Originally Posted by
toolboy
All depends on the quality of the components you have. Replacing spokes is pretty easy but not if you've never done it. The $40 wheels are pretty crude but if that is what your local shop is recommending, perhaps they've made a judgement as to what you have now. Once several spokes have broken on a cheap wheel set it usually is time for some serious replacing. ON THE OTHER HAND building a wheel and having it work is pure joy! Be prepared for some frustration along the way. There are tons of videos showing how to get started. You could buy the cheap wheel and then have the time to play around with the old one.
The bike is a 2002 Norco Bigfoot, certainly not much these days but it works well, even now so I'd like to keep it working well and a nice wheel would be, well, nice.
The LBS hasn't seen the bike yet, I just identified the bike over the phone and the fact that 4 spokes are broken. I could just replace those 4 but I thought this might be an opportunity to improve the wheel and possibly prevent or at least, reduce the change of near future spoke breakage.