Good Rims?
 

I need some sturdy rims for a potholed, curb-ridden commute
I want in a rim:
Eyelets
Welded Joints
Machined Sidewalls
Less than 25 mm width

Any Opinions?

how much do you weigh, size of tire and do you intend on carrying extra weight on the bike?

Mavic Open Pro

Mavic A719

I weigh about 180 pounds and i will be running anything from a 700x25 to a 700x42. I will be carrying weight on my back but not on the bike. I will, however be hopping curbs, potholes, etc...

how well does this hold up to impact?

Velocity Dyad: 24mm wide, available in 32-36-40-44-48 spoke count. It's a very common rim on touring bikes
We ride 'em with Schwalbe Marathon Supremes on our tandem. We are no lightweights either, at 400+ pounds combined
We did a ride where I hit a sunken manhole cover (2+inch bump) at over 30 mph. I fully expected the wheel to buckle, but it didn't give a squeak.

The wheel was hand built, and laced to a DT Swiss tandem hub

It's a very sturdy rim and will accept tires 28mm to 47mm wide. You could try 25mm tires, but I think they'd be a little too narrow. The Open Pros, as Andy_K mentioned, are great rim too, but they're rated for tires 19mm to 28mm.

So curb hopping and such is no problem?

With a well built wheel, no. Of course, with wider tires, the curb hopping will do less damage to a rim.

Open Pros.

DT Swiss R465 (replaced the RR1.1, same rim, new stickers). But I wouldn't run anything wider than a 35mm tire on them.

I saw someone else mention the Velocity Dyad, which would be good for running some wider (40 - 42mm) tires.

I dig my Sun CR18 rims, but they're a sleeved joint rather than welded.

I'm not a fan of the Open Pro, especially if you're going to be beating on it with curbs and potholes. I've seen too many of them with eyelets ripped clean out with a surrounding section of the rim.

The Schwalbes on our Dyad are 35mm and hold up nicely.
So nicely in fact, that I am about to take delivery of a handbuilt Dyad wheel with the same tire for my single speed. It replaces the stock wheel which broke at least 6 spokes in the last two years.

Weird. I've been commuting and mountain biking on them for 3 years. Barely a wobble.

+1
I just built one of these up on an Alfine hub and it is SOLID. The thing feels like it would do just fine mounted on a dump truck ;).

Umm, correct me if I'm off base, but aren't the Open Pro's more of a sturdy "training"/racing oriented rim? Seems a bit of a mismatch for hard duty and lots of bashing.......

Sun CR 18, cheap enough to just replace when they are damaged,
rather than $70 a pop Mavics.

I know Mavic says that. I've been doing cyclocross racing on them with 35mm tires. I guess if you plan to use wide tires, though, the A719 is a better choice.

As for curb hopping and such, the wheel build is more critical than the choice of rim. Most rims on the market can handle a lot of curb riding if they're well built (assuming a reasonable spoke count relative to bike+rider+cargo weight). OTOH, even the best of rims will suffer if the wheel isn't well built.

Including shipping I didn't pay $70 for my pair of CR18s. They're a little on the heavy side, but they're rock solid and one of the few rims left that's still available in mirror polishing. Not "silver" finish. For real old-school shiny mirror polish that matches my shiny mirror polished stainless fenders, crankset, hubs and chrome racks.

+1. When building my own wheels, I prefer this rim. Keeps the cost down and it seems to last a while.

thank you all so much. i've decided on Mavic A719s with DT Champ spokes laced to Profile Racing hubs