Wheel Purchasing 101
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 1:45AM 
Wheels are barely noticeable when they work right. When they are bad, you can't ignore them.
I purchased a nicer set of wheels for my road bike after having a great (and expensive) lesson taught to me. After buying a low-end Shimano rear wheel, thinking that I was being smart and saving money, I had to make countless trips to the bike shop to replace busted spokes and get the wheel trued.
At around $8 - $10 for each spoke and $20 for truing, it wasn't more than a couple trips when I realized I should have bought a better wheel. Don't let it happen to you!
But the real lesson the bike shop guys taught me is this - Whenever you get a new wheel, ride it a few times and then take it back in to get it trued and tightened. A good shop will do this for free, since it's a new product from their shop. This gets the wheel under control before things go bad. "A couple of quick visits and that wheel should be good to go for a loooooooooong time," they said.
Have wheel purchasing tips or questions? Post them in the comments section below!
Reader Comments (1)
It can seem intimidating at first, but replacing spokes and truing wheels is actually very easy, and a great way to save money, not to mention the lost training time involved in leaving your ride at the shop. A spoke wrench and some patience are the only tools you need, though a truing stand and cold beer help quite a bit. There's several good books on the topic, including Jobst Brandt's wheel book. Even building wheels from scratch is pretty easy. But my last set of wheels, I purchased from www.neuvationcycling.com . A very good product for the money, and they also had excellent customer service and responsiveness when my rear axle broke. Most telling, I weigh 190 and ride lots of rough mountain roads in the Southern California area, and with 4,000+ miles, I've never needed to true them. They also have a pretty solid wheel protection plan for a reasonable cost, which even covers crashes.