Mavic Ksyrium Elite UST wheelset

For 2018 Mavic's highly dependable all-rounder, the Ksyrium Elite, has become tubeless, using the French company's UST system like much of the range. The wheels have maintained their lightweight, durable persona from previous models and are still great to ride whether you are racing or tackling the club run, with a little bit of future proofing. A welcome addition is that the Yksion Pro UST tyres are a lot better than the non-tubeless versions I tested a couple of years ago.

• Pros: Decent weight, well built, tyre/wheel combo works well together
• Cons: Erm...

It's not a new thing for Mavic to include tyres in its wheel packages; the company has been doing that with its tubed wheelsets for years but with its tubeless setup, UST, it's taken this to the next level, controlling the marriage between rim and rubber to the nth degree.

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Mat gives the full lowdown here on the introduction of UST and what it involves, but just to give you a little snippet, 'Mavic says that it can now offer a lifetime of hassle-free installation and maintenance when using UST approved products because control of the manufacturing provides the optimum rim diameter and a precise tyre bead diameter.

'Mavic claims that its road UST tubeless system is different from other tubeless systems in that the wheel and tyre are designed together and there's tight control over production variances. If you want the figures, the rim bead seat diameter is 621.95mm (with a tolerance of +/-0.35mm) and the tyre bead diameter is 619.6mm (with a tolerance of +/-0.2mm). They're tight tolerances.'

The wheels arrived at the office with the tyres fitted, and after reading Mat's write-up I tested the wheels for a bit with another brand of tyre, the Ere Research Genus, to test compatibility as Mavic recommends only using its own tyres with the wheels, and everything was fine. The Eres popped onto the rim without hassle and stayed seated throughout the riding with no issues.

The same can be said for the Mavic tyres. Inflation was smooth and simple, with the Yksions sitting snuggly against the rim of the wheel with just the use of a standard track pump, and there were no leaks of sealant anywhere.

Get a grip

When I tested the non-tubeless Ksyrium Elites back in 2016, my biggest – well, only – gripe was the tyres. They seriously lacked grip, especially in the wet, and puncture proofing was pretty poor.

These UST versions are way, way better, offering loads of grip. Something I found out on pretty much the only rainy day of the test period.

After about four weeks of no precipitation, the Sunday's weather was looking downright biblical and as a rider who thrives in the extremes of weather I had to get out for a play.

Shaftesbury, in Dorset, is one of the highest towns in England, and in the direction I would need to head for home there is a lovely twisty descent for a good half a mile, with fowing bends, some tightening up mid-way through. If you're brave enough to stay off the brakes, 50mph is easily achievable.

> Buyer's Guide: Tubeless tyres

I took the first couple of turns cautiously, just to gauge some feel, but I was already touching 40mph and the cars behind had realised I was probably going to be quicker through this section than they were and had backed right off. Time to relax.

With speed and confidence growing with each corner, I was taking more and more risks, and to say I was impressed with the Yksion Pros would be an understatement. Grip and feedback were spot on, and if I did break traction, a little shift in power or body position easily saw them come back under control.

A classic all-rounder

Anyway, back to the wheels – after all, they are the main part of the package.

At 1,532g without tyres (2,101g with tyres and valves) they are light enough to be exciting on the climbs or under acceleration, and their stiffness certainly backs that up; you won't get any flex or brake rub here.

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It is a really solid wheelset as well, you can feel that just by the way they roll. Covering rough stretches of tarmac doesn't see them rattling you about and if they do whack a pothole you get an assuring thud rather than the crack sound you get from alloy wheels.

The Ksyrium Elites feel like they have the durability of a training wheel with the performance of a race one.

The techy stuff

For the rims Mavic uses its exclusive Maxtal aluminium alloy, which it says gives a higher strength to weight ratio than the 6061 grade more commonly used in wheel manufacturing.

Weight is removed by machining material away from the spoke bed in between where the nipples are, and while it isn't quite as striking as the exposed aluminium found on earlier models it does give the wheels that cool wavy look.

Mavic has gone for differing depths for the front and rear, 24mm and 26mm respectively.

A lot of wheels coming in for test at road.cc tend to be for disc brakes, so it's a real pleasure to see the simplicity of the radial spoking design on the Ksyrium front wheel, which uses just 18 spokes.

The rear has 20 of the double butted, straight pull, flat spokes in a radial pattern on the non-drive side, with a two-cross setup for the drive side.

Hub-wise, Mavic uses an all-alloy affair for both the body and the axle. The flanges are pretty large to take the loads and they run very smoothly indeed.

Up until the arrival of these, I was still running the 2016 Ksyrium Elites on my wet weather bike and the hub bearings are still running as smoothly as the day they were fitted, so I don't see any issues arising with these. They are adjustable and Mavic even chucks in the tool but I haven't had to touch the earlier version at all, even with about 6,000 miles on the clock.

For the freehub, Mavic has gone for a steel body and it is holding up well to wear and tear. There are no significant grooves on the splines from hard acceleration, from the cassette digging in.

Value

Carbon fibre wheels are getting ever cheaper and for £600 you can pick up a decent set of deep-section clinchers like the CES Sport RC50s.

So why go for aluminium? Well, it's a great material and just like frames it has come a long way in the last few years in terms of weight and strength.

The Ksyrium Elites are light, aren't affected by crosswinds and the braking is absolutely spot on regardless of the weather conditions.

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You can get a lot of wheels at a similar weight cheaper than the £539 price tag here, but let's break it down a bit. The UST tyres would set you back £40-£50 each, plus you get enough sealant chucked in to do both tyres and plenty left over for topping them up.

Compare that to the Ritchey Classic Zetas, for instance, at £569, which are bloody good wheels by the way, or the £539.99 Deda Elementi Zero2 wheels that aren't even tubeless and don't come with tyres.

Conclusion

If you want a set of wheels to tackle a bit of everything, then the Ksyrium Elites are hard to fault, and while you can get cheaper this is a solid package that'll give you real peace of mind.

Verdict

They've always been good, but with better tyres and being tubeless, it's a very impressive package indeed