Looking at purchasing a wheelset for my Bianchi and I found 2 wheelset that seem to fit the bill. Both have the same hubs, same double butted spokes, but the only difference is the rim itself. One set is ~$280 and has Open Pro hoops, the other ringing in at ~$160 with Open Sports.

Any advice? Are the pros worth the extra $100?

Thanks!

Intended application for the bicycle these wheels would be for? I'm inclined to say just buy the Open Pro set. Markedly higher quality relative to Open Sport rims.

Sorry I didn't specify. The bike is used mainly for a commuter (last year's tally was about 2500 miles ), Fun/fast rides with friends, century here and there and a little bit of off-road use to switch things up every now and then.

Once you mentioned century rides and mixed terrain I immediately thought Open Pro.

Yea I have heard tons of good about the Open Pros, BUT are they $100 better? ( haven't used either so I am having a hard time making that decision )

Here is a great deal on Open Pros

Mavic Open Pro Silver Rims Shimano 5800 Hubs Road Bike Wheelset 8 9 10 11 Speed | eBay

I love the set I have.

I've had both. I'd put Open Sports on a commuter bike. Especially if the user is more than 175 lbs.

Same Here....Open Sport for commuting.

For reference; here are the wheelsets I'm looking at. From my googling, their handbuilt wheels get pretty good reviews.

Pair Shimano 5800 Hubs - Mavic Open Sport Rims | Merlin Cycles

Pair Shimano 6800 Hubs - Mavic Open Pro Rims | Merlin Cycles

Nothing wrong w/ 5800 & Open Sport in a proper hand built wheelset but you would be getting 6800 hubs vs. 5800 as well as the Open Pro rims.
I take the long view, having the better hubs for a re-build in future is a good investment in my book if it doesn't bust the budget.
Either way Shimano hubs and Mavic rims are well proven quality gear, not the fad du jour.

-Bandera

Do you want all black?

I would go in a different direction.

Velomine has a sweet set of H + Son TB14s with 5800 hubs at a great price.

They include the solid DT spokes and skewers for $199.

I've used Mavics on and off over the years, but after the spotty quality of the last two sets of Mavic Open Pros I had I've decided to give them a rest.

When they are good they are very good, but it's a roll of the dice.

I've been impressed with the TB14s.

I've got both rims, and I think OpenPro has tighter tolerances. One of my OpenSport rims is markedly tougher to fit the same tire. It's a small sample size, but I dread flatting on one wheel set. Other than that, the both work fine.

So I seriously considered these, but, as with most of the VeloMine builds they use straight gauge spokes. Is this as big of a detriment as I think it is? I have a set of cr18's that need a solid true every 750ish miles, and they have the same spokes (bought from VeloMine a year ago!)

I don't mind all black; this is going to be a modern rebuild with a black 5800 groupset.

This all depends how you ride.

Do you ride light or heavy?

We ended up with a set of these on a Ridley cross bike that did many distance rides on gravel last summer with the older 105 hubs.

Around 1,500 miles on a set and they were solid.

I agree. FairWheel Bikes has a good review of rims here: https://fairwheelbikes.com/c/reviews...y-rim-roundup/

Open Pro rims are made from a higher-performing alloy called Maxtal. So strength-to-weight ratio is better.

Open Sport rims don't use this alloy, and I don't know if they have two-story "double" eyelets to distribute spoke tension stress between the inner and outer walls of the rim.

I think of both of these rims as old-fashioned though, since riders today are preferring wider rim profiles for what I think are very good reasons.

I've built a few rear wheels for my CX bike using Open Pro rims over the last 20 years, and it's a pretty good rim imo. I did adjust my build to use thicker spokes after bending a couple of rims with very thin spokes.
The events that caused bending were slides where the tire catches traction after sliding out (700c rims can be fragile in this regard).