Another wheel day (and so on).
A customer brought in a rear wheel built with a Barcelona 92 rim.
It was one we'd built here in the shop previously.
The hub is a PowerTap with the old SL+ hub shell fitted with a new G3 series internal unit, 32H, laced half-comp with 46-spoke Italian cross and hub bracing wire.
The rim is the final model Barcelona 92.
This rim is essentially "the Campagnolo Nucleon front rim redesigned with 28, 32, or 36 holes instead of 22H, and with standard single-eyelets and universal nipples instead of internal nipple design."
The eyelet area developed cracks, so we decided to replace the rim.
There was crumbly blue fiber stuck to the wheel, but it turned out—
—the Campagnolo wheel bag had deteriorated in UV and was falling apart.
The rim we're using next, which the customer has also left with us, is
a Paris-Roubaix SSC from the M-label era.
M-label era rims vary in the color of the right half by model. For Paris-Roubaix SSC it's the same yellow as the left side, but GEL280 is light blue, GL330 is pink, GP4 is purple, and Mach 2 CD2 is yellow-green.
The electrical treatment used an amperage marked as 650 "HV."
If you only knew "HV," you might think it referred to Vickers hardness, but since I've seen some specimens with V or W after the 650 (→here), this is definitely an electrical specification.
Neither rim is new—both show signs of use—but
this time we're using the one with more wear on the rim side, where the MAVIC sticker is partially peeled off.
↑Actual measured weight.
It's heavier than budget rims from that era, but you can't evaluate the Paris-Roubaix SSC by weight alone because it has an extraordinarily stiff rim characteristic.
Even when you try to deform the rim from circular to elliptical by hand alone, or when building the wheel, you can feel how stiff it is.
The Ambrosio Nemesis is a similar rim, and
the laser-engraved markings vary by year, but
↑the rim in the upper image has a crown and text reading "Queen of the North," one of the alternate names for Paris-Roubaix.
The high price of the Paris-Roubaix SSC is said to come from the enormous environmental burden of its manufacturing, particularly in wastewater treatment, but
looking at a 1997 Mavic catalog,
when the GP4 was 4,900 yen, this rim cost 24,500 yen.
If it were still in production with unchanged manufacturing costs, I'd estimate it at around 60,000 to 80,000 yen per rim.
This era of rims represents the next generation after the M-label era unified the design, but
unlike the red-label GP4 or M-label purple GP4 with actual measured weights around 400g, this one has a listed weight of 480g and actual measured weight to match.
This is because the rim edges have a stepped lip—like with tubular reflexes—meaning that despite bearing the GP4 name, it's actually a completely different rim shape.
The final model Paris-Roubaix SSC lists a weight of 400g, but given the rim's characteristics, there's no way it could be that light.
Looking at the cross-section profile on the right, it doesn't have the stepped shape of a GP4, and there's no reason for it to be lighter.
I've never personally seen an actual Paris-Roubaix SSC rim with the label shown in this catalog, and searching "mavic paris roubaix ssc rims" online yields only M-label rims or the earlier gold-label SSC rims.
Furthermore, even after the Paris-Roubaix SSC rim was discontinued, I've seen images from the pro road race Paris-Roubaix showing multiple dozens of wheels lined up—whether Mavic provided them or the teams had been using old stock, I couldn't say—but every single one of those rims was the M-label yellow version.
So I'm skeptical that the final-label Paris-Roubaix SSC rim ever actually made it to market.
The Barcelona 92 rim also originally traced back to Campagnolo's flagship Sigma rim as a hard-anodized tubular rim, but the final model shown at the beginning is a different product with the same name.
Built.
PowerTap hub, 32H, half-CX sprint, 46-spoke Italian cross.
I'll do the hub bracing wire routing later.
A customer brought in a rear wheel built with a Barcelona 92 rim.
It was one we'd built here in the shop previously.
The hub is a PowerTap with the old SL+ hub shell fitted with a new G3 series internal unit, 32H, laced half-comp with 46-spoke Italian cross and hub bracing wire.
The rim is the final model Barcelona 92.
This rim is essentially "the Campagnolo Nucleon front rim redesigned with 28, 32, or 36 holes instead of 22H, and with standard single-eyelets and universal nipples instead of internal nipple design."
The eyelet area developed cracks, so we decided to replace the rim.
There was crumbly blue fiber stuck to the wheel, but it turned out—
—the Campagnolo wheel bag had deteriorated in UV and was falling apart.
The rim we're using next, which the customer has also left with us, is
a Paris-Roubaix SSC from the M-label era.
M-label era rims vary in the color of the right half by model. For Paris-Roubaix SSC it's the same yellow as the left side, but GEL280 is light blue, GL330 is pink, GP4 is purple, and Mach 2 CD2 is yellow-green.
The electrical treatment used an amperage marked as 650 "HV."
If you only knew "HV," you might think it referred to Vickers hardness, but since I've seen some specimens with V or W after the 650 (→here), this is definitely an electrical specification.
Neither rim is new—both show signs of use—but
this time we're using the one with more wear on the rim side, where the MAVIC sticker is partially peeled off.
↑Actual measured weight.
It's heavier than budget rims from that era, but you can't evaluate the Paris-Roubaix SSC by weight alone because it has an extraordinarily stiff rim characteristic.
Even when you try to deform the rim from circular to elliptical by hand alone, or when building the wheel, you can feel how stiff it is.
The Ambrosio Nemesis is a similar rim, and
the laser-engraved markings vary by year, but
↑the rim in the upper image has a crown and text reading "Queen of the North," one of the alternate names for Paris-Roubaix.
The high price of the Paris-Roubaix SSC is said to come from the enormous environmental burden of its manufacturing, particularly in wastewater treatment, but
looking at a 1997 Mavic catalog,
when the GP4 was 4,900 yen, this rim cost 24,500 yen.
If it were still in production with unchanged manufacturing costs, I'd estimate it at around 60,000 to 80,000 yen per rim.
This era of rims represents the next generation after the M-label era unified the design, but
unlike the red-label GP4 or M-label purple GP4 with actual measured weights around 400g, this one has a listed weight of 480g and actual measured weight to match.
This is because the rim edges have a stepped lip—like with tubular reflexes—meaning that despite bearing the GP4 name, it's actually a completely different rim shape.
The final model Paris-Roubaix SSC lists a weight of 400g, but given the rim's characteristics, there's no way it could be that light.
Looking at the cross-section profile on the right, it doesn't have the stepped shape of a GP4, and there's no reason for it to be lighter.
I've never personally seen an actual Paris-Roubaix SSC rim with the label shown in this catalog, and searching "mavic paris roubaix ssc rims" online yields only M-label rims or the earlier gold-label SSC rims.
Furthermore, even after the Paris-Roubaix SSC rim was discontinued, I've seen images from the pro road race Paris-Roubaix showing multiple dozens of wheels lined up—whether Mavic provided them or the teams had been using old stock, I couldn't say—but every single one of those rims was the M-label yellow version.
So I'm skeptical that the final-label Paris-Roubaix SSC rim ever actually made it to market.
The Barcelona 92 rim also originally traced back to Campagnolo's flagship Sigma rim as a hard-anodized tubular rim, but the final model shown at the beginning is a different product with the same name.
Built.
PowerTap hub, 32H, half-CX sprint, 46-spoke Italian cross.
I'll do the hub bracing wire routing later.