So I'm riding to work this morning, after spending some time on Ebay seeing how expensive it would be to buy a rear wheel that would work on this bike. I was quite discouraged at this point.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the ride when, out of the corner of my eye, I see a couple of wheels in the trash on the curb. I stop and ride back to the trash pile for a closer look at the wheels, expecting to see some MTB wheels or an XMart set. Turns out that they're a set of Shimano hubs with Mavic rims. A little worn, but not bad. 9-speed, by the way.

So I think, "This won't work on my Competition, but let's take it home anyway". So I do.

This evening I try putting the rear wheel on. The spacing is greater than the rear triangle, but with some effort, it goes on. I true the wheel, and then check the shifting. Without any modifications, I can access 6 of the 9 rear sprockets. Nice.

I was wondering if there was any way to extend the 'reach' to the two smallest sprockets. Since the largest one overlaps with the RD, I guess that's out; but I'm not interested in it anyway. Maybe a simple adjustment will enable me to access the smallest sprockets.

Still, even without that being the case, the steel wheel is off and an alloy one is on.