From CRC – which of the two would you go for? Not had any experience of either rim so any advice welcome.

Dave.

I’ve been happy enough with my Open Pros. Not the lightest, but seem solid and stiff.

My riding partner who is a wheel builder with 20 years of professional experience said he would not get the Alpha again(for himself). I’m not sure exactly why, but he was grumbling about them!

Are they Alpha 340 or 400, if 340 they’ll be ok if 32h but any less and they’re quite flexy. 400’s are a lot better. Open Pro’s are a good std choice and last well but don’t give as good a tyre profile as the Stans rim due to the Stans being wider.

I would ask why Alphas are so light, what is durability like?

Yes I am a little dubious, any Alpha/Open Pro users out there with any opinions?

Thanks all so far for the useful comments

I am pretty sure they use the 400 rim. I would expect it to be pretty strong with 32 spokes. I couldn’t find any reviews of this build when I looked though.

Slight hijick – has anyone seen any offers of Hope Disc hubs on either of these rims? I’m looking for something that can switch between rim brakes and discs, and these would be ideal

I can’t seem to find any Hope Hoops with a substantial discount ANYWHERE! Anybody better at Google-ing than me?

Wiggle were cheapest a week or 2 ago. I think £235

We just missed the boat with Wiggle who were down to £230 I think it was for the wheelset.
I should have pulled the trigger but mulled it over too long…

Oops, never seen this post ^^

Apparently the Alpha 400 rims have thin rim walls as part of their aim to be light weight. They also have an extra internal web compared to the 340s. I’ve ordered a set to try out. Two chances.

340 left, 400 right

I got good deal from here

http://thespokedwheel.co.uk/

🙂

Depends what you’re using them for. The Stans are a better rim I think, although a bit flexy. They are comfier though. I wouldnt buy a set again cos mine wore out in a few months over winter. Wouldnt bother with open pros either. I’d get velocitys or archetypes or something like that.

Open pro for me. They are great rims. I’d recommend them.

I have heard that one of either the open pros or the Stans alpha rims has to have a special inner tube which has to be glued in Which apparently makes it really hard to fix punctures. It would help me a lot if I got an answer so please reply! Also would someone help me find out what size these wheels are on this website please as I can’t find it.

Website:http://www.ubyk.co.uk/hope-hoops-pro-3-rs-mono-open-pro-clincher-wheelset/14904

After this thread, I opted for H Son Archteypes. They are being built as we speak. 🙂

Never had a problem with Open Pros – they’re a good balance of strength, weight and stiffness. Can be built into a sub 1600g wheelset easily and fairly economically.

7 month old thread…

I have heard that one of either the open pros or the Stans alpha rims has to have a special inner tube which has to be glued in Which apparently makes it really hard to fix punctures.

Whoever told you that is wrong, both use conventional tubes, although you can run the Alphas tubeless if you want.

Also would someone help me find out what size these wheels are on this website please as I can’t find it.

They’re 700c, standard road size, with 130mm/100mm hub widths.

Got some Open Pros on shimano hubs for the winter bike. Not the lightest, but feel nice and solid, easy to service, parts will be easy to get hold of, and they were 170 quid for the pair. Liking them so far.

Thank you njee29! 😀

been riding Hope Pro III on Open Pro for 12 months

wheels were not well built from the “factory” (hope), spoke tension not well balanced and wheels not very true

thankfully, I am an experienced wheel builder, so removed tension, re-tensioned the spokes and trued using a Park spoke tension meter to get them correct

have been good as gold since, and I am not shy on abusing my road bike whether its smashing through potholes, getting air over sleeping policemen, going off-road on fire-roads from time to time, or just ragging it downhill

I have lots of experience with Stan’s rims, I used to work for the UK distributor and ran multiple sets of ZTR Flow rims on different bikes

in hindsight, I’d prefer eyeletted rims every time to the ZTR rims, mine all cracked around the spoke drillings, within a year of ownership (I built them all myself, using recommended spoke tension)

thing I like about the Mavic Open Pro’s is that they work, light enough, nice stiff rim with good square braking surface and cheap to replace using regular components if broken in a big crash or RTC

here’s mine: