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32 (and fewer) Spoke Wheels
For many decades, 36 spoke wheels were the norm for virtually all bikes not made in England.
English bikes used 32 in front, 40 in back, which actually makes a lot of sense, because, it is very unusual to have a problem with front wheels, but much more common to have trouble with rears. This is partly because of the normal weight distribution that puts more weight on the rear wheel, partly because the rear wheel is the one that drives the bike forward.
The rear wheel problem is especially severe with bikes that use derailer gearing, because the rear wheel has to be "dished" off center to make room for the multiple sprockets. This is accomplished by making the left side spokes very loose. It results in the right side spokes' carrying most of the load, and the left side spokes' providing poor stability.
The English switched over to 36/36 in the late 1960s, mainly to simplify parts stockage.
So, as I said, almost all bikes used 36/36 spoking. The exception was a few high performance time-trial racing bikes where the builder was looking for any possible place to shave off a few grams. Some of these bikes used 32 spoke wheels.
The "Less Is More" Scam:
Then, sometime in the 1980s, a clever bean counter at one of the big bike companies had a brainstorm! "What if we were to switch to 32 spoke wheels? Saving 8 spokes would not only save the cost of the spokes, but also reduce the labor cost of wheelbuilding. Multiply the cost savings out by a few thousand bikes, and it can save us some serious money! The beauty part is, that we can cut this corner, even though it will result in more fragile wheels, and then we can present it to the customer as a feature!"
This scam was so successful that all of the manufacturers followed suit, laughing all the way to the bank, and the riders suffered the results of the more fragile wheels.
Even Fewer Spokes: "Boutique " Wheels
In recent years, the same scam has been extended, as the industry tries to see how few spokes they can get away with before the reliability gets so bad that consumers revolt!
These days it is common to see mass-produced bikes and aftermarket wheelsets with 24 or fewer spokes in each wheel. These are represented as "premium" wheels, though they generally have off-brand hubs that are a lot cheaper than genuine Shimano or Campagnolo hubs.
Naive consumers often fall for this scam, thinking the wheels must offer higher performance due to having fewer spokes. They don't realize that these wheels make up for the lost strength of the missing spokes by using substantially heavier rims! Typically, these are "deep-profile" rims, which have less aerodynamic drag than shallow rims. The greater radial stiffness allows the use of fewer spokes. These trendy wheels look lighter than traditional wheels, but they aren't. Some of these wheels are unreliable -- and dangerous because if one spoke breaks, there are too few others to keep the rim stable.
Many of these wheels also have nonstandard spokes that can be hard to find when a replacement is needed. Some of the rims are of carbon fiber composite, whose wear characteristics don't fit well with rim brakes.
