Originally Posted by
CoMotionRider
I would not recommend your wheels for a tour across the US, but for a one week tour if they are in good shape they should be fine, as long as you are not carring like 70 lbs of luggage and the roads are crappy.
I'm not trying to argue with you, but unless your doing credit card touring or ultralight minimalist touring even 32 spoke wheels on a weekend jaunt could land you in trouble far enough from home or an LBS to cause a big problem. Sure 32 spokes could hold up with just an extra 35 pounds, of course if the OP only weighs 145 pound then 35 pounds more is not a big deal, but if he's 180 pounds then 35 more could cause problems, but the iffy part is for how long could those 32 spoke wheels last? And do you want to take that risk out in the middle of nowhere? If a person touring can answer that by saying the risk is not an issue then proceed with 32 spokes, personally I would never do it and I use to take a lot of risks in my life and that's why both of my touring bikes have 40 spoke wheels.
When your touring on a bike you need to find ways to eliminate problems not create them; and problems will and do creep up all the time, but you can at least do things to make your bike more reliable and help ease worries.