sriley4290

I just bought a set of Mavic Open Pros with ultegra hubs from my LBS and for the life of me they won't stay true. i went from 20 spoke Fulcrum(bought on bike), to the 32 spoke Mavics. I am 235# and never had this much problems with my 20 spoke Fulcrums. I heard great things about the Mavic. could it be just bad setup, bad truing, or could there be something wrong with the wheels themselves? Bike shop has trued them 3 times already in 9 rides. total of less than 125 miles on them.

I don't ride rough, trying to stand up on bumps, and missing as much road crap as possible. I shift well, and rarely stand and really get on the bike to climb or accelerate. Just looking for some advice. my next step from the LBS is to have them completely break the wheels down spoke by spoke and basically rebuild them in shop. sounds as good as a plan as any.

anyone else seen something like this?

SBinNYC

Both wheels?

Drew Eckhardt 

Sure. Your LBS and who ever else worked on the wheels weren't competent enough to tension them properly, and you're too big to get away with that.

Spoke tension drops from rider weight as they pass the bottom of the wheel. With low enough tension (the rear NDS is worst), soft enough rims (with stiffness proportional to the cube of beam thickness, box section rims like Open Pros are much less stiff than contemporary deeper shapes), and big enough riders (although even 150 pounds can be a problem with a very bad build) tension goes low enough the nipples unscrew.

Make the tension uniform within each wheel side, ESPECIALLY the rear non-drive side. Pluck and use tone. Buy a Park TM-1. Set the rear drive side and front to 105-110kgf average with Open Pros and NDS whatever it takes to center the wheel. Accept a little worse radial true if necessary to avoid any soft spokes in the rear non-drive side - tire compliance means you won't feel it.

With butted spokes you'll be fine. If some one cheaped out and used straight gauge they might not have enough stretch at achievable tension on the rear NDS and I'd replace the rear NDS spokes with 2.0-1.6mm DT Competition Race or 2.0-1.5 DT Revolution spokes.

If you're unwilling to do that yourself (wheel building is about as difficult as adjusting front derailleurs, although with one interacting adjustment per spoke it obviously takes a lot longer) find a good one-person wheel building operation where the hands which earned the reputation do the work.

The Open Pros are a decent traditional box-section rim, although you'll get better durability and performance with something deeper and more aerodynamic.

andr0id

I agree, they weren't built right.

You got good rims and hubs for sure.
I've used Open Pros for years, never had problems with them.

It should not be necessary for your LBS to take them completely apart, but I'd dump all the tension and start the tension process from the beginning again.

sriley4290

yes both wheels, the funny thing is that the wheels while bought at the same time, the rear was already onsite, and the front I had to order "ship to store". so I got them at different times.

Drew Eckhardt 

Machine built wheels are usually under-tensioned because it's less expensive to deal with occasional warranty returns from heavier riders than to cut the production speed, use more expensive machines, and/or pay people to finish the wheels with hand labor.

Personally I'd return them and build my own wheels, and if unwilling to do that have a reputable one-person operation build a set to my specifications. While it takes practice getting fast enough to earn an hourly rate close to what you'd make doing other tasks as a bicycle mechanic, with more time you can do as well on your first try.

Front problems are rare because they don't have a lower tension side although there can be problems - I let a shop build an almost symmetrical IGH wheel for my wife and it didn't stay true due to low uneven tension. Took me longer to almost fix ( they used spokes too long, and one bottomed before getting to the tension I wanted) than if I built it myself.

sriley4290

Drew, thanks for the input. would you recommend anything in the same price range? I got a great deal on them, which is why I bought them.

sriley4290

Not sure I am ready to build my own wheels. would love to know how and have that knowledge and experience, but right now, not sure I would do a good job.

fietsbob

At 235 pounds perhaps be realistic, consider getting a 3 cross 36 spoke rear wheel , front can be a 32 spoke.

a carefully built hand assembled wheel may be worth the labor charge..

Bill Kapaun

I weigh 250 and have 32 spoke wheels on my hybrid.
I've dropped the rear into an old fashioned sewer grate, bouncing my butt about 10" out of the seat, and the wheel just had a very slight wow.
I didn't have to loosen the brakes at all to keep riding.
I was on vacation, and just a bit of truing when I got back home and the wheel was fine.

The problem you have is poor, uneven tension. Period!
Have a "real" wheel build retension the wheel and you should be fine.

Jarrett2

I'm at 280 on 28 front/32 back DT Swiss RR440's. A well built wheel doesn't need a million spokes.

My local bikes shops have stopped using Open Pro's due to a sudden change in reliability. They've moved to Velocity for the most part.

Here's a set that would handle you fine I'm sure:

Velocity Deep V Black Shimano Ultegra 6800 Hubs 8 9 10 11 S 32H [74565] - $269.00 Velomine.com : Worldwide Bicycle Shop, fixed gear track bike wheelsets campagnolo super record vintage bike


If you want something super cheap, strong and ridiculously heavy, you can order some of these for when they come back in stock:

Vuelta Corsa HD Road Wheelset

70sSanO

^ This is great stuff.

John

FastJake

+1000 This is a tension issue, plain and simple. I would recommend a heavier rear rim or more spokes but the front should be completely fine with that setup. If the bike shop has "trued" them 3 times they clearly have no clue what they're doing and cannot be trusted to build a set of wheels for you.

I would properly tension them or rebuild them myself, or find someone competent who will. If straight gauge spokes were used, replace them with butted next time. Otherwise your only choice is a new set of wheels.

SBinNYC

The indication is there is something systemically wrong with the build. Depending on the amount of wobble and non-uniform tension, I would have expected the LBS to rebuild the wheel from scratch after the second return. The fact that it keeps failing means the LBS has been doing the same thing and expecting different results.

I'd take the wheels to a different shop to get a second opinion.

sriley4290

Luckily, that is the next option, to rebuild from the rim up. if rebuilding them doesn't work I will take them to a 2nd shop. might replace, but at this point definitely going to have the 1st shop do the full rebuild as it won't cost me anything but time, and i have a crosstrail hybrid I can ride in the mean time. I know we have talked about spoke tension, and they put the meter on each spoke, both drive side and Non drive side, but not sure if they tensioned them accordingly, or just made sure they were "within limits" I wasn't watching as closely as I should have been. I am still learning about advanced(to me) bike maintenance like this.

Drew Eckhardt 

Your favorite commodity rim at least 25mm deep with 32 holes laced cross-3 with DT 2.0/1.6 Competition Race spokes to Shimano 105 or inexpensive cartridge bearing hub of your choice. Build quality will have more to do with your experience than the parts, although unfortunately you're going to pay for that one way (money for skilled labor to build the wheel) or another (money to fix it).

The Kinlin XC-279 is a good inexpensive 23mm wide 28mm deep rim, Velocity Fusion or Deep-V standard width 25/30mm deep.

Shimano 105 hubs are good and can be had very inexpensively from the UK; BHS (formula) are decent inexpensive cartridge bearing hubs.

Jarrett2

Oh I didn't read that it was the front wheel too. There's no reason that should be happening.

I'm guessing from the "ship to store" comment that you're dealing with Performance Bike. I've also tried buying some of their Mavic wheels and I took them back with problems inside of 260 miles. If this is the case, I'd say return them, get your money back and invest in some good wheels from a reputable source.

Excel Sports will hand build you a set for $437 that will last a loooong time. But I still think those Velocity's that I linked above are a really solid deal as well.

mconlonx

I build wheels. ...but I often buy pre-built wheels for my bikes and customer bikes.

For an issue like this, if the wheels were bought through the shop, I would de-tension spokes on both wheels and start the tensioning/truing process from scratch. But they probably wouldn't need it as we true and tension any new wheel we are selling. As in, this has never been an issue with a wheel which ever went out of our shop.

If they were a ship-to-shop purchase, I'd charge for the service -- we get $40 for a full wheel build, so for something like this, probably $20/ea for de- and re-tensioning.

sriley4290

are you in Georgia? or does anyone know a good reputable expert wheel builder in the Atlanta area?

sriley4290

I am definitely going to look into some other options so I have them ready in case this last ditch effort doesn't work.

sriley4290

Great Info Drew, thank you. going to look into those as well.

mconlonx

Nope, Maine. Sorry. In a larger metro area, there should be a shop/mechanic with a decent rep for wheels.

sriley4290

Great Info Drew, thank you. going to look into those as well.

tcarl

My weight and riding style seem similar to yours. For comparison let me share my experience with Open Pro rims. A while back I built up two sets of wheels with Dura Ace hubs and Open Pro rims. One set was for steady, long distance rides(centuries and more), the other for fast, performance oriented rides. The "long distance" wheels are 32 spoke front, 36 rear. I basically never have to true them - they stay solid. The "performance" wheels are 24 front/32 rear. I don't have much trouble with the front, but only ride it on smooth roads - for rougher pavement I substitute a 32 spoke wheel. The 32 spoke rear should be touched up after every ride and definitely needs truing/tweaking every 100 miles or so. I've always thought that at my weight and strength I was just a bit over for 32 spokes and light rims on a performance oriented rear wheel. I'm not worried about it structurally holding me (should I be?), but figure I torque it enough each time that I just need to always touch it up every ride (40-50 miles).

Drew Eckhardt 

It's not a spoke count problem.

If it can be made true with uniform tension (indicating it's not bent) that's a build and perhaps NDS spoke selection problem (thinner stretch more at a given tension so you need less total, which is an issue with Open Pros that aren't very stiff so the spokes unload more, are symmetrical so the NDS tension is a smaller fraction of DS compared to an asymmetrical rim, and won't take more than 105-110kgf). That's understandable - I went to engineering school, read Jobst Brandt's writings on rec.bicycles.tech, and for a long time still believed heavier spokes were necessary in back even though science suggested otherwise.

If it can't be true and (relatively) uniformly tight that's damage.

I exceeded 215 pounds at my heaviest, plus another 10-15 pounds of commuting stuff like laptop, work clothes, spare lights, etc. for 225-230 total.

The 32 hole Open Pro rear I built with DT Competition 2.0/1.8mm drive side and DT Revolution 2.0/1.5mm NDS stayed true at that weight. I used the Jobst Brandt tensioning method (alternately add tension and stress relieve until it goes out of true in waves indicating you've reached the rim's elastic limit, then back off tension half a turn, re-true, and be happy) although IIRC it measured 105kgf when I checked with a Park TM-1.