Mavic wheels

I have a pair of Deemax that came fitted to a Mondraker Superfoxy, they're bombproof!

The rims have a scratch resistant coating and it works a treat!

I had a set of DeeMax and a spoke pulled out of the hub when the slot for the spoke broke off.

Exactly the same thing happened on the Allroad wheelset on the gravel bike. Rims are also kinda soft.

They're a PITA to get repaired as when a spoke breaks as not every shop carries them.

Yes, all my Mavic wheels have also been bombproof as well. I think their corporate issues halted R&D for a while, so they fell behind on design, which they are now trying to catch up on.

Good question.

I think the designs got a little outdated and fashion shifted from fancy, light factory wheelsets to dependable custom builds (mainly with DT rims).

They may be back on track product wise now, but I have no idea what's what in their range of rims.

Still wouldn't say no to UST sealed rim beds if it was possible to add them to my DT rims 😀

XA elites are great wheels

mavics unpopularity meant that I was able to pick up a couple of sets for peanuts.

Not sure they have a uk distributor I had to order different endcaps from the EU

I think they nearly went out of business a while ago didn't they? I always loved their rims as they were strong and dependable, and i'd happily have a wheelset now if there was much available....

I think Mavic are great. Just had to replace a 10 year old Allroad though, cos it got bent in a crash and the nipples have seized, so can't true it. It's had quite a hard life though. Replacement was £60 from Merlin. Also have Ksyrium roadwheels and Crossmax 29ers. Decent, reliable wheels I reckon.

Mavic can be bought through Chicken cycles now.

Slightly OT but Mavic road wheels are my favourite.

Exalith is genius and if disc brakes hadn't killed the rim brake road wheel market dead, would get a lot more love I think.

Oh yeah, my son kept mangling rear wheels doing big jumps, so I suggested to get a Deemax. No complaints from the lad as yet (except that the stickers are fragile!) 🙂

Mavic rims and wheels are my go to. Best bike running handbuilt DA hubs on CXP33's. Aksiums on the knobbly tyre wheelset for my CX bike and Ksyriums on other road bike. Had Crossrides on an old MTB but wore the rims out.

Never touched the bearings on any of the Mavic wheelsets. Buttery smooth.

Soft rims, straight pull aluminum spokes and bearing life poor.

There are cheaper, stronger and better options out there.

I've had loads of Mavic wheels in the past, but I always think of them as a roadie stuff nowadays.

My daughters bike has got Mavic Crossmax on

There are cheaper, stronger and better options out there.

This.
They got bogged down in a mind-bendingly confusing range which contributed to them (nearly) going tits up and needing a refinance and rescue package which cost them a lot of time in lost R&D.

They used to be THE go-to name in wheels, I've had loads over the years, right from the first generation Helium road wheels (more or less the original in factory-built performance wheels).

Now... I'd only consider them if they were on significant discount (which is how I ended up with my current Mavic road wheels!)

They're still going? Awesome, I thought they were long gone!

Have run D521/EX721 forever. Unfashionably narrow but bombproof, I've run them with holes appearing in the rim wall with no issues. D321/EX729 is wider but IMO weaker, they don't forgive prangs as much.

For a long, long time they were just selling ancient products at high prices, they still had the 819 and similiar up against Stans Flow frinstance. They had a vested interest in UST and stuck with it to the point of ridiculousness, rejecting tubeless ready for ages (and outright lying about rim weights to try and make them look competitive- none of their UST range ever included the captive nipple things which were part of the rim).

And some of those range lynchpins just weren't great- 721s when new were awesome but by the end not so much, they were strong but cracky and ended up looking very skinny (too hard/brittle, I thought? They were super tough, until they weren't. 729s on the other hand were heavy, and too soft for their weight (though they were super tough, nobody cared when they ended up covered in dents)

The built wheelsets were largely similiar, remix after remix of other wheels and hubs, and their hubs were not good- those cartridge bearings ones where they ALSO were dependent on preload like cup-and-cone, oh thanks Mavic, this seems to be the worst of all worlds. There were some great wheels but by the end of all that it was just getting ridiculous, you had things like the "enduro" wheels they made which had "wide front, narrow rear" rims which kinda made sense, except that they were just kitbashed out of other wheels they already made so you got essentially an XC rear wheel. They ended up making pro versions that were faked up with the same colours and logos etc but a different design, because they just weren't fit for purpose. Just really shoddy, and you can guarantee that paying customers didn't get the option to change theirs.

Their customer service was also incredibly terrible. I had a Crossmax wheelset, it was really good to be fair... but I broke the rear axle, can I get a replacement please Mavic? NON! Send wheels to France, maybe we will fix it, maybe we won't! Uh, it's just one part, do I really need to send the wheel in? NON! Not just the broken wheel, also the front! For, uh, totally legitimate customer service reasons.

At about the same time, Stans got really good, WTB did a big range refresh and had better products for much less, lots of cheaper tubeless ready options came online while Mavic just ignored that (and eventually came up with the "UST ready" fiasco and just threw money to pinkbike etc to plug it) Even the first wave of good cheap carbon came along. And then DT did their big range refresh which just absolutely crushed Mavic's options.

But they do good stuff now, they were just incredibly slow to do it and lost most of their goodwill and reputation. I have, uh, an XA wheel I think? Can't say anything but good about it, I wouldn't have paid the RRP though. And the entire range was completely inexplicable.

I looked at them briefly a while back for MTB. What I remember is the rim is sealed, so no rim tape, but proprietary screw-in spokes. And 24 spokes per wheel for trail/enduro.

What I remember is the rim is sealed, so no rim tape

Yep, they never fail to seal tubeless tyres. Great design 🙂

They've always served me well so I'd have another pair. Had some xa with the newer ratchet drive which was decent but became a bit draggy over time even with regreasing so not quite as nice as the DT Swiss system.

Warranty was ok via Evans when I had something rattly in the rim. They just replaced the wheel but it took a couple of weeks.

Someone posted these in the PSA thread...

https://www.merlincycles.com/mavic-crossmax-xl-r-boost-carbon-wheelset-29-307532.html

I've got some Open Pros with CK R45 hubs on my road bike which I really like and they've been very reliable.

However, I tried a Cosmic Carbone on the front of my TT bike and even I (10st4 and with very little power) could make it flex to the point where the brake would rub in a corner! The Zipp 404 which replaced it doesn't do that

Built some wheels using XM827 rims a couple of years ago - they’ve been great, easy to build with and solid.

I’ve got Mavic tubeless rims on Hope hubs, two pairs that have been on two or three different bikes each over the years. I think they were among the first generally available tubeless rims that didn’t need a tape seal covering the spoke holes; X1? Dunno, I can’t be arsed to go out and check in the shed. Got a feeling they go back to around 2010, if not a bit earlier. Currently they’re on my two Inbreds, wearing different size tyres, and I’m trying to motivate myself to at least get the SS out, clean it up, bleed the brakes and if the tyres are ok, mix up some sealant and get out and ride a bit.

I can’t quite make out the rim model in either of these photos, the top one, my hooligan hardtail, is a bit low res, and there’s no metadata that gives a date. And yes, I know the logos on the rear wheel and tyre on the SS aren’t lined up; Sue me! 😋

Another DeeMax'er here. Very happy with them especially the ratchet freewheel which IMHO is better with ebike drive than pawls. Sealed rims make tubeless easy but if these are the same as old versions, the threaded spoke in the rim situation may cause issues if needing to be replaced. Flat blade spokes add to the replacement situation as they always seem to twist.

They seem better that the Crossmax ST versions with spokes that would pop out at the hub end but to their credit the rim was very stiff I never had one go out of true even after dropping a couple of spokes. Also, a nylon or similar bush that would end up with a howling freehub...

And yes, the deemax stickers have fallen off....

I bought a pair of Crossmax for a build last year because 1. curious, and 2. much cheapness, and they've been errr...wheels. Just trued them up, and that's all that's happened. Oh, and of course tubless is a doddle. I've run out of things to say about them.

We've had a few sets over the years. I've never had a problem with them. I've replaced a couple of worn freehub parts and bearings, no issues with parts. We've never had to replace spokes.

I got a set of Mavic XAs for £125 in the Evans clear out a couple of years ago. Didn't have high hopes for them, tbh, but just wanted to get a 29er project up and running. 2000km over the last year and can't fault them - stayed true, spinning nicely. I'm going to have a look inside this Easter weekend; kind of expecting the alloy freehub to be chewed up by the cassette, but we'll see. Happy so far, hoping spares will be available going forward.