2017 Mavic Open Pro Exalith (and other stuff)

The first legit "good" set of wheels I ever owned was a set of Open Pros on DA hubs. This was a long time ago (I'm old), and while they weren't quite state of the art at the time, they were plenty current. Despite the myriad times Mike and I have bemoaned that "someone really needs to make a modern Open Pro," we didn't think it would be Mavic that did it. But now the modern version of that exact build of my long ago past could be something we ride (and, more importantly, build) a lot this coming year. This world never ceases to amaze.

From Team Dream's InstagramI was barely three weeks ago that I wrote about how the industry-at-large seemed to finally be sparing a thought for the humble alloy rim, and now this news has come out. I swear we knew absolutely nothing of this when I wrote that post. 

This is notable from Mavic for a couple of reasons. First, they updated the Open Pro, which I think the world had more or less given up on. That speaks to two things: that they give a crap about updating aluminum rims, and also that they give a crap about component rims and not just pre-built wheels (the era of which they more or less created with their Helium wheel set). Last, they're bringing an Exalith (which is their trade name for a black coating process that several manufacturers use) component rim to the market. And it's tubeless ready and wide.

The specs as we know them are that it's 19mm wide inside, claimed to weigh 435g, will be available in Exalith, machined side wall, and disc versions, and will be available in 24, 28, and 32h drillings (disc in 28 and 32 only). In a twist that we couldn't have imagined 4 years ago when people were looking at us sideways when we talked about the primacy of inside width, the outer width isn't even reported in the BikeRadar thing - nor is the depth talked about. Disc rims will be offset drilled. 

To answer your next question, we have no idea. They're saying late spring to early summer. 

Though this seems like a very very cool rim, we don't think it's the be-all-end-all, everything for every rider and every purpose rim. There's no such thing. We're just happy to be able to bring you ever more compelling alloy options that will make ever more difficult to miss carbon rims. And yes, we're a Mavic dealer.

The other thing we're working on is accessory options, so you can just pull your wheels out of the box, adjust the tire pressure, and roll. We've been sending out a lot of wheels with tires on them already, disc builds with rotors, cassettes, yada yada. With the new shop, we're keeping a bunch more stuff in stock ready to go, so that gets easier. I just have to get my act together and get everything on the site. 

If the UPS guys shows up today, the other two sections of this will arrive

One last thing on the shop is that we're literally in right field of the local minor league team's field, so I was thinking "wouldn't it be cool to do a Wednesday mellow ride and have beers and cookout after, and watch the end of the baseball game?" Well guess what, June 7 there's a home game EVERY Wednesday night throughout summer. Score. 

Had to include this, never made a sign before and it's almost too pretty to put outside