You are reading a single comment by @Thuekr and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
Thuekr
Yes I am malcolm. the A23 rim is a fine rim but has lots of drilling swarf in it so before I build I have to shake it out or pick it out. I don't like doing that so I don't use the rim. I still have a pair left in the shop that how much I dislike the swarf.
The H plus son archetype was the rim I used the most for a while but Kinlin have the XR22t and the XR31t. Both of which shine. They are in my opinion the best rims in production today as they are cheap, wide, don't crack, tubeless compatible, not heavy and come in offset drilling. The last bit I like alot as tubeless tyres compress rims alot. I have measured a 300N tension drop on the DS rear. thats ~150N of the NDS. A offset rim helps mitigate that problem nicely.
The Mavic open Pro is narrow and shallow. Now aside from the width not being optimal the rim is not stiff. This means when building with one I have to add half hour to time it takes to build one wheel as stress relieving simply takes longer as every time I stress the spoke the wheel goes out of true. Eventually I get bored and my hand start to hurt to much and have to give up and leave it be. I hate that as if I can put it out by stressing with my hands then the rider can too. A good wheel you can lay on its side on a wooden block and load up the rim with your hands and push and it will still be straight. Do that with a 32H or 36H open pro rear wheel and the NDS spokes loose tension the wheel flops and it all over the place when it goes back in the jig. The rim is not bent just spoke tension has changed. Hence I don't build with it any more unless someone really wants one and then I sigh inside as I know what I am in for.
In contrast this afternoon building with a Pacenti SL23 and 1.45hrs later both wheels done and after side loading a few time they were both as straight as they where before. That is the difference a stiff rim makes.
The Mavic CXP33 is narrow but stiff. That is at least half way there. Mavic's tubular rims of day's gone by where the best thing they have ever made. Ambrosio now are the only company still making something similar but they don't have a GP4 which is bloody perfect. There was also the CX12 tub 30mm deep if I remember right. There are a pair on ebay but £150 is a bit rich. Still Mavic have made some very good rims shame they have given up on that now.