Scrod has more experience with these but I have never heard anything bad about them... I build wheels for commuters, tourers, and tandem riders so the CR18 is usually my choice for a low cost bombproof rim.

They also work well for restoration work as the high polish rims make a nice replacement for chromed steel and come in almost every size and drilling I could want except for 635mm.

One of my hardest working bikes is my Trek 7500 hybrid... it is rolling on Mavic MA40 rims and I would not pass on a set of these if you found some... I sometimes think Mavic stopped making them because they lasted too long.

Have had people tell me that these rims have lasted 15,000 miles on loaded touring bikes with nary an issue and the hard anodized finish is dead sexy.

I know it has gears and is the antithesis to the simplicity of an fg but these have been some damn fine wheels for many 1000's of km...



Another rim I really like is the Mavic A719 but it costs more than twice as much as a CR18... build up a lot of these too and would consider the A319 a good second if you want some bombproof Mavic wheels.