Thanks for the input! To clarify, the bike is steel. Alameda has pretty nicely paved roads and is pancake-flat. We would be looking at 500 miles a year, tops. I have no plans to upgrade the shifting gear at this time. I'm not concerned about budget, I just don't want to have to replace a wheel every six months. If we get more into it, we would probably upgrade to a newer bike, but it sounds like a strong well-built wheel will do just fine for our current purposes. Again, thanks for the help!