Well it seems my ongoing saga with wheel breakage continues. Wednesday August 22 2012 I managed to destroy a 3 month old Mavic Akaiim rear wheel accelerating off a stop sign turning a corner.

To add to the mayhem, I was in my largest cassette cog and the wheel got so warped that after 2 revolutions it grabbed my rear derallieur and sucked it in to my wheel. Of course this damaged a second spoke, and the rear derallieur, and the hanger.

Honestly I’m lucky. If this had happened 500m earlier I would have been going almost 40km/h with 2 riders on my wheel. I would have locked up and most likely had two riders hit me from behind. We were all lucky.

Now I’m the ‘proud’ owner of a new Shimano 105 rear derallieur, but don’t have the wheel replaced yet. Spokes are on order from Mavic and should get here at some point next week. Then I have to decide how much I trust the wheels.

This is the second rear Mavic Aksium that I’ve had. This one came directly from the factory as a replacement for the original which blew a bunch of spokes in the first year. It’s only 3 months old. It has got me wondering if there is something wrong with the bike frame? I’ve had the local shop look it over and they say no so I’m left with, my legs are full of murder?

A Real Set of Bomb Proof Wheels

It seems that the Mavic Aksiums simply aren’t holding up to the riding I’m doing, so now I’m looking at alternatives. The top of my list is filled by the American Classics Hurricane. Has anyone tried these? Do they live up to their billing?

For now I’m back to the stock Bontrager that I rebuilt after totally killing it last year.