Just bought a Scott S60 Speedster. Biking around 15-22 miles at a time, 3x per week.
My homework tells me that the next thing to upgrade is shoes/pedals. I am picking up some Mavic Avenirs on sale and found some Sidi Zephyrs on eBay.
Now, looking through my local Craigslist, I found some Mavic Aksiums and Mavic Ksyriums for reasonable prices. Would I see a benefit from either one of these over the Alex wheels that came with the bike? Underkill, overkill?
If I remember correctly, both Aksium and Ksyrium has low-ish spoke counts, Mavic proprietary spokes, special hub/spoke interface and not too durable freehub bodies. If the price is right I might be tempted in order to have two different wheelsets available with different tires. In terms of strict performance you're unlikely to ride fast enough for the bladed spokes to matter, and traditional wheels(if built OK) will do just fine. The use of Mavic-specifi parts makes maintenance far more challenging than on traditionally built wheels.