Commuter Wheels
 

I'm looking to get some inexpensive commuter wheels for my bike, a Felt SRD72 (I use it for commuting, and including my bag I'm putting about a 200-lbs load on it, on some pretty patchy streets). I asked about it at a Felt dealer in my neighborhood, and they recommended the SUN CR-18, which seem alright, but there are a couple potential hangups:

• first, I currently have 700x23c tires, which are below the recommended width for an 18mm rim
• second, I have a 10-speed cassette, and the CR-18 is apaprently designed for an 8-9 speed

So, I want to know if the narrower tires would put me at risk for pinch flats, and whether these wheels are even compatible with my cassette. And if anybody can recommend a better wheelset these purposes in the range of $150-200, that would be awesome.

Sun CR-18 refers to the rim not the wheelset. If laced to hubs that have a 8-9 speed freehub they'll work with 10 speed as well. Even a 7-speed cassette will work provided you include a spacer. These rims are fairly strong and are a good choice for commuting or touring if wheel cost is an issue. I've built several sets of wheels with these rims that I use for local riding and commuting. I believe that it's hard to find a better rim in that price range. Whether the wheels offered by the LBS are decent depends on the quality of build and that may require the shop to go over the wheels before handing them over to you (I assume these are machine built wheels). I do think you are correct in being concerned about putting narrow tires on those rims. I run 32mm tires myself. The suggestion from your local shop may be a good one provided you can get away with somewhat wider tires and the shop is willing to make sure spoke tension is adequate.

200 pound load isn't all that much to require special wheels.

I'm enjoying my Vuelta Corsa Pro wheels but I got them at a steep discount. You can get the Corsa Lite at a pound lighter if that's what you want, at around $300 when on sale.

I've got a bike set up for carrying loads like commuting, running errands, or light touring and it's wearing Vuelta Corsa HD wheels. They're sturdy -- rated for loads up to 300 pounds. They're about 14-15 mm wide, so they're narrow enough to take 23 mm tires if that's what you want to run. Or you can go wider for load capacity or to more comfortably handle bad pavement. (I'm running 28 mm Panaracer T-Serv tires.) Nashbar regularly sells the wheelset for about $150, but you can occasionally find them for less. I think I paid about $110, if I remember correctly.

As noted above the SUN CR-18 is a rim, not a wheel. Now may be a good time to build your own wheels. I have built a couple of wheel sets with SUN CR-18 rims, they turned out well, but I much prefer the Velocity Dyad - same width, and 2½ the price for the rim.

These (or similar) would be a good choice http://www.amazon.com/Wheel-Master-V...G52R440S66802V

The A23 has inside width around 16mm - which will work fine with 23-622 tires.

I have CR18s on my daily commuter and can attest to their high quality for the price. I am running 35 mm tires, though. I recently built up a set of wheels using Sun M13 II rims, which do allow 23mm tires. I don't have a lot of miles on them, but they were easy to true up and seem to be rugged. The have the vintage polished alloy look.

One thing to do is check your tire clearance if you want to use wider tires. Some road frames won't allow larger than 23mm.
It appears (2006 bikepedia.com) that your bike originally came with 25mm tires, so a bit wider shouldn't be a problem.

One thing to also look at the geometry of your brakes. Some won't hit the rim correctly if you vary too much in rim width. Some brakes have more adjustability for that scenario than others.

The extrusion die for the CR18 is used to make all sorts of rim sizes , the aluminum stock, coming out of the Extrusion machine, starts out straight.