Ksyrium Elite alternatives please

ianbar

unfortunatly i have just found out that my rear elite is knackered! looking i can get a new rear for £250 but i am looking at weather there are better alternatives out there? i am a larger rider currently just over 16st...i was 17 start of the year, but aim to get down to 15 soon. i wondered weather a different make is more reliable(i actually thought mavic were about the best anyway). i certainly have learnt another lesson which is to make every effort to avoid any bumps in the road!

ugo.santalucia

What exactly is the damage? Can you post photos? Sometimes rims can be straightened...

ianbar

its cracked when the spoke connected to the rim, and actually its 2 cracks. i have just been to lbs who said nothing can be done?

ugo.santalucia

Nothing can be done.

ianbar

thankfully i have my aksiums but the elites feel soooo much better! so gutted.

ugo.santalucia

Buy Mvic, buy twice... :?

ianbar

oh so you don't rate mavic durability then? i am looking at alternatives but don't really know which are meant to be more reliable

DiscoBoy

Something hand built like a shimano 105/ultegra hub with a nice reliable rim like the Mavic Open Pro...

Oh, wait...

In all seriousness, you're a fairly big lad, so are likely to be quite hard on wheels, so handbuilts are a good idea due to the ability to replace parts more easily. Open Pros on 105 hubs are probably a little under spec performance wise: but if you decide on a budget, I'm sure that Ugo and others can give you some good recommendations.

ianbar

well i would spend the same as what i paid for elites so i guess up to £500, i guess (like everyone) i don't really want to lose performance. i like the idea of handbuilts, are there any drawbacks in general in having them?

ugo.santalucia

I don't mean to be rude, but Mavic's model customer is 11 stone and rides in the Cotes du Rhone, where the vineyards are splendid and the roads are smooth like the local red.
For all the others, Mavic still offer several high quality rims, but no assembled wheel. Unfortunately they don't do a beefed up version of their popular Ksyrium for the heavier customers or those living in patched-tarmac potatoland, which is a real shame, because it would be popular.

ianbar

don't worry about being rude lol i know i am heavier then most, i can tell that when everyone fly away up a climb! in fairness it was someone very light weight who got me into mavic wheels...so guess they would never have problems!

ugo.santalucia

500 quid should get you better than the Elite in bespoke terms.
But only if you are prepared to compromise on the PRO look, the big radial spokes, the fancy acronyms that don't mean anything and all that clatter.
Talk to a trusted wheelbuilder in your area and see what you can get for your money

ianbar

cheers, i will look into that! i do like the pro look lol but i also don't want to be buying new wheels all the time nor missing out on rides as my wheels are all broken etc so i will defo look into some handbuilts, sounds the way to go

mrushton

wheelsmith can build you something on a wide rim (24mm) for sensible money

hypster

ianbar wrote:

unfortunatly i have just found out that my rear elite is knackered! looking i can get a new rear for £250 but i am looking at weather there are better alternatives out there? i am a larger rider currently just over 16st...i was 17 start of the year, but aim to get down to 15 soon. i wondered weather a different make is more reliable(i actually thought mavic were about the best anyway). i certainly have learnt another lesson which is to make every effort to avoid any bumps in the road!

I'm normally 14 stone and have knackered a Ksyrium Elite rear twice so don't feel too bad. For £500 you should be able to get Shimano Dura Ace 9000 hubs with H Plus Son Archetype rims and Sapim Race spokes 28F/32R handbuilt from several good wheel builders. Should be around 1700g for the pair I think so not much heavier than the Elites but considerably better quality and much easier to fix should you ding a rim or break a spoke any time.

DiscoBoy

Calling TheCycleClinic... http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=544973

ianbar

just a thought, and this is hard to explain. i had a flat a few weeks ago, i changed the tube etc. i pumped up but something bizarre happened and even though i had stopped pumping air in the tube kept inflating! i can only assume somehow air had been trapped and then kept inflating the tube? anyhow this made it over inflate and then burst. could this incident have had any effect on damaging my rims? hope i described what happened well!

ugo.santalucia

Ignoring the how and why of your bizarre episode, still the rim would not split at the spoke holes. In fact, as you increase the tyre pressure, the spoke tension normally goes down a tad. Cracks at the holes are due to excessive tension, which is not unusual in Mavic's world. If you download the service manual for these , it says the rear tension should be around 140-160 KgF... which means a 22-25 stone bloke hanging from each hole... :shock:

ianbar

thats fine, it was something that was nagging me! i have been playing around with hand built ideas. hope mono rs hubs, Archetype rims, 32 front 36 rear (might be over kill)? dt swiss competition spokes. not sure how this will perform but adds to £425 on jra.

ugo.santalucia

That would be a good thing

unixnerd

Mavic Ksyrium Elites were always on my wish list, I run Pro-Lite Braccianos at the moment (which I love). But having heard of the failures some folk have had I was put off the Mavics a bit. In the flesh they do look lovely and I know that on the net folk only post about failures, not the good stuff. So my fears are likely groundless.

None the less if I had to get new wheels today I'd look at the Wheelsmith Race 24. I think I'd have more faith in hand builts and he seems to get good write ups.

About the Braccianos, under 1500g and they roll nicely. Well made but don't look as well made as the Mavics around the hub. I paid 180 for them which was a bargain, they're a lot more than that now. I contacted Pro-Lite once (not about a fault) and their customer service was superb.

ride_whenever

how much do you weigh, all reports i've seen of the braccianos say they're flexy under larger riders.

Certainly not suitable for the OP at 16 stone

ianbar

i think i am really heading in the hand built route, going to head into some lbs on friday and see what they can do for me. i do quite fancy something that might offer bit more aero advantage, i can churn more speed out on the flat and would like to develop that strength. having deeper rims does that lend itself to less strength or reliability at all?

ugo.santalucia

ianbar wrote:

having deeper rims does that lend itself to less strength or reliability at all?

No... there is no drawback to a deeper rim, except that obviously it weighs more than the corresponding shallow rim.
For someone your size Velocity Deep V is ideal... although I still think in today's world wider is better than deeper

ianbar

whats the main advantages of going wider? i do use 25mm tyres and would even consider using 28s in the future, even if just at winter. i do intend to get the 11sp 105 st some point so 28s would ft them.

Bar Shaker

unixnerd wrote:

Mavic Ksyrium Elites were always on my wish list, I run Pro-Lite Braccianos at the moment (which I love). But having heard of the failures some folk have had I was put off the Mavics a bit. In the flesh they do look lovely and I know that on the net folk only post about failures, not the good stuff. So my fears are likely groundless.

You are right, they would be groundless. This thread is one person, who is a chunky bloke, by his own admission and the failure still allowed him to ride home. There are a whole host of wheels that would have snapped spokes or suffered catastrophic failure, in the same conditions.

There are also heavier wheels, with lots more drag inducing spokes, that would have coped fine.

High performance kit is designed for a target rider and the OP just doesn't fit the profile. Something he readily and honestly admits.

There are no surprises in this thread.

ugo.santalucia

Wider tyres sit better on wider rims.
20 years ago the road tyre of choice was a 19-21 mm and the rims were 18-19 mm. Now the tyre of choice is 23-25, yet most rims are still only 19-20 mm wide. The trend is towards even bigger tyres... 25-27 for road use... so rims have to widen to give you a round profile that handles well. 28 mm tyres on 19 mm rims don't handle well and you have to inflate them over the odds to keep them in shape. Most people still pump their 28 at 90-100 PSI, which is ridiculous. A wide rim combined with a 28 tyre should sit happily at 60-80 PSI depending on rider weight, which is a completely different riding experience. This is real world cycling, while the aerodynamic benefit of a couple of centimeters of rim belongs to the world of maths and wind tunnels, which is not necessarily the world you cycle in.

ianbar

i cycle in the wind but not a wind tunnel thats for sure! very interesting stuff! and i do think i over inflate generally!

robbo2011

Considering the number of mavic wheels out there, we don't often read of failures. So the percentage of people who have problems is in reality very low.

This does not mean you should not go for handbuilts, but don't do it because you think Mavic wheels are unreliable, do it for other reasons.

ianbar

i think some of my trouble is i am very bad at avoiding pot holes! i did make a much bigger effort to stay on smoother tarmac yesterday, in fact a lot of the road i hit are pretty poor.

unixnerd

how much do you weigh, all reports i've seen of the braccianos say they're flexy under larger riders.

Certainly not suitable for the OP at 16 stone

I'm 10 stone. I'd say you were right about them not being ideal for a heavier rider but that goes for a lot of wheels. I think it's an even bigger reason to get hand builts that are designed with rider weight in mind.