I should learn my lesson and not save the worst, my least favorite , part for last. Cleaning up wheels. I love cleaning 35 years of grunge off old bikes but definitely do not like polishing up old, built up alloy wheels.

Anyway, I just noticed something odd. Placed the front in the truing stand to work on it and noticed one of the spokes is not crossed at the third cross. Just one. Strange. It's obviously original. Same as the others, but just passes the inboard spoke at cross number 3 and not behind it.

Do I really need to fix this? Not looking forward to it. Or is it safe to leave as is?