Road Cycling - New Wheels Vs. New Bike Help!

Hang in there with me guys and gals, I have a little bit of a dilemma. I currently ride a 00' Trek 1000 with Sora components throughout. I normally bike about 50-75 miles a week, and have no real complaints with the frame or components, except that I know they are pretty heavy. The problem I do have is that my size 215 lbs.) mixed with my aggressive cycling nature and the bike's crummy factory wheels (blue Vuelta Airlines), I continuously snap spokes (three in just the last three weeks).

Money is tight, but I can't stand being out of the action as much as my recent spoke problems have caused. Now to the question part. Should I run out and drop two grand on a Trek 2300, or drop $400 on some Mavic Open Pros. I hear these wheels are pretty bomb-proof. The other wheels in the running are the Cane Creek Aeroheads.

Any light you guys could shed would be great.
A

Bueller?......Bueller? Is anyone out there?

Get the wheels if you are turely happy with the bike. If not you are putting a bandaid on the real problem, you want a better bike.
The Mavic Open Pros are a very strong wheel set. You might want to go 36 hole on the rear. I ride a set of Heliums, and was up to 210, and have never had any problems.

Sometimes it takes a few before you get a response. Relax a bit.

I got lucky recently. I went to E-Bay to find a set of Ksyrium SSC SL to upgrade my Bianchi. As I was shopping around, I came across a Specialized Allez Comp, all ultegra, WITH the Ksyriums on it. For only a few hundred more than I was planning on spending for just the wheels.
I jumped on it.

Start shopping. I don't think that the 1000 to 2300 upgrade is all that exciting.

Well I guess that depends on how happy you are with the rest of the bike, whether you want to upgrade it over time...and more importantly if you can justify the $2k for a new ride.

I've been down that road before, ended putting more $$ into the bike than just buying a new one. Although in your case you can always take the wheelset with you to another bike down the road.

What about the Mavic Cosmos? Have you looked at those as well?

Start with the wheels and keep your old ones. If after some time you find that you what you really wanted was a new bike, then pull the new wheels, put the old ones back on, sell the bike and go buy a new one without wheels.

55/Rad

Well I guess that depends on how happy you are with the rest of the bike, whether you want to upgrade it over time...and more importantly if you can justify the $2k for a new ride.

I've been down that road before, ended putting more $$ into the bike than just buying a new one. Although in your case you can always take the wheelset with you to another bike down the road.

What about the Mavic Cosmos? Have you looked at those as well?

Haven't looked at the Cosmos, where do they fall in the Mavic line? Also, what is the total expense of a new wheelset (including new cassette?, labor, etc.) Having not done it before, I don't know if there are any hidden costs or anything.
A

I just put a new/used set of wheels on my bike. The Velomax Tempests cost me $150 for the pair, the tires cost 85 for GP3000s, the tubes cost 14, the cassette/chain/lockring tool (ultegra) cost about 80, I took the skewers off another wheel, and I'm hoping I don't need labor other than my own to put it all together. So all together about $330 for a pair of decent wheels. You'll have to add the difference in the wheel price to get your final total, but it does start to add up. I'm not counting whether I'll need a new shifter/derailleur combo or my old Campy with down tube friction shifters will really work as some have suggested. Once you start changing this out, you start getting up even further, and then a new bike starts sounding better. If I didn't have a custom frame I wouldn't have considered any of this and would have started over.

I don't know how much my old, old Campy/MA40 36 hole wheels weighed, but these are much lighter, surprisingly so. It does make a difference in the ride.