This is not quite a rant. Just a accounting of a difficult week.
It has been an odd few days. A week ago I was hit by a car crossing a bike path. Not a serious collision but I did loose some skin, which I trying to grow back as quickly as I can, and the rear wheel was bent to un-rideable condition. I was able to make it rideable by bending it back a bit with a heavy foot and reach the house, 5 miles away. The front wheel was bent a bit also but re-trueable with not too much effort. The new rim arrived from Pro Wheel Builder two days and 11 hours ago. I had taken pictures of the bent wheel of both the drive side and non-drive side and the printer produced nice clear images much larger then the camera screen. I felt confident I could reproduce the original wheel which has 32 spokes, laced 3X on the drive side and 2X on the other side.
I did the job, taking much longer than expected and needing to muster much patience to get the lacing correct. I finished this morning and thought I was home free and ready to install Velox tape. I had bought a roll new tape while at REI a few days before. For some reason the tape would not stick and the rim seemed to have a very slick coating inside. Not a problem. "I'll just sand whatever it is, off". Off to Ace Hardware I go for emery cloth and for the heck of it, got a small bottle of rubber cement. I was still puzzled by the Velox tape not sticking so an a whim, I tried the old tape and this stuck as it should. Evidently, it was an old roll or had glue incorrectly applied at the factory.
At this point the story is not yet over. This new rim is a Velocity rim that will work with a tube or tubeless. As such, the inside of the rim is constructed differently than a standard rim and full width tape interferes with seating the clincher lip. I already knew this would be a problem. I've no idea why I went ahead and bought this rim. I decided to use the old tape but it needed to be trimmed with a razor knife to exactly 12 mm wide. The new roll I had bought was 10 mm wide and would not work. At long last the job was done and the new rim spins prettily, not more and 1/2 mm out of round or true. I did use a few dabs of the rubber cement to be on the safer side. I had myself a celebratory and delicious New Castle Brown Ale.
It was at this point I noticed that the new rim has the Velocity labels on the wrong side. This does not effect use but it is much like putting socks on in the dark only to find out one is a red and the other has strips. Well, I'm not going to unlace the new rim. One possibility is to flip the front wheel around except the tires are directional. I would have to remove the front tire and flip it around to match the rear. Another possibility is to remove the stickers and reinstall so they all match. Right now my head hurts so I'll decide tomorrow