Mavic open sport clincher rims

Anyone have experience with or knowledge of these? Could they be the
second coming of the MA2, or something close (he says optmistically)?

Mark who? writes secretively:

Anyone have experience with or knowledge of these? Could they be the
second coming of the MA2, or something close (he says optimistically)?

We've been there already. This is a kludge of a heavy rim without
sockets but with gimmicks such as welded joint, wear groove, machined
side walls dark anodizing but only eyelets to support the spoke on one
wall. It's too bad that the inexpensive but most durable rim Mavic
ever offered (MA-2) is history.

Jobst Brandt

wrote:
Mark who? writes secretively:


Anyone have experience with or knowledge of these? Could they be the
second coming of the MA2, or something close (he says optimistically)?


We've been there already. This is a kludge of a heavy rim without
sockets but with gimmicks such as welded joint, wear groove, machined
side walls dark anodizing but only eyelets to support the spoke on one
wall. It's too bad that the inexpensive but most durable rim Mavic
ever offered (MA-2) is history.

Jobst Brandt

now let's see...

1. you're responding to a very obvious ma2 troll.
2. ma2's are easily flat-spotted because of their low profile
3. ma2 sockets rust
4. ma2's are heavy
5. ma2's /are/ anodized
6. machined side walls offer superior braking
7. welded joints offer better balance
8. welded joints offer better mechanical strength
9. so what's wrong with single eyelet? what matters is whether they can
support the static & fatigue loads. many rims, campy among them have
/none/.
10. anything else? oh yes, wear indicators. surely you can't argue
against that can you???

jim beam wrote:

1. you're responding to a very obvious ma2 troll.
2. ma2's are easily flat-spotted because of their low profile

I have not seen 2) to be a bigger issue with MA2s than with other rims.
It seems like where shallow rims flat-spot, deep rims bulge their
sidewalls, and neither one of these is a good thing.

Besides, aren't you the guy who says spoke gauge has an effect on ride
quality? If you can feel that, then I don't know why you wouldn't
prefer shallow rims since they have a much more pronounced effect on
radial deflection. (Not that I can feel any.)

3. ma2 sockets rust
4. ma2's are heavy

Open Sports are heavier. So are most deep rims if I'm not mistaken.

5. ma2's /are/ anodized

The green label kind are. The earlier red label kind are not. In any
case they are not anodized deeply enough to etch the surface to a matte
finish, like new silver Mavics are. Whether it has to do with the
anodizing, the alloy, or something else, there is no doubt that new
Mavics are substantially more crack-prone than MA2, Module 3, and
Module 4.

6. machined side walls offer superior braking

I have not found this to me the case, unless you are talking about the
palpable blip in some non-machined rims. I do brake to available
limits on most of my bikes, so I would exclusively use one or the other
if I could discern a difference in braking power.

7. welded joints offer better balance

Not an issue at the sub-500 RPM speeds we ride. I have
valve-stem-mounted lights on a couple of my bikes, and I don't feel
them at all on downhill runs up to 60mph. Needless to say, these
lights are significantly heavier than any rim pin.

8. welded joints offer better mechanical strength

Not for Mavics, they don't. Try to tension new welded Mavics up enough
to carry a good load, and they will bulge at the weld before they start
to squish at the valve hole. That means they are demonstrably weaker
than earlier non-welded rims in which the valve hole would be the first
to go.

9. so what's wrong with single eyelet? what matters is whether they can
support the static & fatigue loads. many rims, campy among them have
/none/.

Until Mavic sort out their eyelet cracking issues, their need for
improvements in this regard is painfully evident. Double eyelets are
not an automatic 100% fix, nor are they the only effective measure to
take, but they do help.

10. anything else? oh yes, wear indicators. surely you can't argue
against that can you???

I'm not under any illusions about the MA2 being some kind of
extra-special rim-- I've never been able to use them myself, and my
experience with them comes from having been a shop mechanic when they
were an available item. But it's clear to me that the MA2 was not
seriously flawed in in any particular way, unlike many if not most of
Mavic's current offerings.

The pair of MA2s I laced up for my sweetie's bike are holding up just
fine, and show no signs of rust, flat spotting, braking anomalies, or
any other kind of problems. I used them because they did the job while
being much nicer looking than compaable rims I can buy new these days.
(First, I tried to get polished 32h Sun Venus rims, but to no avail.)

Chalo Colina

Chalo wrote:
jim beam wrote:

6. machined side walls offer superior braking

I have not found this to me the case, unless you are talking about the
palpable blip in some non-machined rims. I do brake to available
limits on most of my bikes, so I would exclusively use one or the
other if I could discern a difference in braking power.

I have found it to be the case. Machining creates a relatively rough and
finely grooved surface which significantly improves braking.... until it
wears smooth, which can take a long time if the bike is used mostly in dry
conditions.

~PB

Pete Biggs wrote:
Chalo wrote:

jim beam wrote:


6. machined side walls offer superior braking

I have not found this to me the case, unless you are talking about the
palpable blip in some non-machined rims. I do brake to available
limits on most of my bikes, so I would exclusively use one or the
other if I could discern a difference in braking power.


I have found it to be the case. Machining creates a relatively rough and
finely grooved surface which significantly improves braking.... until it
wears smooth, which can take a long time if the bike is used mostly in dry
conditions.

Since it's not a significant proportion of the ~0.5mm service wear
depth, it won't be a significant factor for the lifetime of the rim.
Kind of like a car feature that stops working after 5K miles -- IOW, a scam.

Mark wrote:

Anyone have experience with or knowledge of these? Could they be the
second coming of the MA2, or something close (he says optmistically)?

It looks like the MA3 with a new name. The MA3 is a cheap, bad rim,
which is prone to cracking around the eyelets with common spoke
tensions. Even Mavic admits this by specifying a lower rider weight
limit for the MA3 than for example Open Pro. The Open Pro is a much
better choice.

-as

Mark wrote:
Anyone have experience with or knowledge of these? Could they be the
second coming of the MA2, or something close (he says optmistically)?

C'mon Jobst....no wear groves(that's the CXP-22), no welded seam, no CD
or hard anodized version of the OpenSport but we have build a few of
these already. Seems like a good rim. Inexpensive($35), builds well BUT
we were bit by the MA-3, we'll see if Mavic fixed the eyelet pullout
problem of those with these.

Chalo wrote:
jim beam wrote:

1. you're responding to a very obvious ma2 troll.
2. ma2's are easily flat-spotted because of their low profile

I have not seen 2) to be a bigger issue with MA2s than with other rims.
It seems like where shallow rims flat-spot, deep rims bulge their
sidewalls, and neither one of these is a good thing.

Besides, aren't you the guy who says spoke gauge has an effect on ride
quality? If you can feel that, then I don't know why you wouldn't
prefer shallow rims since they have a much more pronounced effect on
radial deflection. (Not that I can feel any.)

3. ma2 sockets rust
4. ma2's are heavy

Open Sports are heavier. So are most deep rims if I'm not mistaken.

OpenSport is not a 'deep' rim. It is almost the same profile as the
MA-3, very similar to the OpenPro.

5. ma2's /are/ anodized

The green label kind are. The earlier red label kind are not. In any
case they are not anodized deeply enough to etch the surface to a matte
finish, like new silver Mavics are. Whether it has to do with the
anodizing, the alloy, or something else, there is no doubt that new
Mavics are substantially more crack-prone than MA2, Module 3, and
Module 4.

6. machined side walls offer superior braking

I have not found this to me the case, unless you are talking about the
palpable blip in some non-machined rims. I do brake to available
limits on most of my bikes, so I would exclusively use one or the other
if I could discern a difference in braking power.

7. welded joints offer better balance

Not an issue at the sub-500 RPM speeds we ride. I have
valve-stem-mounted lights on a couple of my bikes, and I don't feel
them at all on downhill runs up to 60mph. Needless to say, these
lights are significantly heavier than any rim pin.

8. welded joints offer better mechanical strength

Not for Mavics, they don't. Try to tension new welded Mavics up enough
to carry a good load, and they will bulge at the weld before they start
to squish at the valve hole. That means they are demonstrably weaker
than earlier non-welded rims in which the valve hole would be the first
to go.

9. so what's wrong with single eyelet? what matters is whether they can
support the static & fatigue loads. many rims, campy among them have
/none/.

Until Mavic sort out their eyelet cracking issues, their need for
improvements in this regard is painfully evident. Double eyelets are
not an automatic 100% fix, nor are they the only effective measure to
take, but they do help.

10. anything else? oh yes, wear indicators. surely you can't argue
against that can you???

I'm not under any illusions about the MA2 being some kind of
extra-special rim-- I've never been able to use them myself, and my
experience with them comes from having been a shop mechanic when they
were an available item. But it's clear to me that the MA2 was not
seriously flawed in in any particular way, unlike many if not most of
Mavic's current offerings.

The pair of MA2s I laced up for my sweetie's bike are holding up just
fine, and show no signs of rust, flat spotting, braking anomalies, or
any other kind of problems. I used them because they did the job while
being much nicer looking than compaable rims I can buy new these days.
(First, I tried to get polished 32h Sun Venus rims, but to no avail.)

Chalo Colina

"Chalo" wrote:

jim beam wrote:

1. you're responding to a very obvious ma2 troll.
2. ma2's are easily flat-spotted because of their low profile

I have not seen 2) to be a bigger issue with MA2s than with other rims.
It seems like where shallow rims flat-spot, deep rims bulge their
sidewalls, and neither one of these is a good thing.

Chalo hit the same points I was going to...

Besides, aren't you the guy who says spoke gauge has an effect on ride
quality? If you can feel that, then I don't know why you wouldn't
prefer shallow rims since they have a much more pronounced effect on
radial deflection. (Not that I can feel any.)

.... but I had to add my $0.02 here. It seems to me that if Chalo
can't feel vertical deflection on his rims / spokes / frame - the rest
of us don't stand a chance of doing so. He's going to get (at least)
2.5x as much deflection out of his equipment as I can (and a LOT more
than all but the very biggest of us).

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame