Available in all three wheel sizes, the Crossmax XL is designed from the ground up to be a versatile and reliable wheel set that will stand up to constant hard riding in demanding conditions.

As standard the XL’s come with Mavic Quest tyres and inner tubes, but are ready to be set up tubeless with the supplied UST tubeless valves. All the hub extras are included for 9/15/20mm up front and 135/142mm out back and an XD driver is available for SRAM 11speed compatibility.

Tubeless ready tyres require sealant to inflate them without tubes.

Bigger is better

Unlike the bright yellow Crossmax Enduro wheel set, the Crossmax XL’s should appeal to more riders thanks to the wider rims and stiffer rear wheel. The racing inspired yellow Enduro wheels feature a 21mm front rim with 24 spokes to achieve a direct feel and good tyre support, paired with a 19mm rim out back and 20 spokes – to reduce weight and offer enough support with narrower, faster rolling tyres. Whilst this is great for riders that can make the most of tyres like the Mavic Roam or Maxxis Ardent Race – the smaller rim doesn’t offer quite enough stability with bigger volume tyres.

The Crossmax XL – as the name suggests – is a different beast. Both front and rear wheels feature 24 spokes and more durable 23mm UST tubeless rims. This is a stiffer set up, and offers increased support with larger tyres – a better option for riders requiring more versatility.

The rims are laced up with Mavic’s own Zicral Aluminium spokes – radially on the drive side out back, and 2 cross on non-drive side and up front. Mavic opted for this to combat the torque generated from pedalling and allow even tension throughout. The hubs look lovely in polished silver and feature high quality sealed bearings with a micro adjust pre-load on them to combat any waggle. Mavic’s own ITS-4 (Instant Transfer System 4) free hub system is used, with four pawls working on a two on, two off system and a 7.5deg pick-up. This feels nearly instant in use.

The hubs look great and work well. Note the bladed Zicral spokes.

All round value

We weighed our 27.5in wheels at 1718grams with no tyres – which is a decent weight you consider Enve M60 27.5in rims on Chris King hubs come in at a claimed weight of just under 1600grams. And they’re certainly friendlier on the wallet.

The Crossmax XL wheels are supplied with Crossmax Quest 2.4in tubeless ready tyres, with a 50a compound for fast rolling durability. It has been horrendously wet for most our test time recently, so we’ve spent more time on softer compound and mud tyres, but as the trees start sucking and the trails dry out we’ll be fitting the Quest tyres and will let you know how we get on.

If you have UST compatible rims, you may as well make the most of them and go tubeless.

On the trail

We made the most of the Mavic UST system from the off by installing the supplied UST valves and setting them up tubeless. As with other Mavic wheels we’ve used, we inflated and seated our tyres first time, with no leakage.

On the trail, the Crossmax XL’s give a stiff, positive feel – and compared to the Enduro’s certainly feel a fair bit stiffer out back. We’ve been running ours for a few months now and although we rimmed ours pretty badly a few times, they’ve shrugged it off so far and remain true with no major sidewall dings. The spokes are still evenly tensioned and none have worked loose.

On some older Mavic wheels the spokes could pop out on hard impacts or in crashes. We’ve had zero issues with the Crossmax XL or the Crossmax Enduro.

They’ve also maintained their fast rolling feel, haven’t developed play in the bearings and the free hub body hasn’t developed any drag – this is great considering the conditions they’ve been used in and the amount of times they’ve been jet washed . Also, we’ve been guilty of leaving our test bike to dry out – filthy – which normally gets things sticky pretty rapidly in this country.

Along with the stiffness, tyre feel is better too – especially out back. On the narrower Crossmax Enduro wheels, we struggled to find tyres with decent enough casing in 27.5 sizes, that offered enough support at lower pressures. We usually found ourselves going for higher pressures or using tyres with DH casing on the rear to combat this, but it added unnecessary weight.

Though only 5mm wider out back, and 2mm wider on the front – the Crossmax XL wheels feel nicer to ride.

We say:

An excellent complete wheel set that represents good value for money and will fit a variety of different bikes. The Crossmax XL’s will stand up to continuous riding in challenging conditions, and will no doubt appeal to more riders than the racing focussed Crossmax Enduro WTS. 

We’ve been nothing but impressed to date, but will update you on their longevity further down the line as are running these across our test bikes. Feel free to ask us how they’re holding up on Twitter, or Facebook 

One of our test mules, with the Crossmax XL WTS fitted.

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