Tandem Cycling - reasonable wheels for heavy tandem crew

We are newbie tandem riders (actually have had a tandem for a few years, but trying to ride more regularly), and we had a minor crash after a tire blowout. The rim is pretty banged up, and I'm looking at getting new wheels. We are prob going to be casual riders (20-50 miles/week), so I'd rather not spend an arm and a leg, but we weigh in at around 370. Any suggestions?

Shimano tandem hubs with Velocity Dyad rims on 700 C or Velocity Aeroheat on 26".

Shimano tandem hubs with Velocity Dyad rims on 700 C or Velocity Aeroheat on 26".

+1 on that exact combination on the Trek T200 - very strong and reasonably light and inexpensive.

We ride wheels that are probably heavier than we need for about 98% of our riding, but they've been 100% reliable for about 7,500 miles so far.

Talk to an experienced builder of tandem wheels & add spoke count and anticipated speeds / road conditions into account while making your evaluation.

A quick search of one retail site finds some of the rims mentioned above could be available in ranges of spoke counts from 32 to 48 depending on diameter.

Shimano tandem hubs with Velocity Dyad rims on 700 C or Velocity Aeroheat on 26".

This is a great combination that I use. The wide Dyads do like a wider tire. I had trouble mounting some brands of 28's

I don't know how many wheels daVinci sells, but their 40-spoke wheels seem very stout to us. White hubs I think. Tadd at daVinci said we could use up to 38mm tires, but the 28's have been fine so far.

Mavic A 719 40 spoke. We're a 400 lb team running an Avid rear disc and XTR V front on a Cdale. We've never run the Velocity but have had good luck with the Mavic.

Our tandem started out with 36-spoke wheels but we had lots of problems with spokes breaking in the rear. So I put together a 48-spoke wheel (Phil Wood hub, DT db spokes, Super Champion rim) and that solved the problem. Even survived the time when I had a misadjusted derailleur and shifted the chain into the spokes where it snapped off 12 of the heads. Shifted the dish of the wheel but the tandem was still rideable to get home on the remaining 36 spokes.

48 might be overkill, but I was tired of having issues with 36 and figured the extra weight of 48 vs. 40 wouldn't make a bit of difference overall.

You don't say of it is 700 or 26" wheels but I ride an offroad tandem aggressively. Original wheels were 26" XT Tandem hubs with Rhyno-lite rims and 40 spokes. They stood up to our antics but went Disc brake so had to change the wheels.

Hope BigUn hubs with Mavic Full downhill rims and 36 spokes. They have withstood a few Blowouts on tyres and still going strong.Probably over the top on weight and strength but I don't fancy a wheel failure at any speed through hitting rocks. And if you hit things with these wheels- the wheels come off best.

And our all up weight is 400lbs so the XT hubs and these wheels will stand the weight.