Harry Rowland road wheelset: Mavic Open Pro rims/Novatec hubs review

Harry Rowland makes some fabulous no-nonsense wheels and these lightweight offerings provide commendable performance for the money. 

The Novatec alloy hubs house sealed bearings with shielding that was good enough to keep them running light throughout some atrocious test conditions.

The rims are Mavic’s dependable Open Pro all-rounders – reasonably light with a decent level of stiffness and double eyelets to add plenty of strength at the spoke holes – and Harry goes for a 32-spoke, three-cross build for both the front and rear. 

The spoke tension of our set was pretty good when we received them and it stayed that way through all our abuse. And although the rims were only reasonably true out-of-the-box, that didn’t change either, which was nice. 

Our 80kg rider got a minimal amount of brake block rub when sprinting out of the saddle but they are light enough for fast acceleration at 806g (front) and 973g (rear).