The picture is of the latest Open Pro rim that was built onto a wheel for me. If you wish to look at the wheels then they are visible on this link.... http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=113&t=144325&start=105
So what happened? Never before have I had such difficulty in getting a tyre on a rim. Though these are tubeless ready my plan is to use Veloflex Master 25mm with vittoria latex tubes. I had to use every trick I could think of to get the rear tyre on that eventually required washing up liquid under the tyre bead and brutal force. There was no way I was going to be able to change a tube if I had a puncture so naturally tyres get easier to remove and remount if you take them off and on 2-3 times. I used campagnolo tyre levers. Inserted the first one and on levering the second one over the rim the above happened. No one I know of has ever seen this happen and we're talking many hundreds of year of cumulative experience. I've smashed through pot holes and all sorts of crashes and not so much as put a small dent in a rim. Mavic requested the whole wheel back which they duly collected, this was at the end of July. There was no feedback at all from them until a wheel arrived with a replacement rim in the middle of September. Condor who supplied the rims have been great throughout.
The one above was the rear wheel however a brand new Veloflex tyre went on the front fairly tough but manageable so a totally different experience. There was clearly something not right with the rear rim. The replacement from Mavic was out of true out of the box which says a lot about Mavic's wheel building skills but more on that shortly. The tyre went on as easily as the front, tough but reasonable for a new tyre. The problems came after I was completing the bike build and I discovered the wheel had come out of true even more. Purely from sitting on and off the bike a few times! Prior to the original wheel being collected by Mavic I had used my Park spoke tension meter on the wheel to check drive and non-drive side spokes. My builder (Jonny at Noble wheels http://www.noble-wheels.com/) had done an excellent job and they were within 0.5 all round. On testing the Mavic built wheel....
Yes you're reading that correct! There is no tension at all on that spoke along with several others. Obviously there are others that are way out. So I'm pretty disgusted with their wheel building skills and it's gone back to Jonny for a complete retension. Mavic's response overall? Eventually it was "too much force was used to remove the tyre". Of course you can only use as little or as much force as it takes for the tyre to come off. My own feeling on these rims is that the side walls are rather on the thin side. They're clearly weak. Whether the one I had was just faulty generally when compared with the front the difficulty/ease of getting the tyre off/on was like chalk and cheese. I would urge people not to buy them. Mavic clearly aren't bothered at all and just did the bare minimum they needed to which was supply a replacement rim. But built up onto a wheel that wasn't safe. Thanks.
