Originally Posted by
e0richt
they eventually said that they could get a stronger rear wheel for it that would originally have been used on a tandem I believe but at that point, I was enjoying riding on the road bike that I had received and couldn't imagine that even fixing the wheel would give me a peppier ride so I figured I would come back to it when I got a bit lighter... maybe even avoid having to replace the wheel... now, I am 80 lbs lighter (still have lbs to go...) but I guess I have a bad taste in my mouth when I ponder riding it...
Sounds like you are a large fellow like me. On my Trek hybrid, the rear wheel could not really handle my girth so well. Broke a spoke and fixed it, broke another spoke and bought a new 36-spoke Handspun wheel. The new wheel has been rock-solid. A matched set of Handspun wheels for your Trek will cost about as much as the Walmart bike above, but if you really are that tough on bikes the wheels on any of the above bikes are probably gambles as well. And having some heavy duty wheels may slow you down too I suppose, but that's the tradeoff when you're a big dude.
On the other hand, if you like your Dawes there's no reason you can't just commute on that, right?