Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - Good wheelset question?

Hi Everyone,
I'm glad to have found a place where plus sized riders like myself can swap notes.

A little about myself,
I'm 26 years old, married my high school sweet heart, and 2 years ago realized that I needed to do something about my weight, at that time I was 396 lbs. as of 5 minutes ago I stepped on the scale weighing 314 lbs. I'm very happy for the weight loss, and it continues to go down as only recently I've gotten involved in cycling.
I have a Trek 850 mountain track, and just recently I purchased a 2009 speciliazed hard rock disc (I love disc brakes now!)
as I do more and more riding I find myself really enjoying the challenge of a good trail, however going in the shop to get the wheels trued can get a tad embaressing when the guy behind the counter gives you the look of "again?".

I was hoping someone could give me advise for a nice strong wheelset, in a decent price range, that can handle being bounced around on the trails, but not require trueing as often as the stock wheelset I have is requiring.
I do want to mention, that I'm certainly not jumping, or doing any extreme downhill, rockhopping, etc...
I do mainly small flat trails, but eventually would like to step up the pace and difficulty of the trails.

I'm located in Chico, Ca. home of the infamous bidwell park, and one of these days I would love to ride some of the trails in the upper park (North Rim, South Rim, Middle Ridge, etc...)

Thanks for the help!

Johnny

Welcome ... JensonUSA advertises here. I used them in the past anyway, others too.
Actually they have a set or two on sale; ck the hot deals, close-outs, all of it.
Wheels come in a vast variety. I saw strong ones that were less $$ than others.
Light wt. wheels are pricier. Light weight wheels are not your aim, you'll find 'em.

HOLY ************ that's a darn good chunk of weight to lose!:eek:

Actually the dude at the shop should be embarrassed cause he's the one that fix the wheel properly!;)

Although the stock wheels aren't the best, they should last sometime under the conditions you mention if they are PROPERLY tensioned!

Ask the chump if he's adding the proper tension. OR If he's just "straightening" the wheel, which will do absolutely nothing to keep it straight.:mad:

HOLY ************ that's a darn good chunk of weight to lose!:eek:

Actually the dude at the shop should be embarrassed cause he's the one that fix the wheel properly!;)

Although the stock wheels aren't the best, they should last sometime under the conditions you mention if they are PROPERLY tensioned!

Ask the chump if he's adding the proper tension. OR If he's just "straightening" the wheel, which will do absolutely nothing to keep it straight.:mad:

I'll take that as a compliment, and thankfully the weight still continues to drop.
my goal is to be in the below 300 lbs category by the end of the year.
I'll make sure to ask the person at the bike shop to tension the wheel (I was a little bummed when after 10 days I bought the bike I had to take it in to get the wheels trued.)

I've also purchased a 2nd set of tires and tubes for more of a road riding setup. April of 2010 I will hopefully be doing a 60 mile century, i don't know about 60 miles on a mountain bike, but we'll see!

Any recommendations for a second set of wheels? the stockers would do fine for road riding, but I'd like to have a set I could swap in for the trails, obviously the trail set I would like to have heavier duty wheels since the bike takes a bit of bashing with a 315 lb rider bouncing around on it.
I've looked at JensonUSA.com and saw a set of shimano wheels that were disc compatible, for about 160.00.
http://www.jensonusa.com/store/product/WH707A22-Shimano+Xt+Discsingletrack+Wheelset.aspx

Any comments on that particular wheelset?
I'm not too concerned about the weight of wheels yet since I need something a bit sturdy for my size.

Thanks!
Johnny

Most of the wheels sold by jenson would be machine built, so you best have the tension checked.. The RhynoLite rim has had a good rep for many years, not lightweight but definitely sturdy

http://www.jensonusa.com/store/product/WH281A00-Shimano+Xt+Discrhyno+Lite+Wheelset.aspx

Welcome to the herd Johnny!

You are off to an outstanding start! Your 850 will do anything you want it to do, on the trail or on the road. You do need to try and find a different wheel guy though. It sounds like the guy is just getting the wheel true again without fixing the reason it is going out of true. The reason isn't your weight, but that the spokes haven't been tensioned and relieved properly.

As mentioned, any machine built wheel you might buy will need to be "de-stressed" and the spokes will need to be tensioned. When a wheel is built the spokes will end up with a twist in them as the spoke is tightened with the spoke nipple. Removing this twist is crucial, as is making sure that the spokes are all equally, tightened, or "tensioned" after the twist is removed. You wheel guy is just addressing which ever spokes loosed to allow the wheel to go out of true rather than de-stressing and retensioneing the wheel.

Both of the wheel sets that you and Socal referenced are 32 spoke wheels. How many spokes do the wheels you have now have? If you are going to replace your wheels, you can hedge your bet if you
get double walled rims with 36 spokes. The lacing pattern is important as well, and 3X is probably your best bet for the rear.

It's quite possible you could even get away with having your existing wheels re-laced with some nice heavy gauged spokes, but I suspect finding a good wheel builder to work on your existing wheels will take you pretty far.

Keep up the good work and don't be a stranger!