Thursday, April 29, 2010

Mavic SSC No 4 Cr.D Rims

I would much rather be posting about my successful un-brazing of the seat tube from the bottom bracket. But unfortunately that particular operation did not come off at all as I expected. I got everything very evenly heated, but no dice—it didn't move! So I chopped out the tube, and now it's time to ream it out from the inside! Uggh.

In better news, the rims I recently ordered for Bike #3 (counting from Niles) arrived today from France. They are New Old Stock Mavic SSC No. 4 Cr.Ds from the early 1990s. I could find no information about them online. Having now seen them in the flesh, I think I get how they differ from the legendary Paris-Roubaix SSC rims.

They look exactly like the P-R rims. Unlike the Argent and Bleu SSCs, which are, as their names suggest, respectively silver and blue, the P-Rs are hard anodized and black. The No. 4 Cr.D look like they're hard anodized... but they're not! They are in fact just silver rims that have been painted black—presumably to make them look like the P-Rs. Jobst Brandt would be so pleased!

They are thus pretty much perfect rims. The best, "mountain"-era Mavic decals; the painted-on SSC Mavic logo; double eyelets; incredibly light; incredibly strong; non-hard-anodized; and exactly resembling the coolest rims of all time, the P-R SSCs. Now I just need to visit Mike Barry and pick up some Challenge Paris-Roubaix 27mm tubulars. And build the bike, of course...

The inside of the rim is silver, not black, as are the sidewalls. Not hard-anodized! (I wonder what "Cr.D" stands for. Couche dûre is French for "hard anodized." That lower-case "r" seems to indicate the opposite!)

The incredible painted-on SSC Mavic logo.

6 comments:

mcscholt said...

Aren't those tubular rims?

AH said...

They are! Bike #3 is a racing bike with tubulars. Big fat tubulars—but tubulars! Mike Barry, Doug Fattic and others have told me I need to try them, so I'm trying them in style!

Daniel said...

So why do you mention purchasing "Challenge Paris-Roubaix 27mm clinchers?" Just curious...

AH said...

A typo! And a weird one. Corrected!

Anonymous said...

Hello. I have those rims on my Vitus Carbone 9, Mavic group. You are partially correct, but PER THE MAVIC CATALOG (available from Chuck Schmidt @ VeloRetro), they are identical to P-Rs as "blanks", but get a type of "chrome" (hence CR) sidewall finish that allows quoting catalog, "many thousands of miles with no sidewall wear". The paint is polyurethane. In the range these were above the P-Rs and produced only 1-2 years with two variations of labels. Great rims! Good luck with your project. Tim

AH said...

Thanks for your comments, Tim! So the silver is not bare aluminum but some sort of coating? Interesting. Well this bike is nearing completion and soon I'll get to test the rims out for myself! Interesting that they were ABOVE the P-Rs! They seem to go on eBay for significantly less...