New Mavic Open Pro

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Sorry I know nowt about "Open Pro" rims.

What are they

[mig]

i wonder if there is going to be a factory wheelset featuring these rims? new mavic hubs, radially spoked front wheel, plenty of stickers, £1400 etc

i wouldn't think that any manufacturer shifts that many rims alone any more.

[Brucey]

the evidence is that there is a small market for a hard-wearing rim brake rim for touring, if that rim is priced in the £60-£90 range. Rigida used to offer lightweight (training/racing) rims with their CSS treatment but they dropped them, presumably because sales were poor.

So I think that 170 euros is just too much.... I was hoping they would come in around £100 tops. You can buy four of the current model for the price of one exalith rim, or about nine inexpensive rims.....

cheers

[pwa]

the evidence is that there is a small market for a hard-wearing rim brake rim for touring, if that rim is priced in the £60-£90 range. Rigida used to offer lightweight (training/racing) rims with their CSS treatment but they dropped them, presumably because sales were poor.

So I think that 170 euros is just too much.... I was hoping they would come in around £100 tops. You can buy four of the current model for the price of one exalith rim, or about nine inexpensive rims.....

cheers

And with a lightweight rim there is always the real risk that a pothole will damage your super expensive rims. My last pair of Open Pros got dinked shortly after I bought them. No coating would have saved them, but a damaged coating would have stopped me bending them back into shape.

[Samuel D]

I said above that the Exalith model would be €170 euros “not counting the necessary special brake pads” – but I just assumed the latter. I’ve since read that that price includes a pair of pads. So maybe the rim will yet end up substantially cheaper than that – perhaps even close to Brucey’s £100.

Sorry for jumping to conclusions. I’d never heard of a rim being sold with brake pads, so that possibility didn’t even occur to me.

More and more reliable information is needed before coming to more conclusions, I think.

[Keezx]

I have allready made up my mind ...
Never ever I will buy these things.....

[JohnW]

....................
That seems pricey for the Exalith treatment.

Unfortunately also confirms no 36 hole version, most of my hubs that need this rim are 36 hole. I am getting tired of wearing out Open Pro rims, my rear rim on my training bike is getting close to replacement at only 12 months old, kept very clean and not always used in poor weather. As Brucey states, the modern rims really are softer and wear more than they used to. So I would have been very interested in the Exalith version if in a 36 drilling. 36 hole rims seem to be getting much rarer across many manufacturers.

The MA40 was so much harder and took a lot of brake track wear. Still use a pair of Open 4CD rims too, these are on my racing bike when not using tubs, I suspect they have a lot of life left in them too. But the Open Pro is just plain soft.

Your experience of previous rims, and in comparison with the 'Open Pro' is the same as mine Des.

I've started another thread : :Replacements for Mavic 'Open Pro' rims. There some interesting stuff there.

I had stuck with 'Open Pro's, despite the appalling wear characteristics - can't really explain why - but it's looking like another brand now.

[belgiangoth]

My old open pros have lasted 10 years, maybe they are the older, harder, model. I recently noticed that I can get rims of the same mass (ish) that are wider, so better for 32+ mm. What has not been mentioned, but would interest me, would be a 650b version of these rims. The old open pro in 650c claims a mass of 300g, which would be nice for a wheel shod with 38mm rubber. Rim+tyre would be less than just my endeavour rim.

[Brucey]

.... The old open pro in 650c claims a mass of 300g....

gotta be a typo, that; prepare for a ~99g disappointment.....

(571/622) x 435g = 399g

cheers

[The utility cyclist]

650c tub might have been near 300g, a 700C reflex tub is c.360g

I won't be buying, I'm vacuuming up more ceramic rims including from lesser known companies.
I managed to bag a mint open pro ceramic on dura ace 7700 front last year for £40 posted.

As for the width, I've run 32mm on an open4CD with a heavy load and never had issues.

[Gattonero]

650c tub might have been near 300g, a 700C reflex tub is c.360g

I won't be buying, I'm vacuuming up more ceramic rims including from lesser known companies.
I managed to bag a mint open pro ceramic on dura ace 7700 front last year for £40 posted.

As for the width, I've run 32mm on an open4CD with a heavy load and never had issues.

The difference between Exalith and Ceramic is that Ceramic rims, most of them, are terrible in wet. The latest Open Pro Ceramic would barely slow down a bike when raining, I've seen more than one folk replacing them with normal O.P. or O.P. "CD" (which is just a hard anodization that will eventually wear). The Exalith can be noisy, but the braking performance is superb with modern road calipers, plus an "all-black" rim gives extra points of aesthetics that some people may fancy (it is a road rim after all). The cons of Exalith is a higher price (the finish is not just "Keronite" and takes a while to be done in the UK), and keeping the wheels and brake pads proper clean is imperative!

In a nutshell, choose Ceramics if you want minimal wear of the rim, but used only in wet and not on steep descents.
Choose standard/CD for consistent braking performance and Q/P ratio.
Or choose Exalith if you want the best braking efficiency and care about the look.
In all the options above, especially the 2nd and 3rd, the brake pads must always be kept clean!

[The utility cyclist]

IME (10 years worth of using ceramic rims) i've found that the braking in the wet is plenty fine even with my 100kg plus loads on board. I've had the CD rims since when they were the Open 4 and Open SUP and MA40 before, they're fine but wear much much quicker not to mention how nasty they look inbetween when the wear of the CD coating is all over the place.
I generally have the ceramic on the rear as it's the main brake I use for speed retardation in 85% of my riding. I can easily lock the back wheel up in the wet when braking hard on the ceramic, and as per discs, it then becomes a matter of tyre grip and the brakes on most bikes even much older types of brakes exceed that grip by plenty.
You say you can't use them on descents, sorry, but my personal experience says otherwise, twisty chicanes coming down from the top of Col des Montets when my front brake was binding and hard rear braking to ensure the acceleration from the slope didn't end up with me being over the edge. this was in the dry/very hot day.

like everything in life, people have differing experiences with the same things, for some it's a set up issue, some don't learn how to brake properly/learn to understand hazards and how environments change what and when you do things and for some it just doesn't seem to work for whatever reason. For this person it does and hence why I won't be spending money on the exalith rims even though I'm sure they will work just fine, but not fine for all, as I said pretty much as per everything else in life.

[JohnW]

That's a very balanced dissertation Mr Utility Cyclist. Speaking for myself, I'd have tried the new Open Pros, if they'll do a 36 hole version, but information is that they won't - so I won't either.

[Keezx]

Using a rear brake as " the main brake I use for speed retardation in 85% of my riding" tells me something no so "balanced"

[Canuk]

I gave up on Open Pros when the wall width was reduced. Madness!