Can anyone give me some opinions and info about Araya rims
 

My Super Champion Gentlemen rims have a bend on one sides; like a bump. So I am replacing them with a set of Araya 700c Super Hard Anodized rims. How do they compare? And any info on Araya will be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

What's to say? ----- They're rims. Built well they make a good wheel. Built poorly they're trash.

BITD some models were pretty popular, and I built a fair number of wheels with them, especially some of their light aero tubular road and track rims, which called for a delicate touch.

The best indicators to how a rim will build are weight, cross section, and the quality of the joint. Going back to before machined sidewalls Arayas compared fairly well with comparably light rims, but except for a few models never had the cool factor of their European counterparts.

What models were the more desirable? I think I got the 700 c Super Hard anodized.

Araya road rims, some of them, had abbreviated bead hooks that were mere semi-circular nubs, and many a tire blew off of these rims as the bead hook failed to retain the bead. I had both folding and wired-on tires blow off these rims following extended hard braking, and have even had tires blow off Araya road rims while a bike wasn't being used.

This was particularly problematic with aged tires, whose beads apparently no longer had such a grippy surface layer of rubber to assist with retention.

I've also had quite a few Araya rims with a serious variation of thickness at the brake tracks near the rim joint, seemingly caused by the sleeve being pressed in with too much interference. Very difficult to correct!
Araya MTB rims with welded joint also had a reverse version of this problem, as the heat-affected metal near the joint would wear thin much faster than the rest of the rim, resulting in heavy braking thump.

I'm happiest with Araya's steel rims, which seem to be among the smoothest (in terms of braking) of any such rims ever made.

I've encountered and ridden 4-5 different kinds of Araya rims, and have never had a problem.
Their 80's models were/are as good as the Mavics of the era, in my experience.

i had some black anodized arayas on this '85 fiori.

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/490/1...39401182_b.jpg

they were top notch. and the black, 'sealed' suzue hubs were badass too.

I have a set of 27's hanging in the garage. Had another set on a Centurion. Rock solid. Heavy, but rock solid.

They're great wheels. Were standard equipment on all the best bikes made in Japan. Centurion, Fuji, Miyata, Univega, etc...... here's a nice link to old catalogs:

~http://www.araya-kk.co.jp/rim/archive.htm

...+1 The later manufactures have been fine IME. If these are hard anodized, I suspect they are of a later origin.

I have a couple of sets of Araya wheel sets .... a 27 x 1 1/4 alloy w/ SR sealed bearing hubs off a Raleigh Technium and a rebuilt set of 700c Hard Anodized w/ Campy Triomphe hubs
off a Univega. No complaints of any kind. Quality rims.

I have 20A's on one bike and SS-45's on another and they are fantastic. They take a beating and just might last forever.

ARAYA Rim Catalog Archive 1990_07-08

@vsanzbajo, "super hard anodized" isn't a model name, just a description. Can you post any pictures? Be advised that if the ERD of the new rim is different from your Super Champions, you may have to buy a new set of spokes for that wheel.

Here is a picture of the rims.

Those look awesome. I'd happily ride the snot out of those. I'm always stoked when one of my project bikes have Araya rims. I've only tried their 80's stuff, mostly later 80's, and they've been good with no weirdness.

I wonder if those are in fact 20A's! Note how a bunch of rims got that "super hard anodized" sticker in the mid-80's, but few other than the 20A had eyelets: ARAYA Rims 1985ƒJƒ^ƒ�ƒOƒA�[ƒJƒCƒ”

If the outer width measured just under 20mm, I'd say that, ermm, would clinch it. :lol:

I ride a set of Araya 1W wheels on my Bridgestone 400. They're billed as semi-arero and look really nice but they're surprisingly heavy. I'd prefer something with less rotational weight.

Araya's lightweight CTL370 model was from the late 80's, featured hard-anodize process, but still had the semi-circular bead hooks.

I had both wired-on and folding tires blow off of my front CTL370 after brake-heating descents in the bay area. One was just as I rounded the last right-hander descending Page Mill Rd, another was a mid-city descent in Pasadena. Both times I was warned of impending blast when the front tire thumped against the fork legs several times before it blew. Bth were somewhat-aged tires with nary any grip afforded by the aging rubber covering the bead, which I thought might have made these blow-offs somewhat more likely, but this was not something that would ever happen most hook-beaded rims.

I once bought an un-ridden Univega tourer with wide Araya clinchers, and the rim seam on both rims had been severely over-machined at the weld, making the braking smoothness nonexistent. I've also had more than one pair of Weinmann Concave rims with this identical severe problem.

I have been quite happy with most of the Araya rims I've had, but a good number were also substandard in some way imo.