Announcing a product recall is not typically the type of info we share here at BKW, but Mavic's recall of the R-SYS front wheel is worth mentioning.
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- Radio Freddy
- I spent 20 years of my life working in the bicycle industry, turning wrenches and selling bikes for some of the industry's best shops. I have extensive experience designing and constructing frames in both steel and titanium and have performed thousands of bike fits. I am passionate about bicycles in all forms. The bicycle provides me with physical and mental health and taps me into a social pipeline that allows me to share my passion with others. I ride as often as possible and love the flow of a hard group ride. Check back for musings about all things road cycling and, especially, the Spring Classics. The devil is in the details and I am an expert in the useless minutia that makes up our discipline.
11 comments:
When I was looking for a wheelset my research found many people related a problem with these wheels. Good to see Mavic finally came around and did the right thing.
Wow, an updated wheel and a free pair to boot. Pretty good service, I'd say.
These wheels were disasters from the beginning. Zero tension spokes? That means the spoke is load bearing. As in the hub rests on the spoke rather than being hung from the rim by a spoke. What do you think that does to the flexibility of a wheel?
And they tested worse in a wind tunnel than basically any wheel ever.
Mavic made a big mistake, but they are manning up. My brand loyalty is feeling a bit more justified.
I have these wheels but am not a "fan". The comment about zero tension is not correct, they are in tension, and also compression. The hub "hangs" from the top spokes and "rests" on the bottom spokes.
I have had no issues with these wheels in a year of riding but am glad to see Mavic doing the proper thing and mmanning up to replace them at their costs.
Steve Weixel :
You're right, this wheel is seemigly set to low tensions, not zero. But your explanation of how a spoked wheel works is very simplistic. The words hang and rest are only so true within the contexts of gravity. Turn the wheel on its side. Are they still hanging?
Spokes are near to useless in compression. They only function well in tension. In a well built wheel, all spokes are pre-tensioned around the hub, so that when they're loaded in operation, the spokes actually lose some of this tension. Read Jobst Brandt's "The Bicycle Wheel' for more clearer explanations. Check out some of his data and graphs.
Sorry, saying standard spokes "hang" is being overly simplistic. Yes, hubs are balanced in the wheel and blah blah and spokes are resilient and Jobst Brandt has already covered this.
I guess the real point I was trying to make is that the R-Sys design is so far removed from what is shown to work well in a bicycle wheel, it really shouldn't have made it out of the early stages of R+D. Tinker Toy technology.
Top it off with the worst aerodynamics of any wheel on the market, and not that low weight? Unimpressive.
Glad I opted out of these for the supposed downgrade Ksyriums.
Click here if you want more news on the flaws of R-Sys. I understand a lot of amateurs have been shelling money on this set of wheels, and absolutely justify their purchase. However if you stopped to ask them, very few of even know how their wheel is designed.
Maybe somebody showed the Mavic engineers this little frame by frame action?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcmphotography/sets/72157603977693668/
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