new 26" wheels for surly LHT

[danbraun]

i'm looking to buy a new wheel set for my long haul trucker. i recently road the pacific coast route on the stock deore wheel set, and carrying about 40lbs of gear, my wheels went out of true some 5 times - so i'm looking for a better set of wheels. am open to all suggestions...

thanks,
-danny   

[waynemyer]

What's your budget? 

Peter White Cycles (http://peterwhitecycles.com/) is reliable and will tailor the wheels to your needs.  No nonsense, good wheels.  He's the first one on my short list of trusted wheelbuilders with an online presence.  The other is Universal Cycles (http://www.universalcycles.com/).  In the brick-and-mortar-only world, Winooski Bike Shop (Winooski, VT) gets my vote.

Rivendell gets good reviews by serious tourers, too.

[danbraun]

i don't really want to spend more than 400, but could possibly spend more. thanks for the suggestions.

-d

[whittierider]

We've gotten six 700c road-bike wheels from Peter White for about $400 per pair, plus shipping, and they have been absolutely trouble-free.  The pair with the most miles has over 15,000 miles (and I expect they'll go many times that many), and the wheel that gets the hardest use is a rear wheel on the bike that our older son commutes on, always carrying tools and hardware supplies on the rack, up to 60 pounds, and rides on roads that are in really bad shape too.  It has not needed so much as a truing touch-up.  Peter White knows wheel-building better than anyone else I know of.  I found out about him when I was on the T@H tandem forum listserv and there were a lot of tandem teams there who had his wheels and toured on them and raved about them.  See http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/wheels.asp .

[DaveB]

It may seem like a silly question but are your current wheels 26" or 700c? 

If they are 26" , I expect they were poorly tensioned when you got them and a proper retensioning should make them durable and stable as 26" wheels are quite strong if built correctly.  A good LBS with a competent wheel builder should be able to resurect these wheels at low cost just by making the spoke tension right.

If they are 700c, you can't go to 26" since the brakes won't be anywhere near the smaller rims.