Rebuilt the front wheel for the C38

Another wheel day (and so on).

A customer left me with both front and rear wheels
from a Rovale C38.
They wanted the lateral wobble reduced,
so we're doing a rebuild.
Today I'm working on the front wheel.


I've only ever seen C38 rims
with a matte finish,
but this one had a gloss finish—
and when I put my fingertip on it, I could see the reflection,
so there was quite a thick layer of clear coating.


This anodize peeling was already there
when I received it.


Rovale dual-branded
DT350 hub, 24H, all-black Comp Race
laced 64:4 with brass nipples.

This is something I've mentioned many times—
the C38 uses an equal-sided lacing pattern
with a 24H universal hub designed for bent-head spokes,
so it has much more room for improvement when rebuilt
compared to the CLX50, which has the stupid 2:1 lacing pattern on its 21H front and rear wheels.
If I had to choose one or the other,
I'd absolutely pick the C38.

The C38 rim is about 12mm lower in height than the CLX50 rim,
yet the C38 rim is actually heavier—
so the height-to-weight ratio is indeed better on the CLX50,
but that's really the only point where the CLX50 wins as a wheel.

The CLX50 uses 6802 bearings (small diameter) in the front hub,
and Specialized's front fork uses the X-12 standard for the thru-axle,
which allows for exceptionally tight clamping.
This mismatch often results in over-tightening the thru-axle,
which gums up the bearing rotation on many units.
In contrast, the DT 350 hub
has larger bearings and
the press-fit end cap isn't loose,
so it's designed to be more resistant to
bearing damage from thru-axle compression.

The stock setup has the anti-rotor side
laced radially, which is an old-school lacing method.
Speculation aside, I think
they have to use such a crude lacing method
so the performance difference from the CLX50 isn't too obvious.
It's a detuning to make the higher-end model look better.
Cost savings from using aluminum nipples instead of brass
come to about 4000 yen at most,
but even with aluminum nipples the wheel's perceived value
doesn't change much—
the ability to make the rim area heavier (making the CLX50 look lighter)
is a big effect,
so I think they use brass nipples for that reason.



It was pretty out of true,
but I'm rebuilding it anyway so no big deal.


Rebuilt it.


DT350 hub, 24H, black half CX Sprint
laced 64:4 reverse Italian
with black aluminum nipples.
I'll do the truing later.

Looking through the valve hole at the hub markings,
I aimed for the Rovale side,
but in the photo above I caught
the DT350 marking on the opposite side instead.