99m6z28

I don't have any experience with Mavic wheels however I do ride the Fulcrum Racing 1 on my Cervelo road bike. I am 285 lbs and have never had a single issue with them. They have a spoke count of 16 front and 21 rear and have stayed true so far. These are very stiff wheels and feel rock solid under me. I would definitely recommend them however they were very pricy and I went tubeless when I bought them.

Erwin8r

I've had Ksyrium's on 3 of my bikes so far (still have one bike with them on it) and have never had an issue. However, I don't consider myself a much of a wheel-destroyer type--don't log nearly enough miles and tend to be easy on my wheels. I weigh about 238 right now... Still, TH's advise is best--a second set of wheels is good no matter what the first set is...

Sy Reene

This is good to hear.. I've been wondering how durable these 16/21 spoke wheels are. Actually looking at the Campy Eurus model which I understand is the same, and can now find for $550 which is a great price I think.

CafeVelo

Campy and fulcrum state in their wheel manuals that they don't recommend their wheels for anyone over (I think) 220lb, and anyone over 180lb should regularly inspect their wheels. At 185 I destroyed two rear fulcrum 7 rims in about 6 months.

Sy Reene

Any anticipated strength difference though between 7 series and 1 series? (which is 3 models higher in the lineup). I understand spokes are alloy with the 1s and steel in the lower models.

cyccommute 

I find it hilarious that a country that embraced a decimal monetary system in protest of a bizarre monetary system is so resistant to a decimal measurement system. Try this exercise from my first Chemistry lab in college: Weigh an egg in both the English system and the metric system. Convert the weight to grains, drams, ounces, pounds, stone, hundredweight, short ton and ton (long). And while you are at it, do the conversion to troy grain, troy pennyweight, troy ounce and troy pound. For extra credit, convert the English weight to mass. For more extra credit, know the difference between "mass" and "weight".

Now convert the metric weight to picograms, micrograms, milligrams, kilograms and metric tons.

Oh, and no looking up the conversions. You live in the US and should know the system of weights we use. Oh, and your calculations have to be made without calculator or computer (which we didn't have when I was in college) assistance.

As others have suggested, I wouldn't use either of these for commuting. I probably wouldn't use either for general riding because I can build a better wheel then either of them that would be stronger and weigh less. I probably wouldn't save money on them but they would be stronger.

For commuting, I would suggest a "normal" 32 hole wheel. There are any number of machine built wheels out there are relatively inexpensive. Have someone go over them (or learn how to do it yourself) and tension them properly before you use them. Save the lighter wheels for noncommute days.

dr_lha

@cyccommute thanks for ranting at me three months late. It was just a flippant comment. As for all those conversion questions, well at college I was taught exclusively to work in SI units. And later doing a PhD we used the slightly silly, but still widely used cgs units. I was never taught Imperial. That said I can still more easily visualize what a 15 stone man looks like than a 70kg one.

CafeVelo

Nope. The zeros are have the same statement in the manual. So do the carbon wheels. I would expect the durability to go down as the wheels increase in price, markedly at the fulcrum 3 and higher, given that they're made for racing and the primary focus is going to be on weight and stiffness over long term reliability.

IIRC the wide alloy spokes on zeros and campy shamals are made by mavic. The hubs on all fulcrums, as you'd expect, are quite nice.

Sy Reene

Of course this doesn't tell us much, but we have the 285lb rider I responded to originally indicating no problems to date.. Looking on campy website, I took these 2 photos off their site. You can visually see a spoke and hub difference between the Eurus and Zonda (Fr1 vs FR3 equivalents).. again, not sure it tells us much. As a 185lb rider, I'm sorely tempted by the current deals on Eurus.

CafeVelo

its been my experience that it's also harder to get warranty repairs if you're over the stated weight in the manual. I guess you could lie if they ask, it's not like they'd know, but the techs can generally tell by the break when it's an overloaded wheel failing rather than some other type of break.

(disclosure: I work in a shop and am speaking from experience dealing with repair orders)

Sy Reene

Actually I myself am 185lbs.. so technically in that middle ground, but nonetheless interested in durability of these wheels, spurred in part by looking at more custom wheel builds where spoke count recommendations typically would put me on a 24/28 wheelset, though what I'm gathering is that most of the custom builds use lighter weight and thinner walled rims, so it's hard to equate.

Flatbroke

I've had good luck with the stock rims. The rear lasted over 5k miles before developing cracks around spoke holes. The front is still going strong. And close to 7k miles. At weights ranging from 360-285 but mostly around 300-330 pounds. Can't seem to keep it off.

CafeVelo

thats hardly good luck. If 5k was the expected service life of a rim I'd be in for new wheels a few times a year.

CafeVelo

FWIW velocity is running a promotion, you can get their top shelf prebuilt wheels for the price of the base version. They use good spokes on their builds, and they come out light for what they are and damn sturdy. Ask your LBS about it.

Flatbroke

I hit a 3 inch deep section of missing pavement on a white line and the impact cause the cracks. I was in a pace line on and had just come off of pulling and was riding behind a new guy I had not ridden with before. He didn't point it out just moved enough to miss it. It was my fault for following so close. I hit it so hard I'm surprised the rim didn't taco. It messed my back up and I didn't ride for 3 months (earlier this year). I have never had to true either the front or rear rim and the spoke count was pretty low for a 300+ rider. I

Ive had less luck keeping pro hand built rear rim true with more spoke count in less than 500 miles. Not sure of your weight but I'm a fat mo fo.

CafeVelo

Maybe at 300+ any rim would have failed in that scenario (except maybe a 36/40h velocity deep v or dyad). I did something similar once on a 32h 3 cross wheel I built. 28mph, 5" drop. Instant pinch flat, cut the sidewall. Remarkably the wheel was fine. I was ~190 at the time.

cyccommute 

You have me there. I usually don't respond to old posts but didn't look at the date this time.

1. The CGS system isn't "silly". It's as valid and useful for many sciences and not impossible to convert from one to the other relatively easily in most cases.

2. If you were never taught the "Imperial" system, how do you know how much a stone weighs much less visualize what a 15 stone man would look like?

dr_lha

Good to know you're not infallible.

Apart from historical baggage, I really see no useful reason to measure things in centimeters, grams, ergs etc, over meters, kilograms, Joules. I use it every day as everyone else in my field does, but it did mean I had to relearn all my physical constant values in new units. I find it mostly silly because at College and school they went to great pains to teach us everything in SI units, and then when I got into the "real world" it was another case of "yeah nobody uses those"! I have to wonder why not.

OK Next paper to write, I'm going to quote everything in Watts instead of erg/s.

Because when I was a kid, everyone was taught metric at school, but at home and in normal life we used Imperial. So you went to the market and bought a pound of apples. People talked about how my they weighed in stone. If someone asks me my height, I still will say six foot two, as without thinking about it, I don't know what my height is in meters or centimeters.

There's the things you learn at school, and the things you learn through social contact.

adrien

No kidding. I'm 212. I have 14,000 miles on a set of Ambrosio rims, and they show very little wear. Should go 20k+

chaadster

it's 240lb... for Shamal, Eurus, and Zonda, anyway: https://www.campagnolo.com/media/file...02_11_2014.pdf

I'm 220lb-230lb and about 4k trouble-free miles, I think, on a pair of Mavic Ksyrium Equipe S (24/24h). I've had them 3 years, but they did go to secondary service when I replaced them with a pair of American Classic Argents at the end of the first season. The Argents are just 1372gm, 16/24 spoke, and they've done perfectly as well. The Ksyriums have just started duty as the primary wheel set on the winter/spring/rain bike.

Although I'm a strong rider, I do ride with finesse, so none of this is to say that the same or similar wheels will hold up under other riders in other conditions, but my experience and usage is not so much an outlier as some might suggest when they single out spoke count as the only defining characteristic of wheel durability.

Up North

Anything Mavic is best avoided when north of 200lbs. Just do some searches for all the issues.

chaadster

Do a search for all the OEM Mavic fitments and aftermarket sales figures, and you'll find that "all the issues" are statistically irrelevant.

crazyb

I ride on a Mavik Ksyrium sl wheel set that I have "north of" 20,000 miles on with absolutely no problems. No broken spokes, cracked rims, hub bearings, etc. I have been as High as 255 and down to low 200's. These rims cost me a 1000 bucks so they aren't cheap, but they certainly are appropriate for 200+ riders. Have you actually tried all of the Mavic line personally, or are you just regurgitating internet myth?