I took a chance on a set of Mercury S5 CC rim break wheels from Competitive cyclist/Backcountry. They are good looking wheels but I had the rear hub/freewheel fail completely in the first 20 miles. It sheared internally and spun freely in both directions.
I can’t find many reviews out there of these wheels that seem genuine so I just wanted to put this down for posterity. Customer service was apologetic and sent out a replacement set immediately. Aside from the failure, they were fast and smooth with very good braking action. I hope this was a one-off failure.
I have 2 sets of Mercury S3’s that were given to me last year. One set on White Industries hubs, the other set on ?Edge front hub, DT240 rear hub. One set is great with no issues, the other set the rear rim must have overheated and warped (hence, gift).
I had never heard of them but I am pleased with them. These were my first carbon rims.
Hopefully it was just a one-off. I’ll find out when the replacement set arrives.
Does anyone other than mavic make cassette carriers out of Titanium? Looking around it seems like almost all of them are aluminum and get significantly notched.
Updating this. The replacement set they sent is already failing. Pops, creaks and slipping from the rear hub. Out of true after a week. Negative reviews have disappeared from competitive cyclist and don’t even post to the Mercury Website. 3 other people this month have had catastrophic failures. The whole situation is very shady. These will go back and I’ll replace them with something else.
I will add that other than the reviews getting flagged or disappearing, Competitive Cyclist has been very good about the failures. They shipped me a replacement set immediately after the first one failed and refunded me fully after the 2nd failure.
A few years ago I was looking at those among others. I had a narrow rear chain stay that limited my choices. I ended up going for the Giant SLR-0 55mm wheels. Those were a great choice