Mavic warns of life-threatening counterfeit wheels
Mavic has discovered a source of counterfeit Mavic wheels produced in Asia, following a road cyclist's crash on a descent in France, that the company believes to be potentially life-threatening.
According to Mavic’s press release, the rider reported the failure of his wheelset to a French bike shop, leading Mavic to investigate the source of the counterfeit carbon wheels.
Purchasing a set of the wheels, Mavic was able to identify alarming safety failures within the wheelset. Mavic has since begun further investigation and legal action against the producers of the wheelsets.
During the ISO 4210 norm testing process, which Mavic describes as "applying 10 braking action to prepare the surface before going further, at a 35km/h speed with a rider+bike of 130kgs", the counterfeit rim was destroyed.
Applying a lateral endurance test, where the rims are run over a several hundred kilometre distance, Mavic reports that the spokes were damaged after 100km of simulation and the hub flanges were broken after 270km.
Pictured below are the consequences of the testing process.
Mavic has labelled the counterfeit wheels as "dangerous" and likely to lead to "serious injury or death."
The French-based company advises that the wheels can be identified by "poor design & finish quality" and "bizarre specs vs Mavic's genuine technologies."
For those worried about whether their wheels may be the counterfeit models, Mavic advises entering the wheel serial numbers to www.tech-mavic.com or www.mavic.com/care. If the warranty registration system declines the serial number, it’s possible the wheels may be counterfeit.
