Please help me chose a rim
 

I want a pair of cheap but strong/reliable 700C rims for my touring project bike.

I am considering these two (based purely on price and their double-walledness), and have no knowledge/experience about/with either:

Rigida Zac 19


vs.


Mavic A 119

I'd go with the Mavic purely because I always have. They are strong in general although I have never owned a pair of A119s, and the warranty is good. The external wear indicator is a handy tool that I'm not sure the Rigida has.

Just my £0.02.

What do you consider cheap?

I'd go with something non-anodised for touring, which keeps the whole Mavic range from contention, I think.

What's wrong with annodizing?

Sub-20 EUR/rim.

Lol this guy's got a problem with everything today! ;) He's just started an I hate rim eyelets thread!

Only joking, I'm sure he's got his reasons. In my opinion, though, there's nothing wrong with anodising a rim. All my wheels are anodised, though I didn't pick them for that reason alone!

See here:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/anodized-rims.html

I don't hate eyelets, that's what you construed my post to be about. I'd just like to work out why they're used, how they work and whether they're necessary.

I have an analytical mind, you see.

No, fair enough, I applaud your way of thinking. And I'm not being devil's advocate here but there is such a thing as thinking too much! You don't see Ksyriums cracking here, there and everywhere, or indeed many of Mavic's range. Anodising CAN weaken a rim, but only very very marginally. All my friends have ridden anodised rims on their tourers and not one of them reported a breakage, and some of these guys carry serious weight. I kid you not, my friend strapped an empty 80 litre gas bottle to his rear rack the other day on an anodised rim! "I got some funny stares," he reported!

What I'm saying is that I wouldn't rule a rim in or out due to its status of being anodised when the chance of it causing issues is so slight. And I WAS only joking about the eyelet thing! ;)

For me anodizing is nothing but fashion, I could live with it if:

1.It didn't have a detrimental effect on the rim.
2.Mavic didn't use it as an excuse to charge 3 times as much as they did for a non-anodized rim.
3.We were left with a choice as to whether we wanted anodizing or not(and SUP, machining etc for that matter).

Mavic has little interest in producing good quality, dependable rims at an honest price. Their interests lie solely with producing overly expensive racey looking rims that make Joe Bloggs look and feel like Lance Armstrong.

Alex DM-18 are cheap and strong.

Alex Adventurer. I have them on my LHT and I like them a lot, very reasonable and tough.

Velocity Dyad — not sure if you can get these in Finland though...

Sun CR18 are the ones I've used, and they're great! About $27/each from Airbomb or some such place. They're double-walled and meant for 30-40 mm tires. They come in 32,36, or 40H drillings I believe.

I thought about trying the Alex Adventurer or Alex DM18 but many people of BF suggested they had had issues with Alex rims. I don't have any personal experience with them, but they do look attractive from the specs and price.

That's a tough one. Anything of any quality for touring will be more than that. I know that this time of the year with the 20% sales that most LBS have I can get Mavic A719 rims for around 30 euro. You might be able to find the less expensive A319 rim for around 20 euro.

But why don't you save up a little and buy a decent quality rim? I know how much beer costs in Finland, it's not too many bottles until you have enough for a good, reliable rim!

ZAC-19 sounds like A Weinmann Rim... They're OK For the money but the ones I have here in my shop don't have any Eyelets... plus I'm still waiting to see how they hold up longer term with the MTB folks buying them...

I'd almost say to see if you can hunt down some SUN CR-18s. They've got eyelets, and I really like sun stuff for the factor of being able to beat the living tar out of them. If you're looking for thinner rims than the M-13II would be a good option.... in either case I'm betting the price will be somewhere around the rims you mentioned.

You gave me a good hint when you pointed me to the bike-components (a german bike webshop) - I wonder if you can suggest an equally accessible webshop that sells, say, dyads.

As much as I'd like to, I can't seem to be able to find Sun CR-18 rims on sale anywhere accessible to me. But... I'll be on the lookout for them.

As for narrower (I guess that's what you meant for "thinner"?) rims, they don't do it for me.

They are the only webshop I use. One thing I do is place a large order once or twice a year to save on the shipping costs as it is the same amount no matter how much you order. Frames, rims, and wheels are a little extra to ship.

Check out these pre-built wheels- even with shipping they are a very good price! VR= front HR= rear.

http://www.bike-components.de/catalo...da481ee0948c8e

http://www.bike-components.de/catalo...da481ee0948c8e

Just so you're 100% accurate, Lance didn't ride Mavics! Bontrager Super X Lite Ultra Pro whatever whatevers were his weapons of 'choice.' But yeah, I get what you're saying. I like Mavic, you don't and that's fine by me. Each to their own. What rims do you like then? Say for normal road riding/events etc. that are of comparable quality to Ksyrium Elites.

Hey, I just noticed that Surly is now selling a complete Long Haul Trucker bike. They use Alex Adventurer rims on it: http://www.surlybikes.com/lht_comp.html

In my mind, that gives a lot of credibility to the Alex Adventurer rims! Surly's not known for scrimping on the details I think...

Interesting, especially the 1998 date of the article.

I know this appears on Sheldon Brown's site but I still think it's filled with a lot of hooey (and I've taken exception to JB's opinions before).

To wit: Anodizing is also a thermal and electrical insulator. Because heat is generated in the brake pads and not the rim, braking energy must flow into the rim to be dissipated to the atmosphere. Anodizing, although relatively thin, impedes this heat transfer and reduces braking efficiency by raising the surface temperature of the brake pads.


I don't think so.

...Now that you mention it, most heat-sinks are anodized... O_o

It seems perfectly plausible to me that coating the rim in an insulator would have this damaging effect...

But it seems to me that some kind of quantitative argument needs to be made here. Just *how much* does anodizing impede heat transfer? Jobst Brandt is really smart, and I'm inclined to trust him, but I am extremely skeptical that the effect of anodizing is large enough to have an impact on braking performance.