Mavic Open Elite as a replacement for Open Pro rims?

[geomannie]

Hi,

I have been using Mavic Open Pro rims (2016? 36 hole) for general riding & light touring on 28mm tyres. While these rims are really nice to ride, they are made of tissue paper & wear out in no time. They are also now unavailable (current version different).

I want to re-rim my wheels with a similar rim of similar ERD, so I can reuse the spokes as well as hubs. The Mavic Open Elite seems a possibility. Its ERD is 606mm vs the Open Pro 605mm and it's also quite light in weight, which I like.

Any thoughts on the suitability of the Open Elite for general/touring use? Any ideas about its rim thickness? Hopefully more than the miserable 1.2mm of the Open Pro?

Thanks for your thoughts.

[peetee]

Mavic A119 rims wear much faster than they used to so maybe it’s a feature of Mavic rims in general and you would be better off with another brand?

[geomannie]

Mavic A119 rims wear much faster than they used to so maybe it’s a feature of Mavic rims in general and you would be better off with another brand?

Maybe I would, but the only other rims with a ~605mm ERD are really expensive, like the Velo Orange Enterprise. The Open Elite are only about £28.

[pq]

My view of those Mavic rims is that they are, apart from not wearing particularly well, are rather outdated. Your 28mm tyres will sit better on a wider rim, and that's what I'd go for. I have 2 sets of rims which fit the bill, and there may be others I'm not familiar with. One is a Velocity A23 (I got mine from Brick Lane Bikes, I don't think many places stock them in the UK but they are popular in the US. They are wide and light - I use mine for light touring with 28mm tyres. The other are Kinlin, which have a somewhat deeper section but are wide just like the A23s. Mine are branded Hunt, but you can get the Kinlin ones easily enough - I forget who stocks them but google will turn that up. If you're interested I can figure out which model Kinlin rim I have - becasue of the Hunt branding it's not obvious. They do an offset rim for the rear which I think is a good idea.

My last pair of Open Pros are on their last legs after a disappointingly short time, and they'll be replaced by Kinlins.

[geomannie]

Hi pq

Some excellent points, but I am looking for quick & easy replacement, plus cheap. The Velocity A23 seem to be about £78 plus an ERD of only 601mm. The Open Pro were 605mm

I take your point about Kinlins. In fact I have just used them on a recent wheel built for another bike, including an asymmetric rear. Not ridden yet but they built well.

Cheers

[robc02]

There are (or were) various Ambrosio branded rims with the same or similar profile and ERD to Mavic Open Pro. E.g. Ambrosio Excellence

[mig]

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=144375

[gxaustin]

Have you looked at Halo rims? I think they are pretty close.
I have some spare Open Pros but they are 32H.

[pq]

Yes, the A23s have a shallow V section so you'd need slightly shorter spokes. I have no idea about flat wide rims you could do a straight swap with - I have some several mavics like that but they must be 25 years old, so I doubt they're available now.

I don't worry too much about spokes, I use API from cyclebasket and they don't cost much but of course more than nothing....

[geomannie]

Hi pq & all,

I appreciate your replies. My conundrum is that the hubs are old, on their third set of rims, & only the front rim is worn & needing replaced. I have serviced the hubs & they are in good nick for age, but I don't want to spend lots on expensive rims & spokes to go on old hubs. The only rim I can find to do a straight swap that combines price, availability, spoke pattern, colour & tyre width is the Open Elite. I guess I will go with it as a stop-gap prior to replacing the whole wheelset maybe next year. It's just for my hack bike (albeit a nice one) so nothing to lose.

[fastpedaller]

I've always been a fan of Mavics, and have built many into wheels for myself and other people over the years. I echo the negatives some have given about recent Mavic offerings. Whether to change to another manufacturer's rim (if ERD is very close) can also depend on whether you build your own wheels, for example, if your rebuild time is 'free' then a rim costing 3x the price of the Mavic may not be a good purchase if it only lasts twice as long (total loss due to pothole excepted in all cases). It's our 'throwaway society' vs price conundrum as well. Sometimes using a lower-priced item multiple times is cheaper in the long run.

[geomannie]

FWIW, I have just got around to finishing the re-rimming of my Open Pro front wheel with a Mavic Open Elite rim.

Is it as nice? Not really. Is it OK? For sure yes. It ticked all the boxes; cheap, near identical ERD, built OK, rides fine. That was £28 well spent on keeping the bike safety running for another while. Next time I will get new hubs & rims, but that is a project for another day. I might even repaint the frame while I am at it.

[AndyA]

I sold a fair few Open Elite/Tiagra prebuilt wheels at work, some of the rears came back buckled. I think it's a bad combination of overly light shallow section rim and lack of nds spoke tension because of the dish required for an 11x rear hub. A retension/true with spoke prep yielded a reliable wheel for light users, but for heavier riders with panniers we ended up rebuilding with different rims under warranty (Ryde Sputnik). No probs with the fronts, and I'm sure if you were using it with a less dished rear hub it would be fine on the back too

If I was in your shoes I'd use an Exal XR2 on the back when it wears out

[geomannie]

Yes, the Exal XR2 looks like a nice rim but I didn't buy one as it is apparently limited to a 25mm maximum tyre. I run 28's. Nothing in life is simple.

[Paul Smith SRCC]

I use the same rims on my own bike "for general riding & light touring". Have you looked at the Mavic OPEN PRO C; to quote Mavic "The Open Pro, the latest of Mavic's “Open” rims, is the most successful version. Making the most of the capabilities of the material chosen for its design, the Open Pro is arguably the best road bike rim available"; the Open Elite is a cheaper rim

They look near identical to my own Open Pro rims and a pair I built not long ago. I can't see where Mavic list the ERD, which is common, sometimes they list it, other times I can not seem to find it! Spoke calculating sites like Pro Wheel builder often quote them. A Google search came up with "Spoke bed diameter (ERD): 602 mm" via the shop-mavic site but when I clicked through I could not see a listing; confusingly over the years I have noticed the various sites often list them as either 602 or 605; the latter you also referenced. Mavic do have a dealer portal I can sometimes get more information from but sadly "the Mavicb2b site is currently in maintenance until August 9th"!

For what it's worth I use the ERD of 602mm and Pro Wheel builder to calculate the required spoke lengths and the listed results worked perfectly; I always 'round up' the lengths (294.5 to 295mm etc) never 'down'.