Originally Posted by
miamijim
I bought 2 bikes today with this problem....the spokes are broken in the middle. I'll post up pics tomorrow and yes, they came from a garage with pool chemicals.
Even without pictures, I'll venture that there were small black inclusions and the spoke was super brittle (like raw spaghetti) there. This is classic chloride damage to stainless steel. It's fairly rare with spokes, but when it happens either because of poor process or material in spoke manufacture or exposure to certain chemicals, the damage is extensive and always fatal to the spoke.