Mavic Open Pros
 

I have commuted on these in pot-hole ridden London for 10 years. Ridden them off road on my cross bike. Been to the alps on them. I haven't had any significant problems over the last 10 years.

I am 100kg/220lbs and 6'4"

I got a minor knock from a car that bent my back wheel so need another one. I was trawlling the internet to find a builder and came across this from Peter White cycles:


http://api.viglink.com/api/click?for...eel%20Building


Look under 'Wheel Rant'


It's a load of rubbish isn't it? Unless you're absolutely huge. Or have I been lucky or have Open Pros become more fragile?

From experience with Open Pros, older ones are much better than newer ones, I have one which has been a rear for the last 15 years (built appros 2000), and is still is good condition, but got one fitted on the front (bought new in 2012) to go concave with 18 months.

Add to this, that Open Pros are now narrow rims, rims have moved on, and wider is current. For the cost, if you like the Open Pro, would look at Rigida/Ryde Chrina half the price for the same results.

The older Open Pros were apparently better than the current ones. I also had a pair from about 2001 that I was happy with for several years, but, when it came time to replace the rear everyone encouraged me to use anything but.

I'm surprised that you're still running the same OP from 10 years ago. I usually accumulate enough miles on a daily riding wheel to wear through the brake track in less time than that. My experience has been 20-30,000 miles tops. I have about 14,000 KM on a 585 right now and the wear indicators are just starting to get really thin. I suspect I'll get about that distance again out of them. Which means less than 20,000 miles. But, I've been riding in more mixed conditions than in the past.

Of course it's rubbish, it's a Peter White rant. He's just an old dude set in his ways and who doesn't assimilate outside info well. I think he only cares that wheels work, and when he found out how to do that through his own experience and in an easy way, he switched his brain off.

Like you, I'm around 220lbs, have been as high as 240lbs, and have ridden Velocity Aeroheads for several, trouble-free years. I'd mention build specs, but since White doesn't seem to bother with such silly details, I won't bother.

To those suggesting White is using some kind of critical and current analysis of new MOPs vs. older MOPs, that seems highly unlikely. As to whether new MOPs are lousy or worse than older ones, possible, but also seems unlikely. I don't know and can't comment beyond that.

No it's not the wear I (or indeed Mr White, presumably) meant...I have more than one bike so that commute is shared and indeed I've replaced at least one due to a crash. I meant that it's a long time in various difference environments with those rims and I've never had problems with breaking spokes or repeated truing etc.

Rick, it's a copyright violation to quote a passage without providing the source. Please provide a link or state the source.

It's from Custom Wheel Building

The Peter White cycles homepage. Thought that was relatively obvious.

I thought the source was clear as well.

But he likes to build wheels that last. So his rant is about why it makes sense to overbuild wheels for most users. I'm sympathetic to that point of view.

I have no idea about the difference between old and new mavic pros but I've had good luck on two older wheelsets with mavic open pros.

Copyright law is very specific. Please adjust your original post.

As well, even with the proper sourcing, you may directly quote no more than one sentence.

FYI, The 'Fair Use' Rule: When Use of Copyrighted Material is Acceptable | Nolo.com The following quoted material is all from NOLO's website.

[h=3]"Uses That Are Generally Fair Uses[/h]Subject to some general limitations discussed later in this article, the following types of uses are usually deemed fair uses:

• Criticism and comment -- for example, quoting or excerpting a work in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment." A rant followed by a number of posts discussing the piece seems like criticism.

"Non-commercial use is often fair use." I think this use is non-commercial; the posters here do not do so for personal gain (at least not in this thread and indeed in most threads).

"Benefit to the public may be fair use." That seems to be the case here.

"Rule 4: The More You Take, the Less Fair Your Use Is Likely to Be
The more material you take, the less likely it is that your use will be a fair use. As a general rule, never: quote more than a few successive paragraphs from a book or article."

I don't think based on rule 4 that there is any flat prohibition on quoting more than one sentence.

Happy, Mr Super Moderator?

Apparently you haven't read the guidelines:

Copyrighted Material
You may post links to appropriate articles but posting articles from other sources in their entirety is a violation of our Forum Guidelines. If you must repost quotes or sentences, please credit the source.

If you just need to replace the bent rim you might as well try another OP. If you are replacing the entire wheel, spokes and all, you could try one of the newer, wider rims. BTW, attacking the mods is silly and won't do anything to enhance your time here.

What's up with the seeming rash of Mavic Open Pro threads recently?

They're decent rims (not as good as they used to be, though), but they provide almost none of four things I'd look for in a rim: light, aero, strong, cheap. Open Pros are not light, they're not strong, they're not aero, and they're not cheap. Yeah, they're consistently well manufactured from the one's I've had my hands on, but IMO DT Swiss rims are even better in that regard.

And the CXP33 is rarely mentioned, which is a pretty darn good rim that's a good bit lighter than the DT Swiss equivalent, the RR 585. Heck, according to some of the numbers posted at Weight Weenies, the CXP33 tends to run a bit lighter than it's claimed weight while the Open Pro tends to run heavier, making the CXP33 and the Open Pro about the same weight in reality.

I noticed there seem to be a lot of Open Pro threads all of a sudden too.

Even leaving aside the apparent drop in quality of them, there's a grognard snobbery around the Open Pro vs anything with a newer design (wider brake track and deeper or rounded profile). "The Open Pro was good enough for (X), you think you're better than him? Or me?" This really started in earnest with the HED Belgium and has only gotten louder as most of the industry has shifted to newer rim designs.

Would any of you aware of the supposedly "apparent" drop in quality care to elaborate on the nature of the quality loss?

After Mavic was sold around 2006(?) quality seemed to start slipping. The most obvious consequence being an increased propensity to develop cracks around the spoke grommets. Lots more riders started reporting such cracks and wheel builders and those working in shops confirmed that they were seeing a much higher return rate than previously as well as reporting that the rims generally weren't as round and true as they used to be out of the box.

This wasn't a one off bad batch. The issue went on for a few years and guys who had been ardent Open Pro devotees eventually had to give up on them.

The rim manufacturing world moved on, while Mavic and their Open Pros did not.

At this point, if you want a sorta' retro rim from the 90s for a period correct build they're still available. But, barring that, there are now better choices that are either, lighter, more aero, more durable or less expensive.

Amer Sports bought Salomon and Mavic from Adidas around 2005.

What would be your choice given high-ish rider weight , lowish miles, bad-ish terrain, high-ish budget?

Kinlin XC279 or HED Belgium. Also, the "OP" referenced in your previous post was Open Pro, not Original Post.

If you have the $, the HED Belgium would be a good choice as it is some wider. In the same price range as the Mavic is the DT Swiss 465, very similar with eyelets and a welded seam. I don't have any experience with "budget" rims from Kinlin and Velocity but many folks like them. There are various models and some do not have eyelets and have pinned rather than welded seams. Another attractive rim is the H+Son TB14. Personally, I've never had a problem with the Open Pro or known anyone who has. Maybe someone who has actually experienced a failure could chime in?

Pacenti SL23 and H Plus Son Archetype deserve mention as well. Those are similar to Bah Humbug's suggestions (wider/deeper).

White T11 hubs,
H Plus Son Archetype
32/32
Sapim CX Ray spokes

220lbs is still under the 235 threshold where real clyde compromises have to be taken into account. Bad'ish terran requires at least a nod toward durability, decent budget means we don't have to preclude anything from consideration.

Depending on your tastes, Pacenti SL23, HED Belgium C2 or DT Swiss RR440Asym or Son Archetype. That's a start. There are others. But, there's plenty to choose from in that list.

Sapim CX Ray spokes are not worth the extra cost - their aerodynamics save you about 1W of drag at 30 mph.

If you want a real battleship of a road rim and don't feel the need to go with wider rim, DT Swiss RR585s are great.