As a newbie roadie, I am getting hooked on climbing and sprinting.
The stock wheels on my Litespeed Cappella are Mavic Cosmos.
Hey, I am strictly a recreational rider and these wheels seem fine to me. But would I gain much with a set of Ksyriums or Cane Creek Aeroheads?
Any down sides to these wheels?
Thanks very much for your insights!

My Tuscany came with Ksyrium Elites. Nice wheels, but I find them a bit too stiff for long ride comfort. I actually prefer riding Bontrager Race-Lites.

So ... here a data point for you.




As a newbie roadie, I am getting hooked on climbing and sprinting.
The stock wheels on my Litespeed Cappella are Mavic Cosmos.
Hey, I am strictly a recreational rider and these wheels seem fine to me. But would I gain much with a set of Ksyriums or Cane Creek Aeroheads?
Any down sides to these wheels?
Thanks very much for your insights!

As a newbie roadie, I am getting hooked on climbing and sprinting.
The stock wheels on my Litespeed Cappella are Mavic Cosmos.
Hey, I am strictly a recreational rider and these wheels seem fine to me. But would I gain much with a set of Ksyriums or Cane Creek Aeroheads?
Any down sides to these wheels?
Thanks very much for your insights!

The only thing you will really gain is coolness points with your friends. If you have a good set of handbuilt traditional wheels and compare them to Mavic K's or the Cane Creeks (both of which I have owned, and I will say I really did like the Cane Creeks, but they were the Ti spoke version) all you will notice is that the K's or the CC's will be a few grams, maybe 30, lighter than most handbuilt wheels, and actually heavier than some very nice high end hand built wheels. They are not going to be any more aerodynamic (despite the marketing hype) and are usually harder to maintain than traditional wheels. The biggest difference is that they are more money than traditional wheels. The rise of popularity in boutique wheels stems from tons of marketing coming from Mavic and many other companies. But Mavic really started the trend about 6 years ago. The reason is that they used to be top dog as a rim maker, but didn't sell many hubsets. So they started to build complete wheels so they could sell more hubs and spokes. Why settle for just the rim market when you can dominate the whole wheel market? That's the idea behind boutique wheels. There is nothing at all wrong with boutique wheels, but there are not as many advantages to them that the marketing department wants you to think.

Russ

[I have Ksyriums SSC SL and Cane Creeks on separate bikes. While I really like the Ksyriums, they are not worth the $600 dollar difference from the Cane Creek ($225 to $275 depending on where you shop). I would keep what you got on your bike and if you have to get new wheels, I would highly recommend the Cane Creeks for the money. BTW, the only reason I ride the Ksyriums is that I got such a good deal on a new Jamis Eclipse that I couldn't pass it up.

Your wheels current wheels are not that bad. Unless you spring for some super light wheels (under 1500 grams), you're not going to notice much performance difference.

For the price of the K's or some other boutique set of wheels, you can get 2 sets of handbuilt, super light, super strong, and super SELF-SERVICEABLE wheels.

Example, my built set of wheels is 1502 grams, and I even went "heavy" to keep them strong, even for my 150 pound frame. I paid 299 bucks for them, shipped, with QR's. That's not a sale price either, or with a coupon code, that's the price.

K's cost what, double that? Weigh more than that too right? Probably are fine for strength so that's a plus of them. What if you break something? Can you fix it? I'm really asking, can you, or do you have to go to a shop, send them back, deal with customer service....?

Keep what you have, or if the urge persists, get a nice custom built set of hoops and laugh at the boutique crowd. Unless you want the bling bling.....

10k

You all are missing the point. This guy wants chi-chi wheels. I hear him. Chi-chi is chi-chi. It's like cars -- a Corvette can drop on the road lots and lots of Euro fantasy cars costing some multiple of the Corvette's price point, but, if you have $120,000 burning a hole in your pocket, you get the Porsche or the Mercedes.
Ksyriums are great. Ride the sh*t out of them; you never need to do anything. I had some Cane Creeks a few years back. They looked great, for sure (and, to be fair, ran well when I had them). I sold them to my brother, and the rim is sort of failing here and there (he weighs a bit more than I do, like 185-195 -- I haven't checked in a while).
Get what you want and don't look back. If you look good, you feel good. I understand completely.
Or, as my father used to say, "Boy, you're not rich enough to dress that poor."