A customer brought in the front and rear wheels
from a Ksyrium Pro Carbon SL
for inspection.
Let's start with the front wheel.
Mavic's current Ksyrium and
Cosmic spokes are stronger
against spoke nipple failures—both in material
and structure.
First, the material reason:
the material is steel, far from stainless,
so spoke nipple failures are less likely.
On the other hand, rust does break through
the thick paint coating
(you can see this in the image above).
Next, the structural reason:
the spoke elbow is sized at #13 (2.3mm).
Because of these two factors,
Mavic spokes almost never experience
spoke nipple failures, and you could say
that spoke replacement is needed almost exclusively
for external reasons—like wheel strikes,
getting something caught in the wheel,
or crash damage.
Also, because of this #13 elbow sizing,
you can't do things like
"temporarily patch it with a straight spoke from stock
while waiting for genuine spare spokes to arrive,"
and you can't rebuild the wheel with all standard spokes
while reusing the hub—there are these kinds of constraints.
The front hub had some lateral play
in the bearing adjustment, so I fixed that.
The temporary center was spot-on,
but there was both radial and lateral runout.
The radial runout was at the rim joint,
which is about as much as you'd expect from manufacturing,
but it wasn't related to the rim joint phase.
Once I trued out both directions of runout,
there was no centering offset, and even if I took a photo,
it would look the same as the image above, so I didn't.
Now for the rear wheel.
The final crossing on the non-freewheel side of the Isopulse pattern,
has slight left-right differences
at the spoke exit points on the hub flange,
and the final crossing isn't actually woven in—
it's non-contact under no load.
With aluminum rim and aluminum spoke
Ksyrium wheels,
the rear wheel used to be offset-rim spec, and
in some generations had left-right different-diameter builds,
but this rear wheel has a non-offset rim
with equal-diameter left-right construction.
Because of that, even for an Isopulse pattern,
the final crossing on the non-freewheel side is somewhat loose—
the spokes that are non-contact under no load
apparently touch during actual riding,
and when you flex the final crossing,
you can see rust forming
on areas where the paint coating is thin—
the deflection is that pronounced.
Per the customer's request to keep
the ratchet noise as quiet as possible,
I applied plenty of
Scope Cycling's Engagement Grease.
The Prime rear wheel from the other day
didn't get quite as quiet,
but Mavic's InstantDrive 360
gets quite silent with this.
I wonder if the number and height of the ratchet teeth
make the difference.
The left quick-release locknut is tight,
almost press-fit, and there were marks
from it being gripped with an axle wrench
that wasn't the right size.
↑opposite side
Our shop didn't remove
the left end during today's work.
The temporary center shows what's typical for Mavic—
the rim shifted to the left side.
You could easily center it by loosening the freewheel side,
but since the freewheel side is already loose,
I can't adjust it in that direction without making it looser.
By tightening the freewheel side with a slight increase
to true the lateral runout,
I got to the limit of what I could achieve
without any other adjustments besides centering.
From there, treading carefully like walking on thin ice,
I further tightened the freewheel side,
which is the high-tension side,
to achieve proper centering.
At this point, the final crossing on the non-freewheel side
was considerably better than the initial condition.
If you're trying to manage it with the original materials
rather than rebuild, this is about the limit you can reach.
from a Ksyrium Pro Carbon SL
for inspection.
Let's start with the front wheel.
Mavic's current Ksyrium and
Cosmic spokes are stronger
against spoke nipple failures—both in material
and structure.
First, the material reason:
the material is steel, far from stainless,
so spoke nipple failures are less likely.
On the other hand, rust does break through
the thick paint coating
(you can see this in the image above).
Next, the structural reason:
the spoke elbow is sized at #13 (2.3mm).
Because of these two factors,
Mavic spokes almost never experience
spoke nipple failures, and you could say
that spoke replacement is needed almost exclusively
for external reasons—like wheel strikes,
getting something caught in the wheel,
or crash damage.
Also, because of this #13 elbow sizing,
you can't do things like
"temporarily patch it with a straight spoke from stock
while waiting for genuine spare spokes to arrive,"
and you can't rebuild the wheel with all standard spokes
while reusing the hub—there are these kinds of constraints.
The front hub had some lateral play
in the bearing adjustment, so I fixed that.
The temporary center was spot-on,
but there was both radial and lateral runout.
The radial runout was at the rim joint,
which is about as much as you'd expect from manufacturing,
but it wasn't related to the rim joint phase.
Once I trued out both directions of runout,
there was no centering offset, and even if I took a photo,
it would look the same as the image above, so I didn't.
Now for the rear wheel.
The final crossing on the non-freewheel side of the Isopulse pattern,
has slight left-right differences
at the spoke exit points on the hub flange,
and the final crossing isn't actually woven in—
it's non-contact under no load.
With aluminum rim and aluminum spoke
Ksyrium wheels,
the rear wheel used to be offset-rim spec, and
in some generations had left-right different-diameter builds,
but this rear wheel has a non-offset rim
with equal-diameter left-right construction.
Because of that, even for an Isopulse pattern,
the final crossing on the non-freewheel side is somewhat loose—
the spokes that are non-contact under no load
apparently touch during actual riding,
and when you flex the final crossing,
you can see rust forming
on areas where the paint coating is thin—
the deflection is that pronounced.
Per the customer's request to keep
the ratchet noise as quiet as possible,
I applied plenty of
Scope Cycling's Engagement Grease.
The Prime rear wheel from the other day
didn't get quite as quiet,
but Mavic's InstantDrive 360
gets quite silent with this.
I wonder if the number and height of the ratchet teeth
make the difference.
The left quick-release locknut is tight,
almost press-fit, and there were marks
from it being gripped with an axle wrench
that wasn't the right size.
↑opposite side
Our shop didn't remove
the left end during today's work.
The temporary center shows what's typical for Mavic—
the rim shifted to the left side.
You could easily center it by loosening the freewheel side,
but since the freewheel side is already loose,
I can't adjust it in that direction without making it looser.
By tightening the freewheel side with a slight increase
to true the lateral runout,
I got to the limit of what I could achieve
without any other adjustments besides centering.
From there, treading carefully like walking on thin ice,
I further tightened the freewheel side,
which is the high-tension side,
to achieve proper centering.
At this point, the final crossing on the non-freewheel side
was considerably better than the initial condition.
If you're trying to manage it with the original materials
rather than rebuild, this is about the limit you can reach.