Originally Posted by elcruxio

it was me. And I stand by it. The wheels are too lightweight for what the bike is marketed for. If the rim was a seriously heavy duty radially extremely stiff specialty rim and the spokes were triple butted it might be worth considering, but since the spokes are apparently not even butted but straight gauge and the rim is a lower mid range MTB rim (bontrager no less) there's no snow balls chance in you know where for those wheels to survive 4 pannier off road touring (that is what the bike is marketed for).

Honestly 36 spokes with rear panniers on fire roads and rough surfaces with 700c rim size is kinda pushing the envelope, especially if the rim is not a very stiff one. That's why on offroad touring frame bags and very light loads on the rear rack are a much more sensible choice. even with 32 spokes the slackening of the lowest spokes is a bit worrying, 36 spokes starts to have small enough gaps between the spokes to take great rear loads on gravel and if one wants to go offroad 26" rim is a must as the gaps between the spokes of the 36 spoke wheel are tiny.