Touring - Did you change your wheels?

Just wondering if anyone that has done a bit of touring actually changed their wheels to something a little more road specific? I want to have a road specific set of wheels for my Avanti Aggressor with road slicks, but I'm not really sure what to get. Any advice?

By the way, my bike is actually a mountain bike, not a tourer or road bike.

Here is a pic, sorry about the poor quality, its because I'm only using my webcam to take these pics.

Pic:

I think the bike definitely matches the couch, but you should get the seat re-upholstered and redo the H/B tape; it's a little gauche.

Get high pressure road slicks. There are several brands: Ritchey, Kenda, Continental, Vredesetin... almost any of the major brands.

You need the high pressure to reduce rolling resistence and they will still carry the load.

I really like my new Mavic X517s. I do quite a bit of commuting and I run slicks as well.

I am not familiar with your rims and I will not recommend any, I just want say that my rear rim blew apart near the end of my tour in England. I used a Bontrager a-symmetrical Mustang rear rim (MTB) and I figure all the braking in the French mountains thinned out the sidewalls. If you going to make a change, maybe just do the rear rim as that is the one that will take most of the abuse.

I'd like to have a spare set of wheels so I can change both tyres without having to pull them on and off. I currently have Mavic 221s, very basic wheel, but good at the same time.

I just dent a 40 spoke wheel on my tourer while commuting. Apparently, those don't exist no more and my LBS proposed a Mavic something... with a V-shaped something... As you can see, It trust my LBS blindly. :) The wheel is 36 spoke but the spokes are supposed to be stronger than my previous wheel (which i still have on front)

For tires, I have a Specialized Nimbus in front and Michelin Altika in he rear (more agressive thread). Will put a Nimbus in the back when I have to change the tire.

I have an Aray Japanese made aluminum rims that are from the early 80s.
Had a set of Michelin World Tour tires which lasted about 300 miles without any problems, untill someone cut them.

Now I have some slick IRC Indonesian made 27 inch tires. Just got them, will see how they do.
P.S. The Michelins were made in France. :)

I don't know what your plans are, but if your a mountain biker, chances are your going to want to taist the eye candy you pass along the way. I'd go with a set of Mavic 517's or 521's laced with DT Swiss straight guaged spokes and a fast rolling knobie tire.

Yeah I want to doa bit of mountain biking on the semi-slicks, nothing too adventurous though. I'm looking at a pair of Shimano WH-M535s

My road wheelset for my Stumpie is a pair of
narrow Vredestein S-licks (1.3 inches, 90 psi)
mounted to lightweight, aero-profile Velocity
Aeroheat rims. Zoooom!

The tires are expensive but they do not flat
easily and grip pretty aggressively. I usually
pump them to 100 psi and have had no problems.
I like the black Aeroheat rims (cool, sinister look.)

Got a link for those rims?

http://www.velocityusa.com/

In addition to black, they have a wide range of color choices
if you want to coordinate with frame color, etc.
Check out the Deep V.

Cheers thanks heaps.