i am feeling a bit like an idiot, but i cant find the recommended spoke tension for mavic open pro rims, even on the dealer logon. any help here

I called Mavic the other day, and they said 105-110 kgf for the driveside rear spokes. I think lots of people go beyond that, but that's what Mavic said-

https://www.tech-mavic.com

Login: mavic-com (lower case)

Password: dealer (lower case)

Then click "enter"

Under "Theme", click "Mavic Rims"

Then under "Family" click "Road & Triathlon - Multiperformance"

Then under "Product" click "Open Pro 05"

Click "General Points"

"Respect the appropriate spoke tensions; Mavic recommends spoke tensions between 70 and 90 kg (for a front or rear wheel on the free wheel side with a crossed 3 pattern). Inappropriate spoke tension can generate too much stress and damage the rim"

I tension my 3-cross 36 spoke Open Pros to 110 kgf for front wheel spokes and rear driveside spokes as well biked says he got on the phone and have never had any rim damage resulting from those spoke tensions. I think the 70 - 90 kgf is very conservative.

While you're at the tech-mavic.com website, download the whole 2007 technical manual for future reference. It's a 4.6 MB (37 pages) PDF file, and an excellent reference.

EDIT - The attached document "Spoke Tension" from the tech-mavic.com website says tension on front wheel and rear wheel drive side spokes should be 90-110 daN. Does anyone know if kgf and daN are the same? Never mind; I found it in another document on the website: 1 daN=0.980 kg.

That's great info, Scooper. So the recommended tension for rear driveside and front spokes is 88.2 kgf to 107.8 kgf (converting from the daN figures). Do you know if that's for all of their rims? I wonder why they have the other figures listed, the 70-90 kgf. I think that would be significantly too low (particularly the 70 kgf figure) for the rear driveside.

The rims I asked about on the phone were Open Pro, CXP-33, A719, and the now defunct X517 mountain bike rim. The Mavic tech guy on the phone said to try and get an average tension of 105-110 kgf on the driveside rear for all those rims, regardless of spoke count, and all would be good.

Interesting you ask. I don't know the answer, but the 2007 technical manual says the Ksyrium Elite wheels (complete wheels, not just rims) should have front wheel spoke tensions of 100 - 130kg (radial lacing) and the rear drive side spokes should be 120 - 145 kg (Isopulse lacing), and the new Cosmic Carbone SL Premium wheels should have the front wheel spokes tensioned to 105 - 145 kg (radial lacing) and the rear drive side spokes a whopping 120 - 160 kg (laced radial on the non-drive side, 2-cross on the drive side).

Perhaps this site will help you. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

No one appreciates Sheldon's fantastic depth of knowledge and his ability to share it so it makes sense more than I, but having him list every rim manufacturer's spoke tension recommendations for all their rims would be asking too much.

as it turns out, i had printed that page for later reference but hadnt read the whole thing yet. thanks

gerry

I've built and raced on dozens of sets of wheels over the last 20 years , all Mavic and never was taught about using Mavic specs for tension. Mechanic I learned from taught me to try for 100kg range on my Wheelsmith Tensiometer according to the type of spoke. Gage, DB etc.
Never had a wheel failure though I've worn a bunch of rims out.