Spoke/wheel fiasco

[Kell]

After making comments in the spoke thread the other day, I thought I'd give my wheels a bit of a truing.

As I did, I noticed that one of the spokes has almost pulled through and cracked the rim.

As the other thread mentioned upping the spoke count to 36, I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to do the same.

So I'm looking for 26" wheels with low maintenance, disc hubs, strong but fairly light, 36 spokes and about £200.

Any recommendations of pre-built wheel-sets or someone to go to get a set built.

Edited by Kell on Tuesday 28th May 18:16

Edited by Kell on Wednesday 29th May 09:02

[Jimbo.]

Kell said:

After making comments in the spoke thread the other day, I thought I'd give my wheels a bit of a truing.

As I did, I noticed that one of the spokes has all most pulled through and cracked the rim.

As the other thread mentioned upping the spoke count to 36, I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to do the same.

So I'm looking for 26" wheels with low maintenance, disc hubs, strong but fairly light, 36 spokes and about £200.

Any recommendations of pre-built wheel-sets or someone to go to get a set built.

There aren't many - if any - pre-built 36h wheels out there. And you're asking for quite a lot there even if they did exist: light, strong and cheap (relatively). Which begs the question, why 36h?

For wheelbuilding, speak to Merlin Cycles, Harry Rowland, Paul Hewitt, Wheelsmith etc, etc.

[Kell]

I'm fairly heavy and since swapping to disc brakes, have snapped 20-30 spokes. Then I swapped out the cheap wheels that came with my Dahon for the ones that came with my Orange. Hope hubs, WTB rims and 32 spokes.

They're better, but not perfect and I've still snapped two or three spokes. In the other thread, someone mentioned to the OP that 36 spoke wheels would be more durable.

Hence the question.

If 36 is too much or looking to be too expensive, what else would people recommend?

[Kell]

Just looking at options.

These are 24 spokes:

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/mavic/2013-cro...

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/mavic/2013-cro...

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/fulcrum/red-po...

Mavic I've heard of but not Fulcrum - any good?

[zax]

The wheels on my fixie are built with Mavic rims and 36 spokes. They're 13 years old and have survived many thousands of kilometres carrying my 110kg+ bulk (it varies) and even the added weight of a kid plus trailer bike without requiring truing at all. They're still as far as I can tell perfectly shaped. The frame, wheels and drivetrain came from http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/. No idea who built them but he/she has a pint and a thankyou waiting for them should we ever meet. I'll miss them when they eventually wear out...

[Kell]

I've taken a chance on a set of Mavics - but on a close out deal from 2012. Instead of £220, they were £112...

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?Mod...

With two new disc rotors it was £150-odd.

It also means that I can take my time getting a new rim for my Hope hubs and put them back on to the bike they belong to.

Cheers for the advice so far.