Originally Posted by November Dave

True enough (and if you commuted in Seattle, you could cut your rim lifespan estimate by half), but the OP is learning about and sharing what he's learning about different rim shapes, different spoke counts, different hubs, etc. If he fell in love with wheelset "W" that had hubset "X" and rim "Y" laced with spoke "Z," then he'd wind up with a hubset that is a good basis for maybe 10 or 12 or more years of great riding, with the rims and spokes to be replaced as needed. Some people eat the same ketchup soup for dinner every night of their lives, not really knowing whether they like it or not, and never learning that there are other soups they might like better. Other people switch from soup to soup, never homing in on what it really is that they love about a particular soup and getting to enjoy those aspects at every meal.

The wheelbuilder has challenged his preconceived notions in a thoughtful, systematic, and intelligent way. Also, the choice of pink, while I don't think it is specific to this OP (it seems like they do this demo thing with at least some regularity, and there is far too much money and time in this deal for it to be specific to one person), takes the whole "love at first sight/these look best on my bike" deal out of the equation. When I build test sets, unless I am investigating aesthetics (wheels I am riding right now are an aesthetics test among other things), I generally build them to be odd looking for the same reason, and also to readily identify them as non-production. The set I built prior to the set I'm mainly using now are red rims on red hubs with silver spokes and blue nipples. They're hideous, but they very well served their purpose of helping me objectively learn something applicable about how a certain build works.

Thanks to the OP, and thanks to Sugar who is providing the wheels. Also, I don't think anyone should read anything negative about Boyd in the thread and certainly not in my post. Boyd builds great wheels, period. There are things I would say now about certain aspects in order to buttress my statement regarding that, but they could taint the OP's perspective, so I won't.