I have a Jamis Durango 29er hardtail that I run skinny tires on and use as a commuter bike for exercise. I keep breaking spokes on the rear wheel and am tired of replacing them but realize i need to deal with them eventually. I have been looking to get a second set anyway so I could run my knobby tires on one set and my skinny set on the others.

Where is a good place to get a wheel or a set? I am not cheap but dont need to spend a fortune eiher. Any advice would be great as I am kind of new at this.

Bueller???

As a mountain biker that races endurance and single track through roots and rocks gardens- and I weigh 220 lbs  and have never broke a spoke or wheel !!!! WTH are you doing buddy how do you break spokes on the road my friend  ?

But back to your question- search Ebay and maybe CL for local deals on bike parts. If not you can find wheels on sale at Nashbar or similar web sites . Be careful because aftermarket wheels can get very expensive.

I have no idea man but it is pretty frustrating. I am closer to 300 which is all i can figure but the roughest thing I do is jump off a curb. Friend said sometimes the factory spokes arent of the highest quality but hell if I know.

I will check out Nashbar, any other websites?? I know wheels get expensive. It is hard to pay as much as I paid for the bike for wheels but my friend equated it to optics to get the point across about not cheaping out.

pricepoint.com

That's what I was getting at and thinking. You're going to have to find a set of heavy duty wheels that will support someone your size. It's going to cost you a little bit of money but you  hopefully only have to buy the rear wheel since you only ride on the road.

Added- When looking at wheels or wheel sets they will usually have a weight limit listed for them. The average biker doesn't even need this info but people like us do

Sounds good. i will start looking for some fat guy compliant wheels.

Either this or if you have a good relationship at your LBS talk to them about making a custom set.

I am not talking high end, but good, solid, heavy duty components that will last.

one thing about wheels that many folks miss is that they are a symetric system

Probably every bike shop in the land has a guy who can build wheels.  However, it's a crapshoot as to how good any individual wheel builder is.  I'm a 400 lb'er and I went to the internet for wheels.  Peter White of peterwhitecycles.com and Rich Lesnik of Rivendell Bicycle Works both specialize in heavy duty wheels.  I went with Rich and he built me a set of wheels based on 40 spoke, heavy duty touring hubs, 40 spoke Velocity Dyad rims and DTSwiss spokes with brass nipples.  I've had one spoke become slightly loose after I missed a turn and bailed off a curb at 15-20 mph.  The wheel was still true but I had it retensioned as preventive maintenance.  Total cost for my wheelset (including $40 S/H) was less than $500.   That may sound like a lot but as a clydesdale, wheels with give you more trouble than everything else on your bike combined.  Invest in good ones.

Whether or not I buy wheels I am damn sure using that saying.

I ride and race with a Clyde and he goes through a rear wheel at least once per year if not more He's freaking huge and he's a sleeper- meaning the guy can fly through the woods and even races long distance endurance races and makes the podium

I am 220 and am very hard on wheels, I ride/race downhill and have had great luck with DT Swiss Ex500's and will be building up another set or going for there new 471's. These will be overkill but something to consider.

If you have any interest in lacing up your own wheels I would recommend sheldonbrown.com, otherwise www.universalcycles.com has a good selection.

When I was 16, I got my first real job. I reported to the bike shop every afternoon after school and rebuilt wheels. That was my main assignment. This was in the days of Schwinn Varsity bikes with heavy steel rims. A single smack to a curb could bend the rim and require a rebuild. I'd do three or four rebuilds every afternoon. On rare days there weren't any (or many) rebuilds, I'd assemble new bikes.

These days, bike shops just grab a whole new, built in China wheel out of a box and move on. I suspect few shops today have rim and spoke urchins like I was when I was a pimple-faced kid.

Yes, I realize that the above comment adds nothing to the discussion and helps the OP in no way. I just welcomed the opportunity to say that I used to build bicycle wheels. It's a pretty cool skill to have. I could probably still do it but I've have to look a few things up on the Internet. In fact, I own a Park truing stand and built a couple of sets of wheels about 10 years ago.


ETA: It amazes me when I see how wheels are laced these days. There's no way we would build radial spoked wheels with 28 or less spokes. Back in my day, light wheels had 32 spokes, the norm was 36 and heavy (tandem) wheels sometimes had 40 spokes. We built cross three, occasionally cross four. Rear wheels had five, maybe six, cog freewheels and were pretty narrow (120mm as I recall). We marveled at the 28 spoke, cross two wheels the Olympic time trialers were running on the front. If somebody traveled back in time to 1976, we would have never believed today's wheels.

Have your LBS take a look at your current wheels to see if the tension on your spokes is even.  A couple of spokes even a little bit looser will cause others to snap.

I've been running Stan's tubeless set ups for years. Have never managed to break a spoke.

I think this is it exactly.  I question how often a typical LBS even builds wheels.  Practice makes perfect and I suspect they just don't get that much practice.  The guy who built my wheels had logged 6,000 complete wheel builds at the time he built mine two years ago.  He literally builds wheels for a living.  Same thing for Peter White.  Full-time wheel builder and highly respected in the touring community.  

I looked (in vain) for positive references for a local wheel builder because I would have preferred to have a local relationship with a wheel guy.  I was fortunate to find a new shop nearby that is generally considered to have two of the top three bike mechanics in a metro of 1,000,000 people.   They regularly build wheels for professional riders and have built wheels for Olympians so I feel I'm finally in good hands as far as wheels go.  

My LBS as 2 guys that I KNOW can build up good wheels, and another guy that I suspect could do it also.

FWIW, when I was a 16-year-old wheel whiz, the boss only had me work on the common stuff . . . steel-rim Schwinns and consumer grade Motobecanes and Ralieghs, etc. If it had a Campy hub, he did the build. Again, I was building three or four wheels every afternoon, but the good stuff got his touch.  

BTW, building wheels is really fun. It's satisfying to get them laced up and it's enjoyable to stand behind that truing stand, spinning that wheel, and moving the rim left, right, up and down with the spokes until it runs super true. It's almost a zen thing. Very relaxing.

I don't have any bike tools at the moment so rebuilding it myself is not a option. I have a couple friends that build wheels and offered to help me out but they are not always dependable. One of them is the one that has been replacing my spokes as they break and he warned me they would probably keep doing do until I rebuilt.

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting you do it yourself. I was just yammering on . . .

I should have quoted the guy above you as he was who mentioned it. So carry on because at least people are reading the thread now

When he replaced the spokes he checked tension on the others.

Here are some options...Look around, there are ones within a lot of different price ranges.

$: 595
$: 300

Are either of those heavy duty??? Didnt see any kind of a weight rating or anything that would let me know.

The Arch will be pretty strong, the Flow EX's are the same price and will be a bit stronger. As I mentioned above, I am 220 and race downhill so i'm hard on wheels. I had the Flows (older version of the Flow EX's) and they held up well. If the biggest thing you're doing is going off curbs on a ride I think they will hold up just fine. You'll also be getting a better hub set then what you currently have.

Here are the Flows:
http://www.universalcycles.com/shopping/product_details.php?id=58610&category=5481

Any luck yet on some new wheels ??

No not yet yet another thing I will try and accomplish this weekend in between trying to buy a house