It strongly depends on how you do the maintenance and the cleaning. I'm convinced that de spokes are really fine. But if you drive on salty roads, OR if you use a "wheel cleaner" bought in a car-store, you might have heavy damage. But still then you can solve the problem by polishen the spokes with the right products and a lot of courage... It seems to me that the spokes are just the same materials als those of the old AT, the Transalp, the XT1200z, all bikes that I had before. I clean them this way : first of all I use a protective spray (Castrol DWF, which isn't so degreasing as WD40 e.g.) After a wet ride I clean them with degreaser and a metal polish. And again, protect them with DWF... so far so good I must say