four slits.
Unlike wheels with nipples that use 3.4mm flats for grip,
this anti-rotation force is weaker.
Combined with aged VONOA spokes and nipples
that tend to seize up over time,
the resistance when turning the nipple becomes quite substantial.
So fine truing adjustments are okay,
but if there's a centering error requiring me to turn
all the nipples on one side of the wheel,
it becomes extremely labor-intensive.
So that temporary truing being spot-on was a lifesaver.
At the same time I checked the front wheel the customer happened to bring along,
and it had a fine centering error
that actually took more work time than the rear spoke replacement.
Done. The new spoke and nipple
turn smooth and easy.
These four spare spokes too
came in two long and two short lengths.
On an equal-flange wheel,
the long ones would be front-right and rear-left,
but this wheel uses 2:1 lacing,
so the long ones are for the multi-spoke tangent-laced side.
Of those, the long ones differed considerably in length,
but the short ones were close enough that
in a pinch you could swap them between positions.
This rear-left unexpectedly used
the shorter of the short two.
The rear-left should end up longer than the front-right,
but hub dimensions and such might be involved.
↑VONOA laser-etched on the spoke head side.
↑The Nepest anti-rotation tool,
↑didn't quite fit the Scope Cycling Artec
anti-rotation tool. Slightly incompatible.
↑The replaced spoke
↑A thoughtful design detail—
easy to see how far it's cracked.
Considerate engineering.
Let me zoom in and examine
exactly how the break occurred.
The customer has no recollection
of what might have caused it—no crashes or impacts they remember.
It looks like a wedge-driving impact from the side.
It didn't result in complete fracture, but
since the fiber structure runs mainly lengthwise,
it's split like bamboo from the transverse break point.
When I turn the nut-style nipple by hand,
there's a fine gritty resistance,
like it's grinding sand.
Under spoke tension, this becomes
a sharp, binding resistance that makes
later adjustments very difficult.
There probably aren't many shops with the skill
to properly work aged VONOA carbon spokes.
Actually, before that, most shops can't even
do a decent initial inspection and adjustment on new ones.
carbon spoke wheel rear rim for service.
When pedaling, there was a crunching sound,
so I took a close look at the wheel and...
Found a cracked carbon spoke.
The customer wants it replaced.
They brought the spare spokes that came as wheel accessories.
There's another carbon spoke wheel from a different brand—
Elite's Drive (→here)—and
the packaging format for the wheel's included spares
(one from front-right, front-left, rear-right, rear-left,
four spokes total) was identical.
The temporary truing was spot-on.
This wheel uses VONOA carbon spokes.
To prevent nipple rotation, it uses
a special tool that grips three of the four slits.
Unlike wheels with nipples that use 3.4mm flats for grip,
this anti-rotation force is weaker.
Combined with aged VONOA spokes and nipples
that tend to seize up over time,
the resistance when turning the nipple becomes quite substantial.
So fine truing adjustments are okay,
but if there's a centering error requiring me to turn
all the nipples on one side of the wheel,
it becomes extremely labor-intensive.
So that temporary truing being spot-on was a lifesaver.
and it had a fine centering error
that actually took more work time than the rear spoke replacement.
Done. The new spoke and nipple
turn smooth and easy.
These four spare spokes too
came in two long and two short lengths.
On an equal-flange wheel,
the long ones would be front-right and rear-left,
but this wheel uses 2:1 lacing,
so the long ones are for the multi-spoke tangent-laced side.
Of those, the long ones differed considerably in length,
but the short ones were close enough that
in a pinch you could swap them between positions.
This rear-left unexpectedly used
the shorter of the short two.
The rear-left should end up longer than the front-right,
but hub dimensions and such might be involved.
↑VONOA laser-etched on the spoke head side.
↑The Nepest anti-rotation tool,
↑didn't quite fit the Scope Cycling Artec
anti-rotation tool. Slightly incompatible.
↑The replaced spoke
↑A thoughtful design detail—
easy to see how far it's cracked.
Considerate engineering.
Let me zoom in and examine
exactly how the break occurred.
The customer has no recollection
of what might have caused it—no crashes or impacts they remember.
It looks like a wedge-driving impact from the side.
It didn't result in complete fracture, but
since the fiber structure runs mainly lengthwise,
it's split like bamboo from the transverse break point.
When I turn the nut-style nipple by hand,
there's a fine gritty resistance,
like it's grinding sand.
Under spoke tension, this becomes
a sharp, binding resistance that makes
later adjustments very difficult.
There probably aren't many shops with the skill
to properly work aged VONOA carbon spokes.
do a decent initial inspection and adjustment on new ones.