I picked up some craigslist Rigida/Shimano wheels for the lady's bike today. They're reasonably straight (only one ding in the front rim), the freewheel threads are flawless, and with a repack and some truing I think they will be nice, but wow are they funky. Lots of grease and road slop. The spokes are DT, but they're kind of crusty.

I really don't care if they *shine*, I just want to get the nasty off. What do y'all use?

I use a mixture of white spirit and household detergent,and then rinse it.

I use car wheel cleaner, the type safe for all wheels. Eagle one is still the best, but others are catching up now. For the braking surfaces I use 800 grit wet or dry and soapy water. It leaves a perfect smooth braking surface with a decent shine. It also takes out imperfections and scratches pretty well.,,,,BD

I use mineral spirits to remove grease and gunk and then polish with Mother's. Fine steel wool works great on stainless spokes.

Those spray wheel cleaners can be pretty harsh. My daughter used it and it left bleached out spots on my concrete driveway

The bare aluminum wheel cleaners will do that, as they're almost watered down battery acid. The Eagle one stuff is a different type. It makes old alloy high flange hubs nice looking again. This is with no polishing, only the Eagle One cleaner and a soft wheel brush. It was crusty and caked with old grease before. It came out okay. I didn't bother polishing as it was a flip Conti.,,,,BD