WHAT WERE THEY THINKING when they put galvanized spokes on (otherwise) pretty decent bikes?

What and when? There was a time when stainless spokes weren't very strong.

They were thinking they'd be dead by the time you found that. Ugh.

Hi Roadfan -
My '38 Golden Arrow originally came with stainless but my '82 Miyata 610 came with galvanized. Go figure.

They were thinking if it's good enough for a chain link fence, it's good enough for spokes.

My first wheel build, in 1976, for my UO8, I used SS spokes. At the same time, my Araya rims were hookless, so I still had issues....

My favorite WTF is my 1961 Gazelle, galvanized steel (rusty) spokes, stainless steel rims.... Bike weighs over 60 pounds.

Those should buff right up...

^ This is the most plausible explanation I've heard yet.

And yet, my chainlink fence has been out in the rain for 30 years, and it still looks better than those spokes. There's galvanizing, and then there's galvanizing...

Any idea on how to spiff up galvanized spokes? A current project has nice (but tarnished and dull) butted galvanized spokes.

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I didn't really like the stainless spokes we had available to us, so I used the galvanized unions. All of my wheels that I built with those spokes are still going fine, 30+ years later. Broke my first spoke a year ago, got the chain stuck in the spokes

What was wrong with them?

probably nothing. I just built my first wheel using straight gauge spokes in a long time, and it felt a lot more solid than the butted spokes I have been using. This is going back decades, but I think that I was just used to straight gauge and didn't like the feel of the butted spokes when I built the wheel. I agree with you, I wouldn't use galvanized now. Some things we're used to now weren't as economic back in the day.

You can clean them up with a metal polish like Novus, but the coating is thin and the tarnish will come back with a vengeance. I've attempted to save a few "lost cause" wheels with lightly rusted spokes that I was able to clean with a brass brush. I coated the spokes with Corrosion Stop and it's held up ok, but they still look like mottled galvanized spokes.

It's a pretty strong testimony that they were thinking along the right lines, then... don't you think?

They were thinking that by the time these things start rusting, the bike will be in a dumpster.

I recently had good luck cleaning corroded galvanized spokes with WD40 and bronze wool. They weren't bright, but I found the dull, even gray color to be acceptable.

Early stainless knives weren't very good, they would not take an edge like a high carbon blade would. It took some time before they found the right combination of hardness and corrosion resistance at a reasonable price point. I imagine something like that was going on with spokes.

Grab a piece of aluminum foil, crumple it up and rub away. The foil will remove the roughness, clean the surface and help improve the silver color. Give it a try, it takes only a moment to see if the process is good for you.

Spokes that lasted long enough to rust weren't ridden enough.

They are supposed to be a consumable...

Yeah, but they taste like ____.

So do brake pads...

Price point, that's what they were thinking, sometimes the spokes were the only difference between a great set of wheels & a ok set of wheels back then.

I have a lot of wheels hanging around waiting to change out the rusty galvanized spokes to stainless but is it worth it in the end is what I keep asking myself. Working at a shop SS straight gauge spokes are cheap enough to buy but then again so is a set of cheap replacement wheels.

Glenn