[tarwheel2]

Am I wrong? I've got Open Pro/Ultegra wheels on 3 bikes, and had another older set that I sold a while ago. The older set from the late 1990s had the dreaded OP click bad, but none of my newer wheels had it until recently ... I think. Two of my wheel sets are 3 years old with about 10,000 miles on them, and other set is about 5 years old with 15-20,000 miles on them.

I had the rear wheel rebuilt this year on one of the newer sets with a new warranty-replacement rim due to cracking eyelets, and that wheel is fine. However, the other two sets have gotten rather "noisy" over the past few months. It's not as loud as the click in my old wheel set that I got rid of, but still annoying. The noise is definitely coming from the rear wheels because the rhythm picks up and slows down with my speed, and I hear the noise whether I am pedaling or coasting. I have tried oiling the eyelets, but that didn't stop the noise. Both wheels are true and spoke tension seems to be fine.

Any suggestions?

 

[tjib13]

earphones

 

[cfoster]

That's a big negative. Still as big of an issue today as ever. A lot of rims have bits and pieces that rattle around in them left over from when the rim gets punched or drilled for the spoke holes. These pieces usually fall out pretty easily or sometimes we have to pull them out with needlenose pliers.

Welded rims are even worse though, due to excess slag from the seam that breaks off as the rim is tensioned up during the build. Most rims have single eyelets though, so all this stuff simply falls out. With the full double stainless eyelet on the Open Pros, the stuff gets trapped between spoke holes, no real way to get it out. Sometimes you get lucky, but most of the time not so much.

The goal with an Open Pro is to simply tap the rim/wheel gently against a padded floor to try and let gravity help get the piece(s) to slide past all the eyelets and work it around to the valve hole. Sometimes you have to shake the rim/wheel to try to get the pieces to work past the eyelets.

Good luck.

 

[tarwheel2]

Thanks for the tips. I'll give that a try. Nothing will drive you crazy quicker than a regular click-click-click when you're riding along.

That said, I don't think I will buy any more Open Pros, unless it's a replacement rear wheel for one of my sets. They've been making wheels for how long? Amazing to me that they can't figure out how to make rims that don't click.

 

[Oldteen]

FWIW-
OP's are not the only rims that can develop clicks, and many don't last 10-20k miles to develop clicks.