Originally Posted by staehpj1

+1

Unless you are riding somewhere pretty hard on rims 1500k is a pretty small portion of the life of a rim. Unless you are somewhere pretty remote replacing a rim along the way isn't that huge of a deal anyway. It may vary depending on where you are going, but I probably wouldn't worry unless there are definite signs of impending failure, like cracks or wear indicators showing.

Replacing a rim using the same spokes is super easy and if you are somewhat mechanically inclined you could do it by the side of the road in 20 minutes or so. You can just:

1. Tape the old rim to the new one with the holes lined up (including valve hole).
2. Loosen all of the spokes.
3. Move spokes to new rim one at a time.
4. Discard old rim.
5. Tighten all spokes to some uniforn repeatable place, like maybe with 1/4 turn of thread showing. This will keep the roundness and dish pretty close to correct.
6. Go around the wheel tightening each spoke the same number of turns until the wheel starts to firm up.
7. Once the spokes have some light tension, be sure it is true and round. Also try for even tension. Adjust as necessary.
8. Then add tension is layers. By that I mean, increase tension in all spokes in increments truing at each pass.
9. Repeat until desired tension is acheived and then fine tune trueing one last time.
10. Stress relieve the wheel in the last step by squeezing groups of four spokes.

On the switch to discs... Why? Did you find your current brakes unsatisfactory? If not, in what way? If only to avoid rim replacement, I wouldn't unless maybe extreme conditions are causing very short rim life.