Road Cycling - newbie with wheel questions

I have a KHS Flite 300, and I've read about its stock wheels being of fairly low quality. I bought this one at about a year old, and the rims are slightly bent, and it doesn't spin nearly as long as it should, and the rear tire recently got a puncture. I'm thinking this would be a good time to replace the wheels.
I'm totally clueless about wheels and tires. Will most all wheels fit to a certain frame? Are certain wheels built for certain frame sizes? How do I know if the wheels I am buying will actually properly fit my bike?

I'm not looking for any special Über wheels that have 3 spokes and have a mass of 1G or anything. I just want halfway decent wheels... and wheels that are better than the ones I have that work properly.

Or, if wheels are fairly expensive, maybe I should just buy a tire to replace my punctured rear wheel? Again, any idea as to how I figure out what size is correct?

Sorry for being so clueless on this, but I'm having trouble finding much information.
Any re-direction to a past thread would be just great (although I spent time searching past threads)
thanks for any help

As long as you use road hubs and 700c size rims all should fit. Road and mtb wheels have a different spacing for the dropouts. A good set of nearly bombproof wheels would be Mavic Open Pro rims and Ultegra hubs. You could probably get a set of these for $250 or less. Look at Performance, Excel and Colorado Cyclist. They usually have pretty good prices.

A good set of nearly bombproof wheels would be Mavic Open Pro rims and Ultegra hubs. You could probably get a set of these for $250 or less. Look at Performance, Excel and Colorado Cyclist. They usually have pretty good prices.

Exactly! With shipping the Open Pros from CC should be less than $230. For a few bucks more, you can also have the CXP33s. I have those now, and have remained true for 10,000 miles. Both are great wheels.

As far as the original question, Brent_Dube, I would first repair the rear puncture and evaluate the rear tire. As to the front wheel, is out of true (i.e. does it wobble from side to side)? If so, that is easy to fix. Take your bike to the LBS and find out if the wheels can be made functional for for not too big a cost.

Rich

Dear clueless,

Wheels are more complicated than they need to be...but thats just how the world is now..
I would very seriously look at a set of Mavic Cosmos wheels. They usually retail for $300 but I have seen them in two web sites for $200. That is an excellent value. They are fairly light, stiff, strong wheels with great mavic hubs.
the shops are Colorado cyclist and cambria bike

Dear clueless,

Wheels are more complicated than they need to be...but thats just how the world is now..
I would very seriously look at a set of Mavic Cosmos wheels. They usually retail for $300 but I have seen them in two web sites for $200. That is an excellent value. They are fairly light, stiff, strong wheels with great mavic hubs.
the shops are Colorado cyclist and cambria bike

the cosmics are pretty cool wheels, but if you break a spoke, you need to replace it with one of their spokes. I would not recommend these to someone that is about wheels clueless. A set of open pros with 600 hubs would be serviceable at any LBS and very durable.

Well..whenever I break a spoke I take it to a shop and they fix it for $15. A good shop should be able to fix a cosmos wheel without to much trouble.