Sunringle Helix Rim Wheels

A customer brought in front and rear wheels built with Sunringle Helix Lite.

I was working on the rear wheel, but based on a conversation with the customer,
I took photos for this article.


The rim is Sunringle Helix,
the hub is a Kuwahara Diablo hub,
32H, all 14-gauge champion 6-cross JIS lace
with turquoise nipples.

Before starting work, I showed the customer
the amount of lateral and radial runout
and centering offset.
There was lateral runout in both directions,
and the radial runout was noticeable enough
that I could tell just by spinning it without a truing stand.

I found a spoke that was slightly bent,
so I replaced it (the spoke marked with tape)
and then corrected most of the lateral and radial runout.

Some centering offset remained,
but since I was using a temporary center reference,
I adjusted the runout in a direction that would reduce
the centering offset, and



↑This much offset remains.
The dropout pads are set for quick-release at 135mm, not thru-axle,
but the temporary center when the wheel arrived
had about twice as much offset as shown in the image above—
the thin frame-mounting part of the left dropout was completely visible.

This is a wheel built by a Tokyo shop called Matthew Cycle.
During the work, I asked the customer if it was okay to mention that here,
and they said it was fine,
so I took these article photos with the wheel in a state of
nearly zero lateral and radial runout, and centering offset
reduced to about half the original.

Is Tokyo really an area with so few competent shops
that you can do business slapping together fancy, expensive
rims and hubs to make something called a "wheel"
without actually building it properly?



I finally managed to get the centering sorted.
The customer said, "Wouldn't it have been easier to just build a wheel from scratch?"
and they might be right.
The spoke length was correct,
but if it hadn't been, I probably would have completely disassembled the wheel.

This rim and hub only truly became a "wheel" today.
I don't want to call the original state a wheel.


Next, the front wheel.


The hub is also a Kuwahara Diablo like the rear wheel,
but gray anodized instead of black.
The left and right dropout pads for 100mm quick-release
are red because that's the only color available for quick-release.
The spokes are discolored from cigarette tar (probably),
but setting that aside, unlike the rear wheel,
these are 15-gauge base Campagnolo spokes laced 6-cross reverse Italian
with turquoise nipples.

I measured the rear wheel with a centering gauge while it was being worked on,
but with the front wheel, I was able to observe the temporary center
without me having touched it at all.



It turned out that Matthew Cycle
doesn't have a centering gauge.

\To the parents at home /
If they don't have one, then fine,
but if they do have one and still built wheels like this,
then the problem isn't technical skill—it's their intelligence.

Unlike the rear wheel, there's not much lateral runout,
so pretty much the same result shows up
no matter where you measure from.

The front wheel was assembled with 15-gauge butted spokes,
which are difficult to work with, and this "wheel building play" had
a pitfall that couldn't be fixed at drop-off,
so the wheel had to be left with me for further work.

I have no idea why someone would put spokes like this on a front wheel—
spokes that are basically "nearly Revolution"
(Revo 15-gauge: 1.8–1.5–1.8mm
Campagnolo 15-gauge: 1.8–1.6–1.8mm)
on a 32H MTB wheel.
And the rear wheel uses plain 14-gauge spokes,
so there's a huge discrepancy in spoke gauge selection.

In a case like this,
if the wheel assembly quality were actually competent,
I might think, "Well, if this builder is skilled enough
that the build quality is decent, maybe there's some reason
for this spoke gauge selection that I don't understand..."

But as you can see, that's not the case, so
I can't help but conclude:
"They just pushed whatever spokes they had lying around in inventory
that matched the length, whatever was taking up space."

If Matthew Cycle wants to argue against
anything in this article,
please, for the love of all that is holy, become competent
at actually building wheels first,
then open your mouth.
There's a certain qualification required even to object.