What has your experience of black spokes been?

Looking over a few threads it mentons black spokes being weaker than silver spokes so what has been your experience.

been running black sapims on a phil rear for a while now, built by Jimbilly - no problems

they'll peel. then they look shit.

mine are still rollin' nice. Been riding them for a few months and marcola before me.

Multi grooves how long did it take for yours to start peeling?? Which spokes were they?

I've got a rear wheel with black spokes, two have broken in the last two years.

Racist thread.

There's a wheel builder in Melb who will cut all your black spokes out and rebuild your wheel with proper spokes. He hates 'em that much.

Ive heard that the spoke goes brittle during anodizing and makes it more likely to snap, kinda makes sense...I havent had any problems (yet)

Been rockin' stealth spokes for two years no probs

Racist thread.

There's a wheel builder in Melb who will cut all your black spokes out and rebuild your wheel with proper spokes. He hates 'em that much.
yabbos or spokes?!??

@red-biff they're DT swiss and it took just under a year

racialists

Ive heard that the spoke goes brittle during anodizing and makes it more likely to snap, kinda makes sense...I havent had any problems (yet)

I assume the same fate applies to the white spokes, right? Just curious, as I flirted with a thought about white spokes and hubs for a moment, but gave up the idea as too poncey.

I'd call it more nonce y

any differences in the strength of a black spoke compared to a silver spoke are tiny compared to the differences between a badly built wheel and a well built wheel. would rather have a well built wheel using black spokes than a poorly built one using silver.
bikeshops don't like them because they have to double their inventory of spoke sizes stocked that's why they started the myth about them being brittle.

owned a dozen wheelsets of black and silver spokes, never broken a spoke ever. use that in your spurious internet poll of anecdotal black spoke breakages.

But bike shops also get to charge double for black spokes and they're not exactly taking up massive amounts of room in their shops so I dispute your "lbs start brittle spoke myth" thing.

I reckon it was just that black spokes tended to appear in a lot of cheaper factory built wheels whilst hand-built wheels tended to use DT stainless.

any differences in the strength of a black spoke compared to a silver spoke are tiny compared to the differences between a

good spoke and a bad one.

I often build a wheel with black, white and silver spokes.

I don't discrimiate.

black spokes scratch

Black spokes steal

And you have far better chance to be stopped by the rozzers!

I can imagine scuffs and scratches showing up on black spokes. But strength/brittleness is largely down to 'grain pattern', which depends on manutfacturing methods. I cannot see how grain pattern would be affected by the anodizing process*.

(*I think, maybe, probably, feck knows)

I've had some bad experiences with black spokes. They beat me as a child.

^^racist.

A lot of black spokes aren't actually anodized, they're coated in some way.

I had read black sapims were black all the way through, but mine aren't. That said I've had no problems with them.

All that stuff about them being weaker is bollocks, in my humble opinion.

A lot of black spokes aren't actually anodized

None are anodised; they can be blackened using a couple different oxide methods, or a phosphate method, or powder coated. The 'cold oxide' process seems to be a cathodic coating, but don't quote me without doing your own research.

I won't ;)

That was just what I knew, which was I'd never seen a black anodized spoke. So makes sense.

Black spokes aren't so bad, but I'm with Enoch Powell on this technical matter. In the end, there will be rivers of blood.