Originally Posted by
cyccommute
It’s possible to replace a rim but the issue is often finding a rim that will work. If you are able to find exactly the same model as the original rim, it’s trivial but it’s often difficult to find the same model. You may be able to find a rim with the same effective rim diameter (ERD) but it that is almost more difficult than finding the same rim model. Most of the time, you just end up having to replace the spokes as well.
I just bought more Mavic Open Pros back in the day. It was easy to find them in the size spoke count I was using. Also back then there was far less variation in rim depth so ERD varied a lot less and finding one that was the same or at least very close was easy if you were going to a different rim.
These days things have changed I can't find those same Open Pros and ERDs vary really widely. So yeah, it is harder to do that same trick. Maybe not impossible if you are lucky, but much less likely to find a rim that matches closely enough unless you are replacing a common model still in production or happen to find one with the same ERD that you like,