best deal on Ultegra Mavic Open Pro ?
 

I am looking to get a set of Ultegra Mavic Open Pro wheels.
Is performancebike.com the best deal presently ?
They have the black for $224 and 10% coupon, shipping is $31 oversize extra.

Be careful of machine-built wheels that are not tensioned evenly and tend to bind and/or go out of true quickly. I would spend a little more money to get the wheels hand built by a reliable builder. If you want to go mail order, Colorado Cyclist and Excel have great reputations for hand built wheels with Shimano hubs.

I have a pair of Record/Open Pro wheels I bought from Performance back in December and I have about 1200 miles on them. The front went out of true once but it was sitting for a couple months so it may have been knocked around a bit. Both wheels are very true and so far they have been bomb proof.

+1

The performance wheels are hand built I believe. At the very least they are hand checked for tension. The also don't use straight gauge spokes like some of the other sites that have cheap wheel deals. I know a few people that have the performance wheels and all are holding up great.

colorado cyclist. Hand built. Not much more expensive. Shipping was free.

My buddies are at over 15000 miles on only one rebuild.

I got a pair of Open Pro's from SuperGo early last year, paid $169. In any case, I use them as training wheels on my steel bike and they have been perfect, requiring no truing even after a reasonable break in period. Performance advertises that the wheels are built by Wheelsmith for them and to my experience they go a very good job.

Colorado Cyclist only has 10 speed Shimano/Mavic OP listed, will the 10 speed ultegra hub work with a 9 speed shimano cassette ?

Yes.

Yep, 'hand finished' is the term they use.

I just ordered a set. They were 199.98 minus the 10% coupon.

Pricepoint.com has cheap ones but I got 2 sets from them (the first one went out of true very easily). The second set isn't much better. I'll have to rebuild them with some spokeprep as that seems to be the problem.

Nashbar has 36-hold Open Pros with Ultegra hubs for $220. There's a 10% coupon floating around somewhere, or you can get 20% off if you buy 5 items from them. Shipping for the wheels is $16, or $20 for 2-day FedEx.

http://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?c...eid=&pagename=

Can't vouch for who builds them or how well they're built.

thanks for the replies, I am going with the 32's from Colorado Cyclist.
I presently have 36 spoke Alex rims which came with my Trek 1200.
I just got a fluid trainer and wanted a spare wheel to put a trainer tire on
so I might as well go for a slightly lighter lower count wheelset and get some placebo performance boost.

Sorry to reply to myself and bump an older thread, but I have to add that the wheels from Performance are garbage. I got these in and they were out of true within 30 miles of riding on smooth roads. The notion that these were ever adjusted by a human hand is ridiculous.

I am returning them for a refund and ordering from a place that hand builds. Unfortunately I found this thread with deals on hand built sets right after the purchase from Performance.

I figured I could get a couple thousand miles out of them and then pay for a decent truing job and still come out ahead. Simply not the case.

Lenny - Check your Private Messages. I'm selling my Mavic OP/Ultegra wheels from Colrado Cyclist if you're interested...

This set up is pretty bombproof if they're built properly. But if not....

I bought some of the Ult/OPs from Nashbar and the tension was terrible. They were out of true within 50 miles. If you get them from Nashbar or Performance, take them to a reputable LBS and have them retensioned and retrued.

I'm a clydesdale. The Excel wheels I am on have carried my 265-325 pounds for (I'm losing not gaining!) for about 2,000 NYC miles. Cobblestones, potholes and everyting in between. They are still as true as my... well, they are as true as something which is really true.

Can a wheel builder tell if a wheelset was machine built vs assembled by hand? The reason that I ask is because I have hand built Mavic Open Pro's on my commuter and love them. I fell into another set of Open Pro's with Dura Ace hubs (used but pristine). Should I have the guy who built my other set of wheels check this set out before I mount them on my bike?

+1

- this would have been my recommendation... i bought a set of OPs w/105 hubs from Nashbar four months ago... pulled the wheels out of the box, checked each spoke's tension, trued 'em up, and more than 1,000 miles later they're still fine... and yes, some adjustment was needed!

- i've never had to take a wheelset in for retensioning and trueing as i have the tools (although wheel building is beyond me right now - although i'm working on it)... how much do shops usually charge?

my rear open pro wheel (from Performance) is only mildly out of true after perhaps 1000 miles. But I don't weigh that much. I know a bunch of other people with the same wheels, and most of them have had the wheels go out of true. I hear that they aren't properly tensioned.

I can't remember exactly, but I think it was $12 or 15 per wheel.

I have about 200 miles on my Open Pros/Ultegra wheels that I got from Performance. I bought them back in June and two of the spokes on the back wheel(on the same side of the wheel and pretty much opposite from each other) are very loose and needless to say, the wheel is out of true. I'm a really big guy at 250#, but I use these only on rides that I know the roads aren't too beat up- normally I use my 40 spoke velocity deep v's. Do you all think that it's reasonable for me to return to Performance for a refund if possible? Or are wheels one of those things that you just suck it up and deal with it?

The easiest thing might be to have a local wheel builder (someone with a good reputation) completely re tension the rear wheel. Generally the cost should come in somewhere between a complete build, around $50 and just a simple true, around $20. To me $30-35 seems reasonable. Even if you sent the wheels back Performance might not pay for return shipping which should be about the same cost.

I have a set of Record/Open Pros that I bought from Performance last year. They have about 2,000 miles on them and are straight and tight. I am about 220 pounds.

Thanks for the advice- I actually purchased them locally, but I'd still need to buy another set of wheels even if I did return them, so that's going to be more with shipping and everything else. Anyone in the Palo Alto area recommend the bike shop that has someone with a decent wheelsmith?