Originally Posted by wrk101

Bad luck. I am going to hate saying this, I rarely get a bike with bad cones. Now the grease and bearings are a different story, almost always bad, with the grease hard and dried up. I consider that typical maintenance that every older used bike will require as a minimum.

Bikes I usually pick up have been sitting ignored for many years (decades). Had the prior owners ridden them much with the bearings and grease in that condition, the results would probably be different. Note, this is with road bikes. MTBs are a different story, they are often flogged and poorly maintained, and I often find bad hubs on them.