It hardly makes sense to go with Nemesis rims and then cut down the spoke count. You're building them to be bulletproof, not light. The other element of Nemesis rims is that they have a low box profile so they have a suppleness to them. The difference between riding a pair of Nemesis rims and a pair of deep-section alloy or carbon rims is quite pronounced.

That being said, Fairwheel has 32 hole only, according to their website. ItalTecno is out of stock most of the time. Tom Kellogg has had a few from time to time, mostly 32 hole, I believe. They are simply hard to find.

I do have two extra pairs of 36 hole Nemesis rims if anyone is interested. I'd prefer to sell all four rims together to someone interested in two pairs of wheels or having them for a later build. $400 for all four, shipped. I do wish Ambrosio had better distribution in the US. You can get their clincher rims rebranded as Torellis, but not their Nemesis.

Label on rear wheel is facing the wrong way.

Rebuild it immediately!

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www.dormancyclery.com

This guy carries Mavic tubulars I think

one of my first sets with more spokes and crossing
but tesnion is alomost perfect

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click this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqfFdCWAH5I&list=UUEtgd6K9EDGmoSE2YYipQgQ&index=20

I believe Marinoni still builds with Ambrosio rims. I bought a set a few years back. Couldn't ask for a more reliable rim.

Why use Mavic when they haven't made a decent sprint rim since the last century? Ambrosio wipe the floor with Mavic hence the slight premium for their products.

That's hyperbole, Mavic's Open pro's and Reflex rims are pretty comparable with Ambrosio's equivalent offerings. And Ambrosio has nothing like the cPX 33 which is a decent shaped rim for it''s weight and price. Wiping the floor with Mavic is highly debatable.

Both brands don't offer nice wider clincher rims, so neither is very innovative.

To compare a Excellence to an Open Pro or a Nemesis to a Reflex is an unfair comparison.

Yes, it's unfair because Nemesis rims are so much heavier...
Paris-Roubaix can be ridden with even Hyperon rims without problems.

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I ride Ambrosio Crono F20 and GL330 & SSC from Mavic. All are beautiful to ride. By contrast the Reflex rims I have felt dead. The SSC & GL330 rims are laced identically to the Reflexes. Nuf said

I'm obviously comparing the Open Pro with Ambrosio's clincher equivalents and the Reflex with the F20's.

Keep in mind that the braking track of Mavic is much better than Ambrosio. Ambrosio side wall is not machined and will likely pulse under breaking at the joint. And that the reflex is a tad stiffer than the Chrono.


I value your personal opinion (I really do), but that in itself is not enough to claim that Ambrosio is head and shoulder above Mavic especially if there are reports going exactly the other way around.

Here is our forum colleague Coloclimber:


The claim that Ambrosio wipes the floor with Mavic isn't based on much beyond your personal experience it seems.

Well, here are the basic historical issues with Mavic rims:

The Reflex came in several varieties. Originally it was a good bit heavier, and a relatively soft metal so it got flat spots easily. To address both these complaints, Mavic switched to a much harder metal and made the walls of the tubular extrusion correspondingly thinner. This should have worked, but the metal was very susceptible to work hardening, which happened when it was drilled and the ferrules installed. As a result, the metal was rather brittle at the spoke holes and especially because the ferrules really put most of the load on the inner portion of the extrusion (closer to the hub) and the holes were larger to accommodate the ferrules, they cracked like crazy. It wasn't uncommon to find runs of Reflexes that showed radial cracking at the spoke holes after about 1,000 miles. Many more suffered this problem at around 5,000-6,000 miles, and this tended to be the typical performance. The most recent versions had some of the greatest problems.

In addition, the Reflex was one of the Mavic rims that suffered from gobs of metal on the inside of the SUP weld, which commonly broke off after a while and rattled like crazy. Fixable, and not lethal, but annoying. And lastly, Mavic achieved the ground flat braking surface by machining the finished extrusion. Since the walls were already thin, and especially in later years the extrusion dies were worn and gave somewhat erratic wall thicknesses, you sometimes had very thin walls with premature sidewall failure.

The 280/330 never got to the hard alloy problem. They were a very soft malleable aluminum and tended to get flat spots very easily. They tended to build up with little flutters in the truing simply because the metal bent so easily, even as one was building spoke tension.

The SSC label was applied to a whole range of rims including both custom runs for pro teams and also some consumer product. In box-section rims, most of the SSCs were strong but for the same reason as the Nemesis -- thicker walls, somewhat shallower depth, and no braking surface machining. They also were mostly made with splices rather than welding. In short, they were built correctly for heavy stresses but not done as well as the corresponding Ambrosio rims.

Ambrosio was pretty consistent in its rims. They actually made a significant improvement when they became the OEM for Campagnolo rims, and Campy demanded that they meet some extremely strict standards, at least in their top grade levels. It gave Ambrosio an edge and they have simply been very careful to protect their manufacturing quality control ever since.

So I'd say that there really is a valid superiority of most Ambrosio tubular rims over most Mavic tubular rims. The difference was very marked in some years, minor in others. Similar kinds of issues on clincher rims.

@11.4, now that, is an informative post. Thanks.

@Franklin, I am riding the Ambrosio Nemesis built to Record hubs with DT Comp spokes. I have nothing but good things to say. Extremely smooth riding and from my own experience, there is zero "pulsing" at the joint while braking.

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Yep 11.4 thanks for that post.

Riding nemesis+CXRay+record. No pulsing either whatsoever.

+1.

I'm also on selfbuilt 32h Nemesis/record/DT comp 3x front and rear/brass nipples. Extra smooth with FMB Paris Roubaix 25mm...

I also have a pair with the older slightly lighter 32h Nemesis/DT 240s/CX-Rays 2x front and NDS, 3x DS/alu nipples. Lighter and also sweet!