I’ve played with carbon fiber, fiberglass, resin, etc. a fair amount in the course of other hobbies/interests in life, and totally do not trust it at all for bicycle applications. Sure, it’s fine so long as it doesn’t get cracked - but once it does, it’s game over. And it’s super brittle/fragile and susceptible to stress fractures from a hard hit (think bike tipping over onto something). I understand that the material is not intended to resist this type of rough handling, but we’re talking about freakin’ bicycles here, they tip over pretty easily and accidents happen. This carbon spoke tube design is IMHO even worse… and building the thing so they have to resist compression guarantees that they’ll snap once they get compromised. Epic Fail in my book, I would never go for something like this personally.
kinda reminds me of the stereo dorks that talk about insulating their electrical wall outlet covers to reduce vibration and maek the sound more open…
that’s carbon fiber to me.
oh yeah.
if you ask me, gimme a nemesis rim, 32 or 36 hole drilling. some sapim 14/15 spokes and brass nipples. and a nice tire…fuck the carbon bullshit.
i’m always surprised how much i like riding a carbon fork and 16h front wheel on my kilo. i WANT to think that i’m an all-steel, 32h kind of dude, but it just feels good.
of course, thats far short of $1400 wheels that are based on wagon wheel technology. ah well.
even if the fucking frame cracked in a perfectly normal turn like mavic might think, for a wheel to fail that catastrophically in that kind of slow motion crash is absurd. to hear them say things like that makes it feel like there are the mavic guys who make rims like the open pro and cxp… and then there are the crackpot science guys who design rims like this fucker and ksyriums.
I would definitely not lump the R-Sys in with the Ksyrium.
you’re probably right, that was a bit of a leap. what are ksyriums good for though? they aren’t particularly aero or light enough to justify what they cost…as far as i know.
I have a pair of Ksyrium Elites that I bought off a coworker for $100. They’re definitely not worth the $600 price new, considering the quality handbuilt wheel you could get for that price. They don’t do anything particularly well, in that they’re not super light climbing wheels or deep-section aeros, but I will say that my Elites have been rock-solid wheels that have stood up to daily use, totaling around two-thousand miles (what I’ve put on them so far), without a lick of maintenance.
My point though was that Ksyriums aren’t known to fail catastrophically like R-Sys.
[quote=bonechilling]I have a pair of Ksyrium Elites that I bought off a coworker for $100. They’re definitely not worth the $600 price new, considering the quality handbuilt wheel you could get for that price. They don’t do anything particularly well, in that they’re not super light climbing wheels or deep-section aeros, but I will say that my Elites have been rock-solid wheels that have stood up to daily use, totaling around two-thousand miles (what I’ve put on them so far), without a lick of maintenance.
My point though was that Ksyriums aren’t known to fail catastrophically like R-Sys.[/quote]
yeah - if you get them used they’re a decent deal. they originally weighed in around 1800 g… theyve cut em down to closer to 1500g this year . mavic ellipses weigh 2000g… i was curious how this compared to some heavy ass track wheels like phils to deep vs, or even formulas to deep vs, but i cant find a single website that lists weight on their prefab wheelsets that arent straight from the factory like the mavic wheelsets.
Shouldn’t be too hard to find the weights of each part though.
http://weightweenies.starbike.com/listings.php
Please, 5-3 spoke wheels are much closer to “wagon wheel technology.”
do you know how a wagon wheel is made?
by concentrating deliciousness into an easily snacked upon package
Yes.
Like Surfimp, I have played with composites in many other applications, rockets, kites, motorcycles. I’m not scared of it at all. I ride a full carbon fork and abuse it a fair amount. It is delicate, like he said. I’ve used unidirectional carbon fiber rods at kite spars and can say that they are tough as hell. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that Mavic couldn’t get this right. IMHO, carbon fiber seems like the right kind of material for spokes (all tension).
afaik mavic has gotten it right with cf spokes(all tension) on the ultimate carbones. The problem seems to be using small spokes from each side of the hub in compression.
Carbon fear is funny to me. I played hockey for a number of years, and used a variety of different all carbon-composite sticks. They take shit tons of abuse (given the nature of the sport) and hold up acceptably well. It consistently blows my mind that in the world of cycling, carbon still has to be considered some unsafe brittle material. Maybe Mavic should have studied how companies like Easton (who also make cycling stuff, obviously) have used different composite materials to hold up in far more demanding conditions than any of those seen in a road cycling situation.
^^^The relevant difference is that breaking a hockey stick doesn’t result in your face hitting asphalt at 20+ mph.
I’m not afraid of carbon (I even ride a “vintage” carbon tube frame), but holding up “acceptably well” means different things in cycling vs. hockey.
I don’t think the problem here is material, but design. I agree that the fear of carbon is absurd.
When are you going to start selling carbon rims?
[quote=dutret]
Given that the wheel’s horrible aero properties and moderate weight I can’t see why mavic bothered try and rerelease it. Has anyone here actually seen a pair in the wild?[/quote]
Yes, I’ve seen a few. Stiff. As. Fuck. Would never ride one ever.