Road Cycling - Open pro CD? other wheel Q's

OK guys and gals...I have finally pumped my self up enough that I'm willing to drop $300 or so on a wheelset.

I was looking at my handy dandy excel sports catalog today, and I was pricing wheelsets. they have open pro CD's and open pro CD ceramic. whats the diff. between these two? I thought that CD was ceramic.

Also, has anyone used dura-ace hubs before? how much better are they then ultegra?

I'm about 175, and I have never broken a spoke before, not even on my huffy. could DT revolutions be used on a dura-ace open pro wheelset without problems?

Also, is the ritchey OCR rim better or worse then the open pro? Its a bit lighter, and it has that offset spoke thing. see what I was thinking was maybe an open pro Ceramic with an ultegra hub on the front (where most of my braking occurs, and a ceramic rim would be helpful) with a dura-ace hub and a Ritchey OCR rim on the back.

Lastly, there must be other options...what else is out there? Am I overlooking anything obvious? Would I be better off just buying the mavic cosmos? It says the rim has a similar profile to the Open pro, but how are the hubs?

firstly, the Mavic Open pro is a ubiquitous rim. It can be found anywhere any time and for a good price. It's light, Its strong and it builds into stiff wheels
There are better rims out there but I suspect they are Mavic's too.

As for hubs, depends on what drivetrain you're running. If Shimano then I would go for Dura Ace if you can afford them. They have harder bearing races than Ultegra and they're lighter. Built onto Open Pro's you'll have a set of rims far better than the Cosmos and lighter.
It's only worth it buying a wheel set if you're looking into teh top end of the market ie Ksyrium SSC SL's, Cane Creek Chrono's, Campagnolo Nucleon etc etc

CD is an anodizing process (according to Mavic), ceramic is a ceraminc layer added to the braking surface to improve friction.

Not sure on the DT revs (though I can't see why they'd be a problem) but on the Ritchey vs Mavic: I recently got Joe Young to build me a rear wheel (MAvic CXP33) - he said that's better than the Ritchey as the inherent rim quality seemed better, better quality control etc. I think Rithcey make their rims in the Far East, but could be wrong.

A well built wheel on a decent hub shouldn't have truing problems even with high dish on a 9sp. I got my wheel built on a DT Hugi 240 hub - really nice, very smooth, light weight and the left flange is closer to the centre to help reduce dish and improve wheel strength.

Hugi hubs are supposed to be great but I have not tried them myself. FIR have some very nice rims but seem hard to find in North America. I love my CXP 33 rims, although I don't think you can go wrong with any Mavic products.

Hi,
1) get plain vanilla rims, skip the ceramic and cd (no, I don't know the difference, my wife has the cd it looks like the rim is colored to match the ceramic brake surface.)
2) lots of good rims out there, Velocity, Torelli Masters, do a search here for comments on various rims.
3) I have Dura Ace hubs, but I am not an expert on the differences. They are a little nicer, for a significant amount more.
4) You might have trouble combining Dura Ace and Open Pros for $300. You may need to choose between a Ultegra/Open Pro wheel.......or perhaps something like a Dura Ace/Torelli.
5) I suspect the Torelli Master rims would last quite a bit longer. The Open pros weigh something like an ounce less than most other light rims. They are fun to ride. Tough call.

Originally posted by late
1) get plain vanilla rims, skip the ceramic and cd (no, I don't know the difference, my wife has the cd it looks like the rim is colored to match the ceramic brake surface.)
I second this. I suspect anything put on the braking surface would wear off the first time you rode in the rain.

Ultegra is a fine hub. DA is probably a little lighter. I'm not an expert, but I'd think DT or Wheelsmith butted spokes would be fine. At your weight, 32 spokes is plenty.

A pair of standard OPs w/butted spokes and Ultegra hubs should set you back about $200. It's a good wheel that will stand up to plenty of all-purpose use, and only need to be trued maybe once a year, if it was built right.

I ride the OP CD on Chorus hubs. I weigh a fair bit more than you and have had zero problems in about a year of riding.

I've heard the ceramic layer is very durable but chews up brake shoes. Stopping performance (Chorus dual pivot with stock shoes) is very satisfactory on the CD rim.

Good wheels.

I would say to get the Ceramic rims. I had a pair that were built up in 1993 and then a few years ago got ksyriums and sold the Ceramic wheelset to a friend. He still has them and no sign of wear.....period. I myself put on 40000k in the 7 years I had them and I still wish that Mavic would put the Ceramic coating on the Ksyrium SL's. Better braking in wet and dry conditions. As long as you didn't crash you could have a wheelset for life.

You can get brake pads that you use on Ceramic rims. Kool stop make Ceramic specific pads that work with Shimano and Campy brake shoes.

OK... a little history. I used to race, stopped, got married, ate good food and got lazy. My weight shot up to 230 (I'm 5'10").

I'm down to a normal weight now after a lot of miles on my road bike. That bike had wheels with Dura-Ace hubs, 32 Wheelsmith 14ga spokes and... Mavic Open 4 CD rims. I have never broken a single spoke on that set of wheels and have had to do only minor truing after hitting potholes, etc.

The term "indestructable" comes to mind when discussing the Mavic Open series of rims.

I agree with the Vanilla rim thing but would take it one step further-get a vanilla brand as well! Torelli has a rim called the Master Series, same weight as the Mavic, same high quality (a lot of European pros train on them) and are indestructable as well, plus they cost $40 less for the set; any LBS should be able to get them, see: http://torelli.com/parts/wheels.html

I would use 32 spokes in front and 36 in rear for a more robust wheel set. Also you could get away with DT Revolution on the front but I would use DT Competition on the rear for a more strength. Or you could use Sapim CX-Ray aero spokes along with their nipples, see: http://www.sapim.be/

If your planning on using the wheelset a long time and can only use Shimano compatiable stuff then I would go with the Dura Ace if I had the cash, otherwise go with 105 since there is very little weight difference (about 1 gram) between those and Ultegra but you would save about $15 on the set.

I ride on the Master Series rims with 36 hole frt and rear with DT Revolution in frt and Competition in rear and I rarely ever have to adjust them even just a tad; I weigh 160 by the way and have over 30,000 miles on the rims.

Originally posted by Phatman
OK guys and gals...I have finally pumped my self up enough that I'm willing to drop $300 or so on a wheelset.

I was looking at my handy dandy excel sports catalog today, and I was pricing wheelsets. they have open pro CD's and open pro CD ceramic. whats the diff. between these two? I thought that CD was ceramic.

Also, has anyone used dura-ace hubs before? how much better are they then ultegra?

I'm about 175, and I have never broken a spoke before, not even on my huffy. could DT revolutions be used on a dura-ace open pro wheelset without problems?

Also, is the ritchey OCR rim better or worse then the open pro? Its a bit lighter, and it has that offset spoke thing. see what I was thinking was maybe an open pro Ceramic with an ultegra hub on the front (where most of my braking occurs, and a ceramic rim would be helpful) with a dura-ace hub and a Ritchey OCR rim on the back.

Lastly, there must be other options...what else is out there? Am I overlooking anything obvious? Would I be better off just buying the mavic cosmos? It says the rim has a similar profile to the Open pro, but how are the hubs?

Phatman! If you're talkin' 300 bones for a wheelset get the open-pros on dura-ace hubs. You won't be sorry. Especially if you can get the ceramic coated wheels (better, more durable braking surface than the std OP wheels). If you have more than $300 to spend it's wide open. I looked at the Ritchey wheels also, and the Ksyriums, SH-7700s, etc. ...ended up with Campy Eurus wheels (shimano compatible) for more like $600 delivered. ...they're not cheap, but they are FAST! and I love em. ...almost identical in weight to the open-pro dura-ace wheels (1560 gm w/out skewers).

Good luck :beer:

it depends on the roads travelled. my open pro's (not CD) are bombproof but i get razzed on group rides for its heavy(?)32 laced configuration. doesn't matter though, because i've never had a problem with them. i just put hutchison tyres (200gm's each) on them and they feel much lighter than the 235gm michelin's i had on them. boy can 70gm's make a difference.

i did break a spoke on the non-drivetrain side a few years back while climbing but backed off the tension a bit and haven't had one incident since.

good for the money. and ultegra is fine.

The 300 dollar deal that I saw was in Excel Sports, for their "cirrus" wheelset, which is Open Pro Blacks laced to dura-ace hubs and revolution spokes...I'm thinkin' I'm gonna go with this, it seems like the best deal out there from a respected manufacter (shimano, mavic, DT)

Originally posted by Phatman
The 300 dollar deal that I saw was in Excel Sports, for their "cirrus" wheelset, which is Open Pro Blacks laced to dura-ace hubs and revolution spokes...I'm thinkin' I'm gonna go with this, it seems like the best deal out there from a respected manufacter (shimano, mavic, DT)

Cool. Yea, I know the wheels. And I own a pair almost identical to them. Good choice!! Butted spokes and the whole deal. Excellent.