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Old 07-23-07, 10:32 PM
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blamp28
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Western, Michigan
Posts: 1,461

Bikes: Trek Fuel 90, Giant OCR, Rans Screamer Tandem

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Well built wheels will take a lot of miles even with a heavy rider. I weigh 235 and have a set of alloy wheels I bought last year, Mavic Open Pro rims laced with Wheelsmith spokes to Ultegra hubs. I bought them on line for $229 for the set - quite reasonable. I then re-tensioned them to bring the tension into close balance. Machine built wheels are rarely tensioned well. It's hit or miss at best. These wheels have lasted this heavy rider for 3500 miles to date with not even the slightest truing needed. I checked them the other day and the tension is where I set it last spring.

That said, for a commuter, I would buy a slightly beefier rim and straight gage 2mm spokes. The most critical issue is good balanced tension where all spokes are withing 10% of each other. 20% in considered "balanced" but I like to dial them in as close as I can get them. Do this and a 130 lb rider should have little trouble.
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