Fifty Plus (50+) - Life Expectancy of a Mavic Open Pro?

I'm running a pair of Mavic Open Pros 32 spokes on Ultegra hubs on my rain bike. In cleaning off my tool bench (actually under it) I found a receipt showing that these things are now over 9 years old. With some calculations of when they were on which bike, I believe they've got over 20,000 miles on them. I went over them carefully and there are not cracks anywhere on them. Come to think of it I've only had to true them twice, both times within the first year. Is this typical for this rim hub combination? How much longer could I expect them to last????

Oh, crud. I just realized I probably jinxed myself.

That is some exceptional mileage for any rim... a rim like the Mavic MA40 which was renowned for it's high mileage and lifespan and one could expect 15,000 miles on one of these under hard use like touring.

If the OP's were on road bikes that saw nice weather and minimal braking getting 20,000 miles is feasible... their degree of wear is going to be determined by the braking surface and it's condition and not if they have developed cracks which is an issue that stems from material failure or a really poor build.

You say Rain bike so not an every ride wheel but 20K is not bad for a set of rims.Only started riding road 6 years ago and 5 years ago got Mavic CXP33 rims on the handbuilts. These are not the rian wheels and they look in pretty good condition. Estimate about 10K on them. Same time I got the Ultregra wheel set on Boreas and about the same milage. Different type of rim and there is just the hint of wear on the rim. Not much but enough to say that these wheels will only go out on "Special" rides now.

But You say Rain wheels/bike. I have a set of OM that I class as my winter/foul weather wheels and I ride mainly back roads. No wide open spaces on this type of road and no kerbs and plenty of mud. I am now on my second set of Winter wheels as the first set have a bend on the Brake surface.

I've several prs of OPs or their predecessor on some 20+ yo Mavic hubs, similar vintage shimano 600/ultegras and I can't remember truing them but maybe once during that time. They probably don't have as many miles as yours, but mine are 28H radial/2x so if there was any weakness it should have shown up by now. I think they're great rims, but it's too bad they don't make the 28H in silver anymore.

I also had very good durability with 32 hole Open Pro on Shimano hubs. I put 9000 miles on a set and I was 230 pounds at the time. They still looked as new when I sold them along with the bike they were on.

However, I have read many complaints that Open Pro rims have declined in quality in the last few years.

I've since switched to Velocity A23 rims and am very pleased with these.

I get 7 to 10K miles on the rear rim before it starts cracking. I have been using OP 36 spoke wheels for years and MA 40s before that. I think the MA 40s would crack close to 10K. I've bought a lot of rims.

I have over 30,000 miles on the original Mavic front rim for my 1999 Lemond with no cracks. However, the identical rear cracked at about 25,000 miles. Knock on wood. I think I have had it trued once.

My 2001 Litespeed came with open Pros, 32 hole, Ultegra hubs. I replaced them with new OPs in the spring of 2010 (?). They had ~25,000 miles on them. The rims were showing a lot of wear (from all the braking and stopping in Atlanta traffic :notamused:) so to be safe I figured it was time to replace them.

OK, so it sounds like it's not out or line for what I'm seeing, but I should be watching them pretty closely from now on.

Winter riding will beat the crap out of any rim unless you have hub brakes... 10,000 miles on foul weather wheels would be considered to be pretty decent mileage on a more utilitarian rim. For this reason a lot of commuters are switching to disc brakes or switching back to drum and roller brakes to preserve what can be fairly pricey wheels.

Get into lighter, higher performance stuff and you usually don't get as much life out of them.

If you ride long and far and don't do a lot of urban assaults where there tends to be a lot more stop and go and braking and your rim life will be increased greatly.

Riding style, weight, and other environmental conditions also contribute to wear.