Wheel Upgrade Done! Short Test on Thursday morning...

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Ah, after TOP, everything for my wheel came in....the components :-

- NOS Dura Ace 7800 Hubs (circa 2003, got em' cos it complements the 7800 groupset, btw, this is the set that Lance used for the last few times we won the TDF!)
- Silver Mavic Open Pro rims (Have em' on the Ultegra set, and my fixed gear....gotta like the light weight box construction of these classic rims, which btw suits the bike and my style of riding)
- SAPIM CX-Ray Spokes (for weight savings and apparent claim to fail at a much lower rate compared to even DT Swiss spoke....individually forged)
- Velox Rim tape (have em on all the bikes, have held up well)

Got it built up at TEF Biker's Junction (Thomson Road) by Jasni (btw, great guy, very helpful, no bad vibes, I'll hire him if I ever open a bike shop!). Very reasonable price and collected the wheels in under 2 days. Very well tensioned, trued and wow, bladed spokes 3x cross-laced still looks pretty good! Finally a complete full silver wheelset.

Anyway, the 2 wheels weighed in at 761/834 (F/R) = 1.595kg, not light but hey its 32 spokes on each wheel laced 3x so, its as strong as it can get for this configuration. If I used a 28 F (radial) and 32 R (2x), it will be about 1.53kg...IMO, not worth to compromise in strength! I'm actually pretty happy about it as its already a 240g savings compared to my current Ultegra wheelset which btw, have given me ~10000km of service and still going strong.

Test Ride - 30km ECP - Coastal - ECP route.

- As stiff and as comfortable as my current wheelset.
- Spin up faster (but by not much...still noticeable though)
- Loud! The ratcheting noise is completely dfferent from Ultegra

I can't wait to try some climbs with them....all in all I'm happy with this as the total cost is only about 100 dollars more than when I built up the Ultegra set 2 years back. You get plenty of savings via some online work. I reckon if I went to shop to get the parts... (well the hubs are actually pretty hard to come by these days!)....its could have easily have been 200-300 dollars more...

PS : There is a clicking sound like there's something in the F rim....similar to my fixed gear F wheel too but when on the road, its not noticable at all, so I just leave it be. Apparently Mavic OPs are notorious in giving clicking sounds....due to a connecting pin at the weld join apparently.

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