180 pounds and about a backpack worth of cargo, one pothole and the wheel failed? Wheel is defective. I regularly have ~350 pounds of weight on my bike running over roads that look like they've been through a natural disaster. I don't baby my wheels. They hold up fine. Last time I replaced a wheel was when I had the Extracycle and snapped a couple spokes by putting about 550 pounds on the bike, with 20 year old stock wheels. So I replaced the rim with a heavier duty one next time.