Quad Cycles is a dealer of Mavic wheels, helmets, and components for the greater Boston area.

Mavic

Mavic, French manufacturer of bike systems and riders' equipment, was established in 1889. Today, with over one hundred years of experience, Mavic continues to stride forward into the future. More than 300 people help the famous yellow brand to progress - with a real passion for the sport of cycling. Everything begins in the heart of the French Alps. In this ideal environment, Mavic's staff rides as often as possible, either to develop future products or just simply for the pleasure of devouring those small mountain roads leading them to nearby mountain passes or to pound the singletracks and sensational downhills of the Semnoz. For those of us in the greater Boston area, we recommend trying them on School Street in Arlington, one of the steepest streets around. See what a difference a great set of wheels makes.

Featured Wheel: Mavic Cosmic Ultimate

In the late '90s, most professional racers deliberately rode with relatively heavy steel or aluminum wheels; carbon fiber hadn't yet found widespread acceptance as a wheel material,* and aluminum wheels weighing 1400 grams (3 pounds) or lighter weren't strong enough for pros. That was status quo until Heinz Obermayer and Rudolf Dierl, a pair of German aerospace engineers in Munich, came along and founded Lightweight Wheels in a small garage-based workshop. For almost a decade, every professional racer in Europe with hopes of winning major races had to have them, whether or not their sponsors would pay for them, and Lightweight was at the pinnacle of the cycling world for wheelsets. But Mavic has caught up, and improved on their ideas in key ways, with the Mavic Cosmic Ultimate wheelset.

First, the Cosmic Ultimates are, like the Lightweights, very strong and light. However, in the unlikely event something goes wrong with any part of the wheel, unlike the Lightweights, everything is removable and replaceable, making the wheel much more serviceable. Second, while Lightweight's wheels are usually $5,000 to $7,000 for a pair, the Cosmic Ultimates are considerably less expensive at a similar weight, costing about $3,600 for a sub-1200 gram pair. The result is a wheelset that's light enough to blast uphill for the longest, hardest climbs, aerodynamic enough to keep you at the front of a sprint, reliable enough to be on your bike every day, and half the price of the Lightweights. The Mavic Cosmic Ultimate wheels more than live up to the name.

* If you're asking yourself, "Why not titanium?", wheelmakers have never mass-produced titanium wheels, despite the material's public reputation for strength and lightness; the processes needed to create a titanium rim are prohibitively expensive, and such a rim would be considerably heavier than a carbon rim at the same strength. Ti can be formed into great frames and small parts, but not wheels.