Submitted by
oleafo
a Cross Country Rider
from NY, NY
Date Reviewed: April 16, 2010
Strengths: Carbon coolness factor, almost bomb proof
Weaknesses: Can't get these any more, cross winds are harsh, having to buy tubes with extra long valves, the stickers keep coming off
Bottom Line:
Have had 1 front and 2 rears. 1st rear died within 3 months, my fault. Jumped a bridge and almost didn't make it, rear wheel hit a support beam with a sharp right angle, put a small dent in the rim. Sent it back to Spinergy, paid $50 for shipping and got a new one. 2nd rear died 2 years later when truing the wheel after I was hit by car at 25mph (I was going 25, they were going 5ish), one of the nipples was seized and snapped off the threaded part. Paid another $50 and this time they sent me the new Spox wheel. Still using the front wheel after 13+ years, never had to true it.
Similar Products Used: spin, reg 8 spoke spinergy, spox
Bike Setup: Original bike- Trek Y22
Current bike- Specialized Epic FSR
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
ta-daa
a Cross Country Rider
from Ft. Collins, Co
Date Reviewed: March 4, 2010
Strengths: killer looks
Weaknesses: support-heavy
Bottom Line:
15 years & still excellent. I don't know how others have managed to break their wheelsets but I have certainly attempted to thrash mine without success yet. I worked @ Trek as warranty coordinator when it was cool to admit this & I saw plenty of spoked wheels that didn't function in their potato-chip shape. So that said ,apparently some of these wheels were manufactured correctly- others not so much. Too bad all of these wheels were not built as intended as they can work quite well & look killer.
Bike Setup: S-works Ground control, Full XTR ...All mountain riding.
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Wes Drake
a Cross Country Rider
from Sherman Oaks, CA
Date Reviewed: April 21, 2005
Strengths: Looks: To this day nothing looks better than these. Strong, sturdy, aways perfectly centered.
Weaknesses: Pricey, Is effected by heavy wind gusts.
Bottom Line:
These wheels helped me defeat hundreds of racers in CA, I was the only one who raced with them at the time, and to this day, 6 years later I ride with the same pair and they are strong and strait, exactly the way I bought them new in 1997. Over 6 years of racing I never had to touch them. How many wheels have you all went through in that time, I can't believe the negitive remarks on these wheels. Spinergy Rocks!!!!
Bike Setup: Trek 8000, Carbon Judy Rockshock FSX, Continental Tires
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Alex Colin
a Cross Country Rider
from San Gabriel, CA
Date Reviewed: February 17, 2004
Strengths: They look cool
Weaknesses: Poor quality control and bad engineering
Bottom Line:
Stay Away. I'll never buy another Spinergy product. The rear wheel delam'ed around the hub the first time I took it off road. Spinergy gave me the run around for weeks until I finally got sick of it and bought a new wheel set. They're BS wheels from a BS company.
Submitted by
Mauka Rider
a Weekend Warrior
from R.S.M. Ca.
Date Reviewed: August 31, 2001
Strengths: they were round
Weaknesses: everything about the wheelset and the company
Bottom Line:
These things are the worse and the broke after 4 rides and returned to the LBS that sold it to my wife as a Birthday Gift. The LBS closed and have never seen the wheels again. The company cant even stand behind their product and give me some kind of an excuse, instead blame the LBS.
Similar Products Used: Mavic Crossmax, crosslink. Custom handbuilt wheeels with Mavic 317 disc
Bike Setup: Intense Uzzi SL with Manitou Black Elite 100/120
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Peter Erdmann
a Cross Country Rider
from USA
Date Reviewed: August 12, 2000
Strengths: Ha! ...Well now, that's not fair, I suppose. The rim appears to be good at handling big nasty impacts.
Weaknesses: Made by an awful company. Made poorly. Made cheaply. Made from low-grade materials.
Bottom Line:
This company should be shut down, and all it's engineers and managers sentenced to the catherine wheel.
Not joking or exaggerating now... AT LEAST 300 flats a year. What does this have to do with the wheels? Well, when your manufacturing tolerances are either crap, or your quality control is, cutting your rim stock slightly too short means that no matter what set of tires you put on them will fit loose. Subsequently, every time you accelerate, the rim starts to rotate, and slips a little in the tire, grabbing the valve stem and yanking it backward. With the friction of the tube compressed in the tire, and the tire on the ground, something's got to give, and so your 700 dollar wheels rips valve stems out of tubes as fast as you can replace them. Over the course of a year all the walking in cleated shoes, being late for work daily, and spending a fortune on tubes and 2 of every tire on the market makes one grumpy.
After six months of my good friend and shop owner calling once a week, they hadn't picked up the phone once, and haven't returned any messages.
Then I moved. Every six months, I moved. and every time I moved, a shop would try for six months to get a hold of spynergy, and would be dazzled by the companies resistance to the telephone.
In Fort Collins, this nice Santa Cruz racer named Jen gave me a set of her IRC downhill tires. Big big heavy tires, they don't slip! They're made to bee really really tight. Unfortunately, the soft custom downhill tread has worn to a slick, and I'm once again forced to deal with these awful abominations.
I don't even care about the fact that after a month, the hub bearings felt like they contained small odd-shaped clumps of stone rather than spherical metal. I don't care that there's no practical way to true them! I don't care that the hubs continually losen to the point of falling apart on thier axles! I just hate walking in cleats.
I think the spins, though a tad heavy, are a better product when it comes to a composite wheel. Less parts, and better made ones at that. And they even answer their phone!
Similar Products Used: Spins, Crossmax's, Handbuilt lace-ups.
Bike Setup: Y Prototype. Xtr, marinovative, Kooka, Topline, Judy SL, etc. 20.5 lbs complete.
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Craig
a Cross Country Rider
from Clawson, MI, USA
Date Reviewed: April 6, 2000
Strengths: Stayed true and solid. Tensioning was easy and they let you know when it neede to be done. Took massive abuse. I'm 195lb and ride EXTREMELY hard.
Weaknesses: The little adjustment nipples seized and snapped. I ride in the winter in Michigan -- salt, ice, corrosion -- you get the picture. It was late Fall, 1999 and I contacted Spinergy direct and they offered to upgrade me to SPOX for 140.00 for Front AND Rear. I took them to my local dealer (who I didnt even buy them from) and they handled the whole return thing. Sweet Deal!! The SPOX are even better than the XE's. Havent even TOUCHED them in 900 miles since new. (But I always squirt a little lube on em just in case)
Favorite Trail: Fiber-optic drop on Mt Haleakala, Maui
Duration Product Used: 1 Year
Bike Setup: K2 5500 with every top tech, nerdy, overly expensive, stupid upgrade you could possibly do to a bike.
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Richard Fellman
a Weekend Warrior
from Encinitas, Calif. US
Date Reviewed: February 29, 2000
Strengths: Looks, smooth sounded strong when sold, strait as a ruler.Easy to maint.
Weaknesses: Snaped one spoke ,cracked another, walked home.Survived many landings over6ft +. Catches wind at times. Crash-replacement policy was a shady deal, I know every one needs to make their percentage,shame when they tell you stories on whats available. Best advice talk to spinergy yourself and compare the two different deals. All and all a little call or two got a better answer, I guess. R7
Bike Setup: Cannon D V1000 ,Wbros 110, Maguras tomac,Kore elite,Sdg kev, Racefce 170, 4spoke Spinergy and spox Rear 9.0 sl all Kooka rngs,Fox
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Rob
a Cross Country Rider
from Canada
Date Reviewed: February 8, 2000
Strengths: other than good looks, NONE
Weaknesses: difficult to adjust impossible to repair yourself
Bottom Line:
I used to own a couple of Spinergy Roks-XE wheels. Their makers touted them as BOMB PROOF wheels. In reality these wheels were unending trouble! More succinctly put, the wheels AND their manufacturer, Spinergy, were a constant source of irritation and frustration. It turns out that Spinergy does not give a flying fart about any problems the end users of their products suffer from.
My experience with Spinergy Roks-XE wheels (the notoriously ill designed, adjustable carbon fibre 6-spoked wheels) actually includes one front and TWO rear wheels. I am not hard on my equipment, and I have owned whole bicycles that cost less than a set of Roks-XE wheels, none of which have ever proven to be so fragile and vulnerable as these wheels. Within one month of taking possession of my new Spinergy Roks-XE wheels it became necessary to tighten the spokes on both wheels. Also within that time the rear hub started squealing so loud I was almost embarrassed to ride around the neighbourhood. I greased up the hub, and tightened the spokes numerous times for the next four months, never wanting to truly believe that these wheels were crap. Always secretly hoping the problems would magically go away. Why? Was it only because these wheels looked so flash? These were just "minor" irritations, weren't they, the wheels truly were indestructible! That's what Spinergy said so themselves! Yet, venting my little complaints to Spinergy, by fax, phone and e-mail, fell on virtually deaf ears.
I took my bicycle and Spinergy wheels on a trip Down Under. First thing that happened was my rear wheel being stolen off my bike! Anyone would think "Alright! Get some real wheels now!" However, insurance only covered an exact replacement, so that is what I got. A brand new shiny Spinergy Roks-XE rear wheel! This would prove once and for all that my experiences with the first wheel were just an unexpected and random occurrence. NOT!!! Within ONE month the hub of my new rear wheel had to be overhauled and the bearings replaced. Only a week later the final insult: one of the rear spokes cleanly SNAPPED after I accidentally dropped my bike while carefully stepping over some rocks that I did not want to ride over. Try to find a dealer in Australia that carries Spinergy products or any spare parts! Even in the capital city of Canberra it proved to be a fruitless exercise. Not until we reached Melbourne we found a store that was able to repair the damage, WEEKS LATER than they told me they could, and only because EVEN THEY had a tough time getting a response from Spinergy or their Australian representative. But finally I managed to get my wheels on the road again. The supposed great advantage of these Spinergy Roks-XE wheels was that everything was replaceable! You could get a new rim or new spokes, anything you wanted! Nobody ever mentioned that one new spoke really meant SIX NEW SPOKES because Spinergy DOESN'T SELL SINGLE SPOKES, ONLY WHOLE CLUSTERS OF 6! And that for the price of a whole wheel, rim and spokes, by any other manufacturer! Nor was the wheel true any longer, no matter what you tried. The repair lasted for nearly 300 kilometers. Then another spoke broke, or rather one of the tiny little attachments that connects the carbon spoke to the rim. This time from the other side of the Australian continent, I phoned the dealer in Melbourne who repaired my wheel earlier. They felt somewhat responsible and for more than four weeks tried to connect with Spinergy or their representative to arrange for a replacement. No such luck. What I had been unable to do several months earlier, to get a response from a company proudly marketing "unbreakable" mountain bike wheels, proved to be impossible too for one of the biggest bicycle stores in Melbourne, Australia. They could not get anybody from Spinergy to even acknowledge the problem. Again, it turned out that SPINERGY DOES NOT GIVE A FLYING FART!!! Spinergy stopped manufacturing their Roks-XE wheels somewhere near the end of 1999.
Would it be possible to have someone steal BOTH wheels this time? I have finally learned....
Strengths: Theese whels are kicking, they are super stiff servicble ans strong as hell, all you other people must be big fat ass riders weighing 600lbs to break theese damn wheels. I fucking downhilled on theese suckers alot and I only had to true them once.
Weaknesses: none that I can see except jealous retards posting this lame crap on how much they suck.
Submitted by
Shawn D
a Weekend Warrior
from Scottsdale, AZ
Date Reviewed: October 2, 1999
Strengths: APPEAR durable, serviceable, stiff
Weaknesses: They suck. But, to Spinergy's credit, they replaced them with a free pair of SPOX when my rear wheel grenaded (2 spoke nipples). I promptly traded the new SPOX to my LBS for a set of Sun/Ringle R.P.M.'s and some other schwag.
Bottom Line:
The only reason that you should buy a set of these is ,assuming you get them for less than five dollars they WILL break and then you get SPOX for free. But even given that scenario, you still have Spinergy's and then get to deal with their absolutely horrible customer service. The front wheel of this wheelset was defective, so I had to send it back to Spinergy. I waited SIX MONTHS for a replacement. My advice--stick with a good light spoked wheelset.
Bike Setup: DBR V-Link 3.0 K2 3000(wheelset died on first ride w/new bike)
Overall Rating:
Submitted by
Byron
a Cross-Country Rider
from Edmonton, Canada
Date Reviewed: September 24, 1999
Strengths: none
Weaknesses: weak rim weak spoke nipples weak blades impossible to true
Bottom Line:
I cant believe that a company such as Spinergy could market such crap. I broke three sets. The only good thing about the whole deal is that Spinergy sent a set of Spox to replace them. Dont recommend anyone to buy these.
THE HUBS DOESNT GET SMOOTHER, WHY DID SPINERGY MADE THIS CRAP. I ALREADY SAW ONE GOT A NIPPLE BREAK. IF YOU BUY IT, YOU HAVE TO ALIGN IT. I RATE THIS 4 STARS. MINUS 1 FOR THE NIPPLE BREAK/HAS TO BE ALIGNED. MINUS 2 FOR THE ROUGH HUB ROTATION.
Weaknesses: Looks very durable and agressive. Blades popping!... Nipples siezing!... Bearings desintegrating!... and a partridge in a pear treeeeeeee!.
Bottom Line:
At the webmasters request,Decorum prohibits me from REALLY laying it out.So I'll leave you with this;If you find a pair at a garage sale,scrape the loose change in your car together,and buy them.
