I'm looking to change out the stock Alex AT400s on my sirrus, and get a stiffer wheelset,
that i don;t have to worry too much about when running on the roads.

Been looking around and thinking for awhile now, and i'm leaning towards either
the Ksyrium Equippe or Aksium. The prices for these are alright for me, and i
probably would get some Ksyrium Elites if not for the price. Was thinking of
open pro builds, but decided to just get one of the two above.

Only thing now is, what are the practical differences between the Equippe and the Aksium? I'm on 700 x 28s armadillos and am on the bike everywhere, and use it exclusively for transport around town/uni and all. Roads are fair, but some portions are bone shaking. The alex at400s are out of true after only about a week or so (wth?!)

The weight issue is not too much of a concern between the two, but i was wondering which is a better buy? Most important for me is not too ridiculous weight, stiffness, and durability. What do y'all think?

btw i'm about a 148lbs and there are hills everywhere in sheffield

much appreciated
dennis

your old wheels went out of true probably because they were not properly tensioned and trued...

i suggest spending money on a nice set of handbuilt wheels, or at least buying those mavics, from a shop that will look at them and make sure they are evenly tensioned before you start riding on them. then you must pay attenetion to them for a bit and get someone to reture them if and when needed as the "break in". after keeping an eye on them for a couple hundred miles, those wheels should stay straight till you wear out the braketracks or do something ridiculous to screw them up.

in my experience wheel quality is important but even more important is getting the wheels built and maintained by somone who knows what they are doing.

at 148 lbs, unless you ride like a absolute maniac, you shouldn't have any problems keeping a wheelset true.

You weigh 148 and your wheels are out of true in a week? That's just a bad build. Instead of new wheels pay someone to rebuild the wheels you've got. As to your question, I think as you move up from low level mavic to the high-falutin' bling, you get steadily lighter wheels, and materials move from AL, to better AL to carbon mix. They may get better hubs as well, but I'm not positive on that one.

+1
Up until a week ago i had a ridiculously cheap, no-name, single wall wheelset on my commuter. In the first month of riding i would break a spoke every other day and the wheels were never true. I'd just take them in to a shop for a spoke replacement and ride on until the next one broke.

Anyway, at some point i got tired of it, asked around, and demanded that the wheels be rebuilt by the LBS where i bought the bike. Since then, they ran for about 5000km without being trued once. And i'm talking day in, day out commuting on pothole-ridden roads, with my own 180lbs plus 10-20 lbs of load.

Then,a week ago i splurged on a pair of Mavic A319s/Deore 36 spokes, as part of a touring conversion plan of the bike. I actually contemplated keeping the old wheelset, because i couldn't bare the thought of throwing away a part that was perfectly reliable and in good shape. But then i got over it.


My vote - rebuild or re-tension the wheels.

I had a pair of Alex wheels on my bike and they were crap. I had the trued and retensioned at my LBS, and I trued them several times as well. They simply suck.

I found a pair of Mavic Open Pros used on Craigslist for $100. They are bulletproof. I've never had to touch them in over a year of pothole crunching, curb jumping commutes. And this is on a fully loaded 30# bike with a 185# rider. You can get them new at Performance for ~$200.

Az

aksium- Mavic's basic wheelset. still with J-bend spokes.

Ksyrium Equipes. lighter wheelset. stiffer, with straight spokes- straight spokes are bandied about as 30 percent stronger than j bends.

overall, good stuff. Mavic builds a quality wheel.

If you ARE considering a wheelbuild up from scratch, the Mavic OpenSport rims are triple hollow rims, TOUGHER than the open pros-single hollow, at the penalty of several ounces heavier.

I bought an Alex G6000 a year ago. The spokes were seriously under tension. I brought them up to tension and have had no problems with my 235 lb. If you want lighter wheels for better ride and handling, swap out the Armadillos for lighter tires ( kevlar belted and beads).

First off, thanks everybody for the great advice.

I went down to my lbs just now and spoke to the fellas there. I didn't get my bike from there. Anyway, the fellas had a good look at my rear wheel, and told me they've just had another guy in on fri morning with same wheels bought somewhere else, which are out of true in two weeks plus.

Diagnosis from them was most probably like y'all said, not tensioned or trued properly, so they offered a rebuild and/or a good price for some aksiums if i wanted some.
Also, they told me basically if i had to choose a new mavic wheel, to either get aksiums on a budget, or skip the equippe to the elite. Difference between the aksiums and equippes not really worth the price difference they thought.

I bought the aksiums, and got them sorted. I'm gonna also get the alex ones rebuilt or tensioned and keep em as a spare. Just got em mounted on the bike, but can't give it a ride cos it bloody started snowing!

much appreciated all..

Believe it or not, a magazine tested like 20 different wheels from the cheapo aksiums to $4000 wheels and the aksiums actually tested better than mavic's most expensive ksyrium wheel, the ES's.

I'm your weight and I currently commute on a pair of the same specialized at400 wheels on my fixed gear. I suppose the fixed gear and NYC can put considerably more stress on it than your roads across the pond but mine have about 2 weeks use on it and they're relatively true. The front wheel has about a 0.08"-0.1" hop after slamming into a few big potholes. I'm waiting another 2 weeks or so of continuous pounding to get all the problem spots to reveal themselves then I'm gonna have the shop retrue/tension it. I did that with a pair of mavic cosmos road wheels on my road bike and it's taken at least 5 hits that I know of into almost foot deep potholes at 25-30mph w/o going out of true at all.

Yeah i saw the test, think it's tour magazine or something?.. aksium one up from ES's. Makes me feel good about my buy..

I'mpretty sure my at400s just need some love from the lbs eh..