Road Cycling - UPS guy came - New Wheels - some questions

I just received a new set of Mavic Ksyrium Elites. I hope they ride as good as they look.

Question: the included paperwork shows a valve extender - was this supposed to be included or do I just buy the long valve tubes?

Anything special I should/shouldn't do when installing/riding with them (they look so nice and new, that I don't even want to mount 'em)? Btw, I purchased them at Excel and picked up a free set of GP3000 in the deal (they were out of stock at my other haunting grounds).

Thanks!

you can use the extender if all you have are short valve tubes. You should start using the longer valve ones, but keep the extender on your bike in case you flat, run out of spares, and have to borrow a shorter valve tube.

Did you get the gold ones with the little rubber o-rings? If so, don't lose the rings, they need to be put on the short valve before you screw on the extender

That's the thing, I didn't receive any extenders with the wheels. Should they have come with them or do I need to buy them seperately?

Unless Mavic changed rim depths of the Ksyriums, you shouldn't need extenders even with short-valve tubes. I run Michelin Aircomps which have short-length valves and have no problem getting a pump on them. You can see how much extension I have in this picture.

http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/cycling/bikes/Aegis/2001-Aro_Svelte/images/PICT0023.JPG

Looks good. I called Excel and they said none of the Ksyriums come with extenders (maybe it was generic packaing from Mavic). Also, a little black plastic donut shaped piece was included. Any ideas what that is for? I'm usually pretty good with bike parts (I do most of my own maintenance), but I'm these are all new to me.

I can't wait to get out and put them through their paces. Have any of you had to use the bearing adjustment tool on them? Sunny day in Seatte too. :)

Looks good. I called Excel and they said none of the Ksyriums come with extenders (maybe it was generic packaing from Mavic). Also, a little black plastic donut shaped piece was included. Any ideas what that is for? I'm usually pretty good with bike parts (I do most of my own maintenance), but I'm these are all new to me.

That's a bladed spoke holder to be used with the star-shaped spoke wrench for the goofy Mavic nipples.



I can't wait to get out and put them through their paces. Have any of you had to use the bearing adjustment tool on them? Sunny day in Seatte too. :)

I have not had to adjust my spokes or my cones or anything for that matter on my 2001 Ksyrium SSCs which currently have around 12,000 miles on them.

Thank you. I'm feeling like a real idiot now.

Just tried the regular tubes and work just fine. ...putting on new rear cog, need one more tube and we'll be ready to roll. This will be nice to be able to swap wheelsets as necessary (although I'm sure I won't want to take K's off after my first ride).

Sunny day in Seatte too. :)

Yeah, I can't wait to go riding today. Tommorrow looks like it might rain. however, I've discovered that hitting some of the islands gets you better weather when the mainland is socked in. I might give Kitsap a try tommorrow.

Yeah, I can't wait to go riding today. Tommorrow looks like it might rain. however, I've discovered that hitting some of the islands gets you better weather when the mainland is socked in. I might give Kitsap a try tommorrow.

Beautiful day today. I'm in Port Townsend tomorrow, but I won't be riding. :( Later next week looks to be nice again.

I gotta ask, what's the "deadbeef" all about? That little icon is a presc. drug of some kind (can't remember it off hand).

Beautiful day today. I'm in Port Townsend tomorrow, but I won't be riding. :( Later next week looks to be nice again.

I gotta ask, what's the "deadbeef" all about? That little icon is a presc. drug of some kind (can't remember it off hand).

DEADBEEF is sort of a geek-joke/reference to the fill pattern used in the old IBM mainframes when you initialised memory space. It's just a cute word that can be made from HEX digits and most everyone uses it these days to indicate that a program has crashed as in "my program just went DEADBEEF" (because memory will get cleaned up and reinitialised... typically) or as an example hexadecimal string.

The avatar is the Zoloft mascot. I call it the "Blahb".

ksyrium tip: grease up both the inside and outside of your fork and frame dropouts with a heavier grease (like bearing grease), as well as all the parts of the quick release. the QRs included with all ksyriums have a bad habit of making scary creaking noises.

The QR seems logical (and Mavic says to grease them and I have always done it), but the dropouts? Why? It seems like the connection wouldn't be as strong.

i don't know why it happens, but after a few hundred miles on my elites, they started creaking like hell. i thought it was spoke noises, so i pulled the wheels off and lubed up the spoke nipples. thought that fixed it, but they started creaking again and i realzied i had just eased the problem by reseating and tightening down the QRs.

i did some reading on this and other boards and it seems a lot of people have this problem and greasing the fork ends and the drops solves it. it did for me. i just check to make sure my QRs are tight when i fill my tires before every ride.

i've put hundreds of miles on them since i started greasing them and they haven't come lose at all.

Cool. Probably just a thin film of grease (I have some Phil Wood) should do it.

DEADBEEF is sort of a geek-joke/reference to the fill pattern used in the old IBM mainframes when you initialised memory space. It's just a cute word that can be made from HEX digits and most everyone uses it these days to indicate that a program has crashed as in "my program just went DEADBEEF" (because memory will get cleaned up and reinitialised... typically) or as an example hexadecimal string.

The avatar is the Zoloft mascot. I call it the "Blahb".

That's great, reminds me of something I saw on a tech support call once. Guy calls up, wasn't pulling an IP from our DHCP server so I run a quick diag and what do I see for his MAC addy ... de:ad:be:ef:fe:ed ... anyway, that's way off topic but it was hilarious at the time.