wheel

[ada@prorider.or]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id=tech/2007/news/06-20

and more to follow in future

[gdw]

Carbon spokes......seems like a poor and potentially dangerous choice for the application. P. T. "There's a sucker born every minute" Barnum would be impressed with Mavic's latest and greatest.

[itsflantastic]

does this remind anyone of spinergy PBO spokes or toppolino wheels at all?

[saab2000]

Mavic is one of the giants of the industry. They have been building quality bike stuff since, well, the stone age of cycling.... the '80s. :D They have also always been innovators.

Give this product a chance before condemning it to the landfill of things that don't work.

[gdw]

I'll let someone else give it a chance. Let the pro's crash test it. Might as well have a little violence to go along with the drug abuse. :banana:

[roman meal]

.

[pdxmech13]

carbon spokes.............how is that really a stupid idea.
havn't some of the most lust worthy wheels used carbon spokes
when lew introduced there wheel everyone was going bonkers.
Mavic's customer service sure does suck but i'd rather deal with
them than with a bussiness that goes in and out.

(no offence Cees) :)

[97CSI]

Mavic is one of the giants of the industry. They have been building quality bike stuff since, well, the stone age of cycling.... the '80s. :D They have also always been innovators.

Give this product a chance before condemning it to the landfill of things that don't work.Not sure why all the knocks on these spokes/wheels (not you, saab2000). If you fly, you are putting your life in the hands of graphite composites in considerably more critical areas than bike wheel spokes. Just ask saab2000. The new Boeing 787 has a 100% composite airframe/wing structure and the 777 and all the Air Bus planes are quite similar.

At $1400/pair, they are realatively inexpensive compared to some of the Zipp and other wheels folks ride today.

As far as Mavic's being around a while........try 1923. http://www.mavic.com/ewb_pages/h/histchapitre1.php

[Tom]

little thin things going around real fast where stuff gets kicked up off the road bother me a little. Wire spokes can take a scuff or a scratch, is the way they are making this carbon capable of holding up? I took a chunk of steel strapping through a set of K's and tore the paint off my seat stays, the wheels just shrugged and nothing happened. Would they be so sanguine if they were spoked with carbon? I have a feeling I'd be sitting on the road saying "Ow. Ow ow ow" looking at a hoop unattached to a hub and a collar bone not attached to anything at all.

[LegendRider]

I have lots of Mavic wheels over the years and only one pair was a problem - Heliums. Mine wouldn't stay true.

I just got a smokin' team deal on the Cosmic Carbone Pro (all carbon Cosmic). They are about 100 grams heavier than Zipp 404s and likely a lot more impact resistant. Can't wait to ride them!

[Climb01742]

yes, why all the negative vibes? heaven knows there are many gimmicky-prone companies in cycling but i never saw mavic that way. quite the opposite actually. have i missed somethin'?

[David Kirk]

Seems to me like it could work well. The aluminum spokes on the drive side take the high loads while the non-drive carbon spokes deal with the very low loads on that side. Obviously the only real difference here is that the non-drive spokes are huge in diameter to give it better resistance to compression.

I'd like to test ride a pair.

Dave

[Tom]

yes, why all the negative vibes? heaven knows there are many gimmicky-prone companies in cycling but i never saw mavic that way. quite the opposite actually. have i missed somethin'?

I still don't completely trust carbon forks, I only trust them as much as I do because they're right where I can keep my eye on them. There's no way I trust carbon in the rear triangle, without me to watch who its playing with it can get in with the wrong crowd. No way ever on carbon wheels.

Am I uninformed and ignorant? Certainly but if I'm going to have strongly held beliefs I feel it is stupid and useless to base them on facts.

[William]

Am I uninformed and ignorant? Certainly but if I'm going to have strongly held beliefs I feel it is stupid and useless to base them on facts.

That sounds so familiar. Where have I heard/seen this before......... ;)




With all the potholes and rough pavement around here, I would not feel comfortable at all bunny hoppy over junk with carbon spokes. 110 foot Airplane wing, no problem, I'll jump all over that. Spindly little spokes??? Naw.



William

[gdw]

Carbon fiber is fine for some components but after seeing a couple broken seatposts from that new Italian company, Campagnolo, and knowing a tester for one of the bike rags who cracked a set of carbon rims in a crit when he hit a small pothole, I'm going to let others field test them. As Tom pointed out, spokes can be scratched during use and unfortunately carbon is known to fail dramatically after being damaged.

[mdeeds71]

Carbon fiber is fine for some components but after seeing a couple broken seatposts from that new Italian company, Campagnolo, and knowing a tester for one of the bike rags who cracked a set of carbon rims in a crit when he hit a small pothole, I'm going to let others field test them. As Tom pointed out, spokes can be scratched during use and unfortunately carbon is known to fail dramatically after being damaged.

So have older alum rotor wings from a ring scratcing it when being dressed, aluminum, so have the structures on a transport aircraft dramaticaly (you can start off with the dehav Comet and keep going) failed, aluminum. Severeal propellers on aircraft, aluminum...the list goes on and on... Oh and the new brakes on aircraft, carbon. Why? Steel, just did not get the job done. Structure on the 787 all carbon with windows frames holding back roughly 2900 lbs of pressure and the doors holding rougly 4x that number.

All can be sceptical but the fact is Carbon can be engineered stronger and lighter for nearly every bike application. I still like my steel CDA and Ti does ride rather sublime as well.

[Richard]

"...fail dramatically..."???? Since when do stainless spokes fail in any other way. They just go ping...tick, tick, tick...against the frame. If it's in a low spoke count wheel, the ticking sound is replaced by the wheel locking up as it loses shape "dramatically."

[gdw]

"All can be sceptical but the fact is Carbon can be engineered stronger and lighter for nearly every bike application."

OK, but I'm not going to buy wheels with carbon spokes until I see a bicycle component company with the R+D budget of Boeing. :D

[David Kirk]

I wish I had a better line for this but my old standby will have to do - "there is not such thing as a bad material only a bad application".

Carbon can be the perfect material for some things and the worst for others. There are just places where I don't see the advantage (if there is any) being worth the risk. For me and my pragmatic dessign sense I see it this way -

* things that are clamped - seat posts, handlebars and stuff of that ilk...bad

* things that are used in bending and torsion - tubing and the such....might be good


So maybe your carbon spoke breaks. It will have the same effect as a stainless spoke popping. If they are more prone to breaking that could be bad but the outcome of a failure is the same. The wheel wobbles and you roll to a stop and then call your Mom for a ride.

If/when a seat post or bar breaks someone else might have to make that call as you'll be spitting out your teeth like a mouthful of chiclets.


Dave

[mosca]

I would add to Dave Kirk's list:

* things in pure tension - spokes...excellent, at least theoretically

It seems to me that a normal spoke, which handles only tensile loads, would be a perfect application for carbon fiber, with its extremely high tensile strength. Ironically, in this case Mavic has chosen to use carbon in such a way that it handles compressive loads as well.

I wonder how well those spokes can handle a bending load, for instance from a side impact? The advantage here is that metal spokes can freely deform and won't be damaged whereas these tubular carbon deals, who knows.

[97CSI]

A good analog for comparison would be other graphite/carbon fiber based sporting goods. Golf club shafts, tennis rackets, fishing poles, tent poles, etc. They do not shatter or break very often. Not exactly the same, but fairly similar.

[bhungerford]

I think you can use most any material any place, like most of us, if designed properly. as for these wheels and other carbon spoke/rim wheels, they're generally designed for the guys getting paid to ride to save them a few seconds, and if they happen to break them on a pothole or something, their support car is right there with a new one...for us mortals we get to decide to risk trashing a nice carbon wheel for the townline sprint, crit win, whatever or whether that risk is too high and we'd like something more conventional (ie: cheaper) that we can easily repair/replace at our LBS. i'm glad we have the choice to ride whatever we want, for whatever reason we want...

as for the new Mavics...they look pretty cool, i'd like to try 'em and see if they live up to the marketing, which they probably do with Mavic's history :D

[Climb01742]

on these wheels, carbon seems to be used judiciously. they chose alu rims for braking quality, for instance. which leads me to believe their choices were based more on engineering, than marketing.

[flydhest]

on these wheels, carbon seems to be used judiciously. they chose alu rims for braking quality, for instance. which leads me to believe their choices were based more on engineering, than marketing.

I'm not sure I see how that follows, Climb-o. Care to elaborate? Suppose (and I freely admit to not knowing the engineering) that the non-drive spokes are borderline irrelevant because they are under so little tension. Many wheelbuilders have pointed out that the drive-side spokes do the vast majority of the work on a rear wheel (here, I'm not using the word "work" in the physics sense). If so, which I believe is true, then one could infer that it is mostly marketing because you're putting in carbon in a non-essential application.

[sspielman]

Without exception, I have found that every product made by Mavic works very well. Until proven otherwise, I would expect these wheels to be no exception.

[gdw]

Mavic is a good company and has produced some great products but also a few dogs as well. I guess my skepticism is based upon experience with their first ultra lightweight mountain rim, the 230, back in the 90's. The consumer wanted light components and Mavic produced the 375 gram 230 to meet the demand. Unfortunately the 230 was so light that the sidewalls were known to crack, deform, and even peel back under hard braking.

[swoop]

frankly.. the only thing that looks off in the most superficial sense is the bulkiness of the spoke. i wonder how aero the wheels are.... but aside from that.... the naysaying doens't mean anything because its not based on anything.

carbon or not the idea of a tube for a spoke is interseting. but there is no bike part i can think of that benefits from being aero like a wheel does....

[benb]

I'm not rich enough for these anyway so it doesn't matter but one thing that would concern me is how well they take incidental damage.

For example I've had pedals nick my spokes in races when in a tight pack. I get a scratch on the spoke but everything seems fine otherwise.

One thing with spokes though is they are a redundant system.. the carbon wheel can probably break several spokes just like a regular wheel without failing.

I guess if you're going to be overly concerned with wheel safety you should be riding wheels with more spokes as opposed to worrying about what the spokes are made from.

But then again what a coincidence.. the most expensive carbon wheels seem to have a tendency to have fewer spokes then normal wheels.

[Climb01742]

I'm not sure I see how that follows, Climb-o. Care to elaborate? Suppose (and I freely admit to not knowing the engineering) that the non-drive spokes are borderline irrelevant because they are under so little tension. Many wheelbuilders have pointed out that the drive-side spokes do the vast majority of the work on a rear wheel (here, I'm not using the word "work" in the physics sense). If so, which I believe is true, then one could infer that it is mostly marketing because you're putting in carbon in a non-essential application.

fly, i too must admit to not knowing the engineering either. my assumption is based more on the fact that mavic_didn't_put carbon everywhere. carbon sells like crazy these days. to buck the trend (like with the alu rim) "seems" to indicate that there was a better reason to use alu vs just slapping carbon there. about spoke material, i ain't well versed enough to know what (if anything other than weight reduction?) the carbon spokes achieve.

and in a semi-parallel universe, i respect the c'dale system six more than the super six simply because the system six bucks the all-carbon trend and fits better with c'dale's past expertise, while the super six seems like trend following.

but honestly, these are just more reactions than real, reasoned opinions. but hey, isn't that what the interwebs were invented for? :D

[Grant McLean]

fly, i too must admit to not knowing the engineering either. my assumption is based more on the fact that mavic_didn't_put carbon everywhere. carbon sells like crazy these days. to buck the trend (like with the alu rim) "seems" to indicate that there was a better reason to use alu vs just slapping carbon there. about spoke material, i ain't well versed enough to know what (if anything other than weight reduction?) the carbon spokes achieve.


I thought the same thing as you.

No bogus carbon hub center that saves no weight either.

now the fun stuff...
I find it laughable that people attack carbon spokes as bad design.
The #1 all time failure in the history of bicycles is the standard spoke.
Our shop replaces thousands every year. People accept broken spokes
on supposedly durable 32 spoke wheels. Let's set the record straight
right now: spokes with a "J" elbow are the stupidest wheel design ever.
Straight pull spokes, especially threaded on both ends, are a far superior
design that should have been universally adopted decades ago.

g

[benb]

Great point...

BTW someone mentioned being more willing to trust a carbon fork then a carbon rear end in the frame, because you can see the fork.

Kind of faulty logic. You can't get home on a broken fork and you're likely to end up in the hospital.

You can get home on a broken chainstay or seatstay. In fact you might even be able to win a Tour de France stage with one!

[flydhest]

I thought the same thing as you.

No bogus carbon hub center that saves no weight either.

now the fun stuff...
I find it laughable that people attack carbon spokes as bad design.
The #1 all time failure in the history of bicycles is the standard spoke.
Our shop replaces thousands every year. People accept broken spokes
on supposedly durable 32 spoke wheels. Let's set the record straight
right now: spokes with a "J" elbow are the stupidest wheel design ever.
Straight pull spokes, especially threaded on both ends, are a far superior
design that should have been universally adopted decades ago.

g

Grant,
Sorry, but you're wrong. The #1 all time failure in cycling involves my legs and lungs. The stupidest idea ever was me on the front of a paceline.

The spokes you're talking about are #2 on the list.

[Grant McLean]

Grant,
... The stupidest idea ever was me on the front of a paceline.



If it makes you feel better, you can draft my wheel anytime you want!!

:)


g

[Nick H.]

Cees, we haven't read your opinion of these wheels yet - you started the discussion!

[gdw]

"frankly.. the only thing that looks off in the most superficial sense is the bulkiness of the spoke. i wonder how aero the wheels are.... but aside from that.... the naysaying doens't mean anything because its not based on anything."

Naysaying is often opinion based upon years of riding and wrenching as well as years of business experience. The cycling industry, like many others, survives by convincing the consumer that their current equipment is obsolete and in need of replacement by this years model. Is this years model really a big step forward? Rarely, but at least you can show your friends that you have the disposable income to follow the fad. Carbon is the "in" material and only time will show whether it is the right choice for spokes. I'll wait and see. I thought from your posts on the other site that we were in agreement?

"didn't want to bash the material because there are so many folks doing such nice stiff with it... but i was just thinking about the stuff that always gets sucked up into spokes banging around and shattering them or some such."

[ada@prorider.or]

Cees, we haven't read your opinion of these wheels yet - you started the discussion!
it seems they got the vibe from some one

[soulspinner]

I wish I had a better line for this but my old standby will have to do - "there is not such thing as a bad material only a bad application".

Carbon can be the perfect material for some things and the worst for others. There are just places where I don't see the advantage (if there is any) being worth the risk. For me and my pragmatic dessign sense I see it this way -

* things that are clamped - seat posts, handlebars and stuff of that ilk...bad

* things that are used in bending and torsion - tubing and the such....might be good


So maybe your carbon spoke breaks. It will have the same effect as a stainless spoke popping. If they are more prone to breaking that could be bad but the outcome of a failure is the same. The wheel wobbles and you roll to a stop and then call your Mom for a ride.

If/when a seat post or bar breaks someone else might have to make that call as you'll be spitting out your teeth like a mouthful of chiclets.


Dave



Its all in a days ride, like the last time I snapped a look pedal....OWIE