It's entirely possible that the member selling spokes has been involved in some unavoidable disaster that prevents him from fulfilling an order, and that would certainly be bad, but I totally get r1100r's frustration. Back in the days before Paypal, I got ripped off for $150.00 for some motorcycle gear from someone online, and it started the same way this did: lots of emails and phone calls that never got answered. Barring being in a coma in the hospital, there's nothing that stops a person from putting an auto response on their email that basically says something along the lines of "family emergency, shipping orders has been delayed for X amount of time, sincerest apologies", or something to that effect. I've never been anywhere in the US that I couldn't access my email in some manner or another, especially over a 16 day period, and even during the hectic holidays it doesn't take more than a couple minutes to at least set up an auto response.
If you're going to take someone's money for something you're selling, then you're entering into a contract, and that involves both trust and obligation (especially when you're buying something from a guy you only know as an online handle). If I was in the OP's shoes, after two weeks of no response, I'd be getting pretty testy myself, holidays or not.