Hall of Shame

Designed with the principle of a wind ships sail in mind, Mavic has produced a new wheel with staggeringly impractical specs and tagged it with a golden price tag.  In the many years of product development, it seems that there is one thing that Mavic is good at...convincing club riders that they have the slickest wheels around.  The truth is unfortunately, somewhat far from this.  Enter the R-Sys.   Funny...sounds like arse.

For years now, Mavic has been at the top of its game at producing a very slickly styled flagship wheel.  You can see them every where.  From the aging doctor who just spent $6500 on a Tarmac in an effort to appear accomplished as a cyclist (I never understood why people who tend to buy European luxury cars would buy American race bikes), to the weekend warrior that ascribes heavily to every word spewed from the mouths of the corporate mega shop lackeys, to the hipster wanna be and his bike that he secretly bought off of Ebay but is afraid to admit it for fear of being tagged as un cool...the Ksyrium wheels set is ubiquitous to the point of seeming virulent in its presence. 

A more apt comparison to the Ksyrium would be a Fulcrum R-1, a Rolf Prima Vigor, or a Campy Eurus wheel set.  Rather than attempt a "shoot out" type article here, it is sufficient to say that all three of these wheels tend to offer more to the rider for a range of reasons.  The Ksyrium seems to have been designed to appeal to the aesthetic sensibilities of the consumer.  It by all accounts, is a fairly stunning wheel.  What may be more important is that it is the first really stunning wheel of quality.  At a time when other manufacturers wheels where quite bland in appearance, Mavic produced a bold and powerful looking wheel that stuck the consumer as the gold standard of what a wheel should be.  Over time however, other wheels have caught up in the styling department and greatly surpassed the Ksyrium in the arena of performance.

Ksyriums have always suffered from a poor spoke nipple design plagued by the Mavic concept of FORE Drilled rims.  By adding threads to the rim, stress risers are introduced in to an area of the rim that is subjected to highly dynamic stress.  This in effect weakens the rim over time and is the number one reason for rim failures (at times catastrophic) on the Mavic FORE drilled wheels.  Traditional rims use flanges on the nipple to interface with the rim, which are much easier to recondition after machining (eliminating stress risers).  What is really strange about this point is that Mavic understands this concept very well and even advertises a process which is performed on their less expensive wheels in which the spoke holds are forged to resist micro cracking.  I have seen many Ksyrium ssl (and other) wheels suffer from this same micro cracking.  

The second weak point on Mavic wheels is that they have a very poor hub design.  Don't get me wrong the design is elegant, and simple and a bit clever.  However, what it saves in complexity does not bode well for its durability.  Both front and rear hubs for the Mavic wheel are prone to severe loosening over time.  Even the application of a threadlocker will eventually yield to this hubs desire to come loose.  So many customers that bring their bikes in for service have loose hubs on these wheels that I can't recall that last time that one came in that wasn't.  I have had a lot of bikes up in my stands and hundreds of them with this wheel.  They just won't stay tight.   

On top of problems with long term durability, they have some of the worst aerodynamic characteristics, beat you to death on rough roads, and have a ton of friction in the free hub body if not maintained properly and often.  I would add from personal experience that they have some odd characteristics during hot (aggressive) descents as well.  They are overly energetic in their response to deflection and can make for some rather ungraceful transitions in the corners...pretty scary in this respect.  Given that this is supposed to be about the R-sys wheel you may at this point be asking why I haven't mentioned that wheel's characteristics yet, and that would be because there is not a clear reason too.

Strangely, I find it more appropriate to discuss the short comings of the Ksyrium Wheels because they are the very things that could have been addressed in the R-sys wheel and were not.  In essence the R-sys wheel is that same wheel, with the same or greater shortcomings as the Ksyrium wheels at a greatly increased price.  What you do get in the R-Sys wheel is a wheel that is aero dynamically as efficient as a ships sail, decreased compliance on a wheel that is already know to be unreasonably stiff, and lighter weight which effectively does nothing for the rider given the aero limitations.  Possibly the worst hand delt these wheels though is the hideous citrus spoke ferrules.  If Mavic were trying to put out a wheel that embodied eighties revival, this is it...cheaply made, gaudy, and disposable.  It’s enough to make any ex-Reganite yuppie drool, which is good, because I really see no other market for this arse of a wheel.