So on my ride home, 1.5 miles into a 7 mile ride, I suddenly hear a loud pop. One of my rear spokes broke at the nipple and my wheel was WAY out of whack. I limped along at 10 mph the rest of the way home and the wheel got progressively out of true. now a part of my frame has a nice mirror finish with black rubber trim.

I had planned on replacing the wheel anyhow. It came with the bike and was permanently tweeked and was never 100% true. I don't have extra spokes, a truing stand, etc. So I'm just going to replace it.

But now I'm trying to be all fashionable. I put a black mavic open pro/ultegra front wheel on my christmas list (my front wheel is also crap) and if I end up with that, I'd like to have an actual set of wheels.

So far I've found them on Colorado Cylist for $220. Anyone know where I can beat that? Kind of on a thin budget here... The bike wouldn't even sell for 200.

Your math is off. A replacement spoke costs about $.75. You need a spoke wrench (maybe $3) and, if the spoke is broke on the drive side of your rear wheel, a cassette cracker (maybe $6).

You can probably get your wheel trued professionally for about $10. If you wanted you could try it yourself.... it's actually a lot of fun.

Wow. I broke a spoke on the rear wheel yesterday and, after bending it around an adjacent spoke to keep it out of the chain, rode another 7 miles without noticing a difference (disc brakes helped in this regard). It sounds to me like your wheel was in pretty bad shape, and maybe just replacing the spoke and truing wouldn't make things right.

do you have to have black? do you have to have one at a time? if not:

https://cgi.ebay.com/Mavic-Open-Pro-w...item20b5bcadf5

if so, that's cool too; but i couldn't find much better of a deal. good luck

The whole truing wheels thing is a lot of fun, does have a bit of a learning curve, at least for me, anyway.

Gerv: I understand where you're coming from, but as Andy k pointed out, the rim was indeed in bad shape already. It was permanently tweeked, never 100% true and was on my list of things to replace anyway.

And James1:17, you're right, the wheelsets are really the way to go. I had a front wheel on my christmas list, which is why I was looking for just the rear, but I will have my wife check to see if that was purchased yet or not.

I tried that with a rear wheel too, and ended up replacing it. No troubles since then.

I see what you are saying. The only thing I will mention is that I had a similar cheap bike with a cheap replacement wheel that also started to taco. The rim was a Sunrims CR18 and the hub was a low-end Shimano. Spokes were no-name and starting popping like mad after I had the wheel six months.

I kept the old wheel and decided to try rebuilding it. I spend $25 or so on good spokes and got some instructions from Sheldon Brown's site on building.

That was 5 years ago and I'm still riding on this rear wheel.

The rim was excellent, the hub satisfactory... the problem was the spokes and a poor build.

Wheels should in fact last a long, long time if you get a good build (or even a reasonable build and have the patience to tension and true the wheel every year.)

I agree with gerv's advice on rebuilding the wheel, even if just to have as a back-up. Even if you need to buy an inexpensive (but good) rim like the CR18, you can get the wheel back on the road for a reasonable cost and (the much bigger benefit) learn a bit about wheel building in the process. Having recently trashed two different rear wheels, I'm quite happy to have picked up some wheel building skill earlier.

If you do go this route, let me say that while double-butted spokes are stronger and lighter, straight gauge spokes are much, much easier to learn with on your first build.