Which would you pick and why? I'm in the market for a new wheelset, leaning towards the former because I figure it's the stronger of the two.

There's a lot of talk about strength, rigidity, lateral crushing capacity, amount of eagle feathers, and number of speed holes on this forum, but I'm willing to bet that almost any rim of reasonable quality is good enough for the riding people around here do. Or anywhere for that matter. I have Aeroheads and they're great. They look nice, they stay nice, and they ride well. What more could I want? I've seen Open Pros and they look *****in'.

I do want a pair of those nice Ambrosio rims with the little gold plaque thing for my town ride, but again, pure aesthetics.

Open pros aren't going to be noticeably weaker than an aerohead. Go for it. They build up and ride great.

(hint ) a large number of tour riders train on open pros during off season ..... hope it helped.

Basically, my reservation for the OP's is the reviews they've been getting on Roadbikereview: people call them out for making a creaking noise after a few months, and some have cracked them between the eyelets. This is disconcerting.

My reservation about the Aeroheads and reason for considering the OP's over them is that in the past I've been told by bike shop employees that Velocity uses a weaker aluminum than Mavic in their rims.

I wonder how much truth is in each of these statements.

I thought mavic took care of the creaking eyelets years ago. It was definitely a problem in the early to mid 90s, but I haven't had a problem on any open pro I've ridden or build in the five years or so, so I assumed the problem was fixed.

As for the alloy, who's to say? It's a hoop so there is gonna be a compromise between lateral stiffness and resiliency. As long as it's made of a suitable alloy, I would think that profile has more to do with strenth than material alone.

Open pro for sure.

I've ridden both OP and aeroheads, as well as many other rims, and while they aren't as beefy as a deep section rim like a cxp33 or deep V, the OP is plenty strong and nice and light. the aeroheads are a bit lighter but did not hold up to street use for me, I don't like having to true wheels all the time. remember, build is important!

Oh yeah I know. On my last set of wheels I bought them from benscycle.net who evidently aren't the greatest wheelbuilders. I brought them to the master builder in town to get them trued and when I returned he was like "I had to tighten every spoke on the wheel, who built these?".

A large number of tour riders don't pay for wheels.

It's been covered before. The aeroheads are inferior in every single aspect except color choice. They are comparable to the open sports not the open pros.

same experience

weight, dutret?

yep even weight

and, as long as supplies last, IRO has Aeroheads in their Bargin(not bargain) Basement for $50 for two. 32 hole in silver.

yeah, but that is no-where near current production. Not a great representation. I have two black velocity aeroheads waiting for me to build them into wheels. One came in at 417, the other, 423.

so they maybe a few grams lighter.

The quality of production that resulted in that 7.41% difference is another issue too.

Did aeroheads happen to bully you at some point in your life?

no but they have annoyed me a moderate amount. They are fine rims but a bit overpriced normally and nowhere near the quality of open pros. At $50/2 I would consider them instead of open sports.

I'll give you that one.

$30 for a pair. Bargain.

dutret hates everything. He's dutrimental to this topic

But he is right. They are both adequate for most people. Aeroheads are slightly inferior in every way, but that's why they're cheaper. Open Pros are very standard for a good reason.

open pro's for sure

Oh, and about the weight of aeroheads, just picked up another set.

This is the front

and the rear was 411, but I built that up into a wheel (awesome wheel too. My correct spokes finally came (last one were too long) and my all black ano rim, red nipples, black spokes and DA7800 hub triplet build came out looking great. Nice and stealth)

oped pro cd

Yeah, I love my Open Pro CD rims because they look like old anodized tubulars.. very classy.

I have about 100 miles on these OP CD's since I laced them two weeks ago. Lovely wheels thus far.