Totally agree with you there. The wheel just seems like a low quality build. Every spoke is loose, meaning I can wiggle them and there is a lot of play. I have a friend who is willing to sell me two shimano WH-R540 wheels for only $100. Seem like very nice wheels, but with only 16 spokes, makes me wonder about the durability. If only I had the money to drop right now. It's just gonna have to sit for a few weeks. Talk about sad. Lol. I still say for $95 it was a steal. And there is a LBS that I pass literally every day on my way to work which if I didn't know any better deals almost exclusively in Giant bikes.
Originally Posted by
ItsJustMe
Giant factory wheels are crap anyway. Go to Wheelsmiths and drop $100 on a new wheel, one with a freehub instead of the stock (probably) freewheel, it'll last forever. The front rim will be OK as is. My stock rear on my Giant Cypress broke about a dozen spokes in the first 1400 miles, before I built a new one. I just bought new spokes and a new rim and laced it myself using Sheldon Brown's how-to page, and it lasted OK but about 10,000 miles later the axle broke and I wound up buying a new wheel anyway. If you're replacing the whole thing including the hub, I found that there wasn't much price difference between buying the parts and just buying a built wheel.