Lightweight Exploding Wheels!

We build our own wheels at HubBub.  It seems that this is one of the things that sets us apart from many other shops - even those that sell custom bicycles.  It has also been a bone of contention with some customers on occasion, but we've held to our beliefs - being proven justified  more than once.

We believe wheels should be reliable, safe, and built for the rider - qualities that rider include weight, experience, and the kind of riding intended.  Our wheels are meant to offer thousands of miles of trouble free riding, just as our bikes are.  Even (or especially) in racing situations, we believe that sacrificing reliability and predictabilty for weight isn't usually the wise decision.

The current trend in wheels has been pushing the limit with low spoke counts, paired spoking patterns, and a lot of carbon fiber.  While some of the production bike companies have begun to spec more appropriate wheels on some of their road bike models, the after-market wheels that many dealers are selling have become more and more exotic.   And, the marketing pitch to own and ride a pair of these wheels is hot and heavy in the media marketplace. 

And, no one has been more aggressive in getting specialty wheels into the hands of the rider than Mavic.  From their original Helium wheel that was touted as "the lightweignt, climbing wheel" to the new R-Sys carbon-fiber spoked wheels, Mavic has stubbornly held to their claims of a superior wheel, even in the face of obvious, and now dangerous, failures. 

Case in point: on June 9th, one of Velo News editors, Ben Delaney, was racing on Mavic's POST-RECALL, redesigned R-Sys front wheel when it literally exploded in a turn.  At first, Mavic wanted to blame "rider error" but, to Velo News' and Ben Delanye's credit, they tracked down witnesses, had photographs, and reported on it immediately, even though Mavic is an advertiser with the magazine both on line and in print. 

Brian has weighed in on this from both my persepective and a more technical point of view on his blog, Artispin.

I don't know if this incident will serve to wake up the riding public, those who oversee these types of problems, and/or the manufacturers; but, with the speed that information travels and the number of people who are able to read and assess information quickly, I hope the manufacturers will stop using the general public as unsuspecting test subjects.

As for the riders, I guess there will always be those who want the newest, the lightest, and allegedly, the fastest.  The question always comes back to... at what cost?