]http://[url]www.velonews.com/article/93054/a-shattering-experience---a-post-recall-r-sys-wheel-failure[/url]

Not taking sides, but Mavic suggest we withhold judgment until they figure out what's going on. See their follow-up article at http://velonews.com/article/93240/mavic-responds-to-wheel-collapse-article. Weird that the tire was off the rim...but Mavic's suggestion the frame could have broken also seems odd.

Very interesting and well written accident description; Mavic's response is predictably very defensive.

Regardless of what failed first - a spoke, the bike frame, a punture, or a tire separation - it does not matter. A wheel should never fail catastrophically like this. One spoke might break, but the whole wheel should remain intact. Without a catastrophic failure, there may have been the opportunity for a controlled stop. Carbon spokes seem an unsafe concept.

I remember bicycling in the Pyrenees with Kimberly and we met a German couple at the top of a pass. They were on a tandem that was breaking spokes. It was a 32 spoke wheel, and 9 spokes had broken. I was surprised that they had no reservations about continuing down the other side with such a compromised wheel, but a 32 spoke wheel is so overengineered that they had no problem.

I am reminded that cyclist can choose two of the following: light weight, strength, low cost.