good rims for cheap
 

any tips on how to find a good rim for a good price?

well what kinda rims are you looking for first of all? deep v's? box rims?

how cheap do you want them?
IMO, kinlin XR-270 and XR-300 from fairwheelbikes is about the best deal out there.

Kinlin rims are certainly better priced than Mavics or Velocities. However cheaper rims can be had. Alex and Sun rims are much cheaper. Sun rims, such as the CR18 and the M13II, have great reputations, but they are shallow box rims...nothing wrong with that, but they are less aero and more traditional looking. Alex rims have a horrible reputation, but this is mostly undeserved. Alex rims often come stock on cheap bikes with poorly built wheels. The rims themselves are fine and I've built several really good wheels with Alex rims. You can find good Alex rims for less than a third of the cost of other name brand rims.

However, before you start thinking about cost-cutting, you need to conceptualize what sort of wheel you want. Do you want a traditional looking wheelset with shallow silver rims and high 3x spoke counts. Or do you want something more aero with fewer spokes. Are you aiming for a light-as-possible wheel, or perhaps your top priorities are strength and durability. Figure out first what you want to get out of the wheel, then you can start narrowing component choices and thinking about costs.

Without knowing what kind of rims you're looking for, I'm just going to put this and this here.

I don't see how those or different from Sun CR18 or M13II rims, except the higher price.

im just looking for a cheap way to build a rear fixed wheel, 32 spokes. Something with a little aero to it would be nice, and if possible i'd like to avoid box style rims though it isn't out of the question for me

you could get weinmann dp-18s, they are reasonably priced, (lbs in fresno has some for around $160, i agree with mihlbach that the alex wheels are good wheels, i have them on my pistas and i am very satisfied with them

Pretty much whatever. There are a billion good 32 spoke rim options. Just start searching google shopping or LBS closeouts. how much do you want to spend?

In that case, I would recommend an Alex DA28 rim. I think this is the cheapest decent semi-aero rim you can find. They are widely available for between $30-$40. It comes in 32 holes, is very strong, and is similar in weight (480gms) to more expensive rims with similar depth profiles (such as the Mavic CXP33 or Velocity Fusion). I would avoid a Weinnman dp-18 as was suggested above..it can be found for a bit cheaper but is absurdly heavy...probably the heaviest clincher rim available, by several hundred grams, in the 27-30 mm depth category.


http://images.jensonusa.com/large/ri/ri308b14.jpg

I had some wheels with those rims. They were solid.

iirc, easton uses DA28 rims on some of their road wheelsets.

kinlins seem like a fine alternative.

if you held the rims in your hand you would be able to, the rim profile is slightly different, the extrusions material and the joint is of higher quality, however if your going to go the sun Rim route i would recommend the assault, i've had more than one set and found them to be bomb proof and i got a set laced to ultegra hubs for under 100$

If you can get over the BOX Section rims, there are plenty of NOS rims on ebay, old mavics, ridigidas, sun, wobbler, alesa, Ambrosio you can get a nice set of welded box rims with double eyelets for 50$ plus there are some semi aero, plus there's a lot of chrome ones, which seems to be one of new things. a-la velorange.