Mavic Ksyrium Equipe wheels

[ny biker]

Just wanted to follow up on this now that I've been able to use the wheels for a while. It is a very loud clicking when the wheels are turning but the pedals are not turning, so when coasting or when walking with the bike. However it is most annoying (at least for now*) when walking with the bike. It's not bothering me when coasting while I ride. It might be bothering the people around me, I don't know, but it's not entering my consciousness.

* I say "at least for now" because one of my fellow bike club members said the same thing that Owlie said, that the clicking gets louder as the oil degrades/dries out. If that becomes an issue, I'll try to find out if I can reapply the oil myself, or if it requires taking things apart, in which case it will be one more thing I pay the LBS mechanic to do for me.

As for the SRAM compatibility, I still have a few problems with shifting, but the last adjustment made things much better. The cable is almost new, but the chain probably has quite a few miles on it by now, so that might be contributing to the shifting issues. We'll see.

Overall I forget about the wheels completely when I'm riding, which is pretty much the goal. They are way way better than the Bontrager Race TLR wheels that I tried out first.

Thanks.

<bump> It's been almost two years with these Mavic wheels. I still forget about them when I'm riding. Once or twice when I brought the bike to the shop for something, the mechanic would mention that they probably would need maintenance soon. Eventually the Mavic tires that came with them wore out and I put on some Continental GPs, which made the ride a bit less smooth but still okay.

So a few weeks ago I brought the bike to the shop for a derailleur adjustment and the mechanic said that the freehub needed maintenance soon, or else it would no longer work right. Evidently the pedals will just keep turning when you're trying to coast or when walking with the bike. I did one more ride and then dropped the bike off for service. Several days later a different mechanic called me and said the freehub looked fine when he took it apart. This worried me, I thought maybe I had failed to understand and communicate what the first mechanic had told me. The next day I went to the shop and had a chance to talk to them both together. The first one described in detail what he thought was wrong, something about pawls and I don't remember what else. The second one repeated that everything had looked okay, but that he had done the routine maintenance (cleaning and re-lubing whatever needs to be cleaned and re-lubed). They agreed that this maintenance should take care of whatever the first mechanic had said was wrong. It only cost $20 for labor.

So last night I rode the bike for the first time since bringing it home from the shop. And it is almost silent when I coast! The loud clicking is almost completely gone, down to a very muffled sound.

I don't know what to make of this. Did the freehub need to be lubed when I first bought the wheels? No one I've ridden with in two years has said, hey that clicking is too loud, your wheels need maintenance. And I ride with the kind of people who would notice and say something about a thing like that. No one at the bike shop said anything about it when I took the bike in for a cleaning and tune-up last winter. It seemed that the loud clicking was normal. Yet now it's gone.

Maybe this quiet phase will only last a short time and it will go back to audible clicking soon? I don't know. The bike feels okay when I ride it. So I'm not complaining. Just a bit perplexed.

(I will be taking the bike back to the shop for other work soon, so I'll try to remember to ask them about it, just for my own edification.)