drainyoo

I'm looking into purchasing a set of Open Pro CD rims and I wanted to know how the dark anodized coating holds up against braking. I did some searching and some people say it holds up for years and others say that it wears out quickly. I'm looking for a definitive answer.

Bianchi67

Mine started to wear in the first few hundred miles. By the time I sold the bike they were on, the finish was almost completely gone (3k-4k miles).

drainyoo

Thanks for the insight. Interesting. A few people on this forum claim that theirs have held up for over 10 years. No wear what so ever. One guy he claims that after all that use the brake area looks brand new. Could it be the type of pad being use?

^oZ

Maybe they're confused between CD and ceramic

drainyoo

At first I though that was it but then they confirmed that it's the CD versions. Do the Ceramic versions hold up better?

Bianchi67

I had the old MA40's that were also dark grey that never showed any signs of wear. I will never buy the OP CD's again. They looked like crap after the first wet ride.

HigherGround

Part of it may depend on where you ride as well. I have had Open Pro CD's show wear and tear from braking, although I don't recall how quickly it began to show; I just assumed it was a given that it would happen sooner or later.

When I used to live in a more rural area near a lot of farms (Lancaster County, PA), I noticed that the slop on rainy days was much more gritty than where I lived previously - perhaps due to run off from all of the farmers' fields. If you ride in areas near the beach, or with a lot of farmers' fields, you may have a more abrasive mix from road slop.

jonestr

ceramics require special brake pads, which are not as popular as they once were. They have good wet weather performance, but if the ceramic coating starts to flake then you are out a rim. This is not an uncommon occurrence.

jccaclimber

My Mavic OP rims have the following labels: CD, SUP, and MAXTAL. They also have a CERAMIC sticker which is not part of the same sticker as the other three, but looks to be designed by the same marketing machine. I use standard brake pads (which it goes through a bit fast) but the rims have seen several thousand miles under me, and an unknown number under the previous owner(s). There are little chunks of the ceramic coat missing, but it doesn't seem to affect anything.

Edit, now that I have decrypted the Mavic marketing lingo.
SUP: (Welded rather than pinned rim)
MAXTAL: French for SPIFFY ALUMINUM!!!
CD: the grey/brown anodizing on the surface. The brake pads did hit a little bump by the weld and below the ceramic track. They ate right through the coating there. I had some older Mavic OP rims and they had some weird stripped banding thing on the brake tracks that I assumed to be the brake pads eating through the CD coat unevenly.
Ceramic: Apparently I have the ceramic coated rims. Like I said above, they have little tiny missing bits, and have as long as I've had them. I imagine that a harder pad (ie one designed for this brake surface) would wear better than the standard pads I use on them. They aren't as good as machined aluminum in the rain but are almost as good wet as they are dry. I'm not sure how helpful this has all been but, I don't thing the CD coat is all that good at preventing wear given my past experiences with it.

Wino Ryder

I had some old Mavic 'Open 4 CD' rims that were hard anodised. They lasted about 8,000 miles before they started showing signs of brake wear in the rim surface. They were great looking up to that point, then started getting wavy lines in the surface from the wear. I'd imagine keeping the brake pads clean and free of debris would help them last longer. Maybe trying to stay out of the rain with it might help, what with all the road grit that gets mixed in with the rain water while braking.

I eventually had to retire the wheels, but it was mainly because some of the spoke eyelets started popping off, then one of the wheels developed a crack. So it was probably around 10,000 miles I had in them before I replaced them with a set of Ambrosio 'Excellence' rims. The Ambrosios beat 'em all in my opinion.

asmallsol

Mine too are the the hard anodized (which IS A CERAMIC) CD's. I've ran normal pads for like 5 minutes, and they sucked. Run either green Kool Stops or Zipps Carbon Carbon pads, and they are great. Tons of braking even in the rain. I probably have about 4-5,000 miles on them and they look fine. However, I'm rarely do "true" hills (ie colorado, cali, north carolina, ect) except for maybe a little bit of hilly races or crits. Truely, I bought them because I hate the look of metal machined braking surfaces, and these offer a "stealth" look. I would love to get that look with Carbon fiber, but unfortunately I've applied for 12 jobs in the past 2 days...