Looks like another week (or two) off of the bike for me (I can feel my legs turning to jello already). In my seemingly endless saga of flats, mechanical problems, and plain old bad luck, my rr. wheel broke on Monday's ride in. After having just crossed the 14th Street bridge, my rr. tire blew out. I was frustrated but, resigned, I've set a record for flats since April and this wasn't unexpected. So, after changing the tube in relative darkness, I noticed that a 6" part of the rim's braking surface had peeled away from the rest of the rim. Since there was no sense in trying to top off the tube or attempting to ride-the tube would push through and pop again-I started pushing the bike the rest of the way in. Well, it was about a 20 minute walk in to work where I inspected the rim-no chance of fixing it and limping home in the afternoon. So, my bike has been sitting in my office as I figure out what to do, I don't have a back up. After mulling it over for a while I've decided on two things: 1) I'm going to try to get the wheel warrantied as it's less than a year old and, obviously, defective and, 2) will no longer use the Shimano XT/Mavic Open Pro combination that has proven so unreliable and frustrating these last few years. My last 2 rr. hubs have needed constant service and continue to grind and develop play-even after an axle replacement and total re-build of one. In addition, my last set of Open Pro's creeked relentlessly and this one had a catostrophic failure after roughly 8 months of relatively light use. So, I plunked down a deposit on a custom set of wheels that should be ready by next Friday. They are pricey at $772 but, should be much more reliable with better service/support should anything go wrong (I'm told to anticipate that Mavic will continue to be SOB's and deny a replacement of my current rim, we'll see). In conjunction with a local wheel builder, we spec'd out a set of White Industry M15's and Velocity Chukkers with Sapim nipples and DT Swiss spokes in a 36 hole config. I was advised that the White's are comparable to Chris Kings and that the Velocitys are much more rugged than the Open Pro's. In addition, they're more servicable and the Titanium free hub won't develop the grooves and looseness of a steel-bodied one. My wife wasn't happy with the cost, especially since I just bought the last pair so recently, but realizes that the bike has been my main transportation (nearly exclusively) for almost 10 years and, in the long run, I'm still saving a fortune over driving/parking/Metro expenses. Hopefully I'll be back on the bike soon to continue my daily ride and participate in the lunch time rides that a few of us just started at work, we'll see if there's a significant increase in reliability.