so i went into my lbs today and was asking about fixed rear wheels and he highly recomended i bought an expensive 100$ rangish fixed rear wheel over any cheaper 50-60$ one off the internet; the reason being that cheap ones always break fast

do you guys completely agree with the lbs owner? do you think wheelsets off sites like craigslist/ebay/etc are THAT weak or the lbs owner is just overexagerating

basically, will a 100$ fixed rear wheel be THAT much more reliable than a 65$ wheel off the internet?

balanced spoke tension is about all that matters and you can only get that on handbuilt wheels.

wheels off the internet are usually machine built, unless they're done by small shop owners, which usually make the wheel cost more than $100. Unless we're talking about really cheap parts all around.

Hand built wheels are the most superior wheels there are but I guess you could get one off of the internet and take it to the shop to let the people get it nicely tensioned.

I bought a $40 rear wheel from a bike shop. It was machine built but the mechanic tensioned it up and installed the cog and lockring. I'm 210 lbs and the wheel has held up great so far. I will get nice handbuilt wheels someday, but for now this works fine. Get the cheap ones tensioned and you should be good to go.

What you are paying for is quality control. Things like tolerance levels and whatnot. For example, if a Mavic rim is supposed to be X millimeters in diameter with a tolerance of +/- 2mm, anything that is 3mm or greater in either direction is rejected. They will strive to make their production process such that they stay within that range so as not to waste money by having to throw away the imperfect ones.

A budget plant also strives to make a rim in X millimeters...and most ARE X millimeters, but their tolerance of what they will accept might be +/- 5mm..or more.

(This is just an example, but hopefully you get my point)

If you've ever bought tennis balls there are the balls that cost $5/can then there are the "Practice" balls that cost $2/can. These are the balls that were not in the acceptable range. But, manufacturers figured out that, even though the balls weren't good enough to be accepted for tournament use, they are fine for practice where the use of old, worn, funny bouncing tennis balls is fine.

...in short, it's a gamble. Most are totally fine, but there will be some that are not.

You accept this risk when you pay the discounted price.

I think the shop owner is either taking advantage of your complete lack of knowledge, or he's seen some cheap wheelsets come through the shop for repairs.

A 100 dollar wheel is expensive?

I've made some decent front wheels for $100 cost.

well he was tlaking about how hes had a bunch of customers who bought online wheels come in for replacements and then they have to decide if they want a better wheel or to take another chance with the discounted one

ill do some more research on this. thanks everyone for your answers! how woudl you know if the wheel is handbuilt?

What was their issue with the wheels they bought online? An actual failure of some sort, or did they just need a proper stress-relieve, tension, and truing?

trying to remember. he kept saying something about how on cheaper wheels the cog/lock ring wears off and starts "threading" or somethign liek that. if that didnt make sense, then im not quoting him correctly

you can distinguish between poorly built and well built wheels.
mainly by checking spoke tension and stress relieving.
pinging from the wheels = wasn't stress relieved.
checking spoke tension requires either absolute pitch or a tension meter.

k 2 questions.
first, what does "pinging mean"

I understand if you buy wheels online you wont be able to check to see if its stress relieved and properly tensioned.
is it possible to stress relieve a wheel yourself?

if not, do you think it would be smart to buy a discounted wheel and take it to a lbs to get it tuned up? or is a bad wheel always a bad wheel

You could buy a $50 wheel or a $500 wheel, and you'll still need to make sure the cog and lockring are tight.

As to your other question, it would seem that you're asking if it's smart to pay someone $30ish to bring your $65 wheel up to the quality of a $100 wheel?

Well most likely what he is referring to doesn't have a lot to do with the quality of the wheel, but instead the quality of the cog/lockring. A lot of people use the same cog/lockring that comes with the wheelset and don't bother to even tighten them properly, then go out and try to do sik skidz. This results in stripping the threads of the rear hub. If you get a good cog/lockring(Surly, Dura Ace, etc.) and then properly tighten down the cog and lockring, then you shouldn't have trouble with that. As far as quality of the wheel, chances are you won't notice a huge difference unless you've been riding for a while. I have a cheap set of Vuela Zerolites for $100 (they said in the description that they were handbuilt but it seems unlikey, must be cheapo parts) but they have held a good amount of abuse for over a year without failing yet.

pinging is the sound you will hear... like ping, pang... when you ride a wheel that wasn't stress relieved.
pretty similar to when you pluck the spokes. they play a tune.

It's always a good idea to have wheels bought online checked by a shop or yourself if you have the tools.

Haha, I remember my wheels doing that in the first few miles, it went away after a while. I should really consider having them trued and checked, it's just so expensive at my LBS.

cool thanks alot guys!, whats your thoughts on step3 of this respacing freewheels? https://www.fixedgeargallery.com/wheels/

bad/good idea?

edit: reading some sheldon brown about sprockets

the frame im buying https://inlandempire.craigslist.org/bik/1700663657.html
comes with cranks. sorry for being a noob but whats the difference between crankset and a sprocket? they look identical

wait i think sprockets are on the wheel righT? :O

Bad. Not worth the time/effort. Especially if you aren't familiar with building/working on wheels.

Honestly, a 100 dollar wheel is still a pretty cheap wheel. (Although I doubt I'd spend much more on a wheel)