Recall on mavic R-SYS front wheels

E@gle.

Taken from mavic website

Chips Lovell

Guess who just got a pair of R-Sys with his new Litespeed?

I don't know if the recall is linked to that famous incident in the pic. That race was almost a year ago now.

kenmc

Fairly decent customer service - you get a set of aksiums in the interim, which you can keep.... don't see that sort of offer too many places.

E@gle.

el tonto wrote: »

I don't know if the recall is linked to that famous incident in the pic. That race was almost a year ago now.

nah i just found that picture on the internet

blorg

Well a free set of Aksiums I can keep sell is not such a bad deal, I have a lightweight DT Swiss front I can stick on anyway and it is winter after all. Cheers for the heads up Eagle.

niceonetom

pics like that are not in short supply. i was going to post this one a couple of days ago but i thought that would be both mean and would be tempting fate. didn't know the problem was common enough for a product recall though. i suppose aksiums are much cheaper than law suits.



carbon: it's not good at everything you know.

blorg

I don't know though, the back story from the guy who actually crashed in that picture was that another rider's pedal got into the spokes.

I think the current version of the story (although I've heard spoke failure, turning my handlebars and skipping the wheel one too many times, etc, etc) is that the Velossimo rider's pedal (the guy upright in red) got into my spokes. Someone told me he had spoke burns on his leg after the race, and his shoes were scratched up. The wheels were the new Mavic R-SYS models, and apparently carbon fiber spokes don't hold up to that. It was really too bad, I was sprinting for 4th.

I've seen this Graham Watson one often enough in particular but have you ever read the caption:



Karl Menzies has shred his front wheel after hitting a plastic post - no sprint-win for the Aussie this time!

If the failures were that widespread (especially in the "I Was Just Cycling Along When" sense) I imagine there would be more people reporting such out there on the internet. Not to question of course that there obviously is some potential failure mode or they wouldn't be doing a recall.

I guess in particular what I would have expected to see would be at least one posting on a forum from someone saying "I was just cycling along and my R-SYS exploded." But all you find are people who don't own them questioning the aerodynamics, and people who are happy with them.

Note too that there are plenty of carbon rim wheelsets with carbon spokes, Lightweights come to mind.

So far I have been very happy with the wheels but as I said before they probably wouldn't have been a first choice; I effectively got them for free with the bike.

cunavalos

i have been using the r-sys wheels for over 6 months and have been generally impressed with them. i rode the tour of ireland on them and some of the roads there would certainly have tested them fully.
Anyway i was looking to get a set of good winter wheels so the free aksiums would be ideal so i am not to bothered about the recall as i wouldnt be back using the r-sys till the spring in any case but i reckon that mavic will not be producing the r-sys range in 2010 due to all the negative publicity surrounding the wheel on the internet.

penexpers

Well they tried to fix it and failed apparently

http://www.velonews.com/article/93054/a-shattering-experience---a-post-recall-r-sys-wheel-failure

CheGuedara

Uh-oh, someone in Mavic should be writing up their CV right about now...

blorg

Looks like it's time for me to start wearing a helmet.

Nietzschean

blorg wrote: »

Looks like it's time for me to start wearing a helmet.

and shoulder pads.....


(Heck if you have to wear full body armour with those wheels it might give the rest of us a sporting chance of keeping up )

penexpers

Here's Mavic's response on this

http://www.velonews.com/article/93240/mavic-responds-to-wheel-collapse-article

Interesting that they think that the wheel failed after the frame cracked. In any case, I don't think "traditional" wheels would ever fail in that way.

Lumen

BikeSnobNYC has also covered this issue in characteristic form.

Chips Lovell

Those wheels have just been one giant PR disaster for Mavic.