Originally Posted by
West_Coast
I'm down in L.A. now :-( What do you mean by unfinished machine built. I don't really need it to look good just work with my bike and that rear cog.
Most basic and replacement wheels sold by bike shops are machine built wheels OR hand semi-finished wheels. In other words, they are not finished wheels.
The need an additional 20 minutes of work on average - tensioning, truing and dishing before they are really ready to go if the goal is to have a wheel that can go 3+ years AND/OR 40,000+ miles.
If you do buy the linked wheel, you'll want to bring it by an LBS to do exactly that - finish the wheel including a slight hub adjustment.
Otherwise, riding them AS-IS typically runs a 50/50 failure rate within a year.
=8-)