Spokes for wheels are wire gauge, as are knitting needles (I kid you not!). Bicycles sometimes have butted spokes where the ends are thicker. Visual inspection should clearly show if this the case. The most common of these is 14/16 gauge, ie 14 ends with a 16 middle.
Note, the metric sizes are conversions, it is an imperial measure.
Larger sizes will be added later - the table I've got starts at 10
| Wire Gauge | Diameter |
Diameter mm |
| 10 | 0.128 | 3.2512 |
| 12 | 0.104 | 2.616 |
| 14 | 0.080 | 2.0320 |
| 16 | 0.064 | 1.6256 |
| 18 | 0.048 | 1.2192 |
| 20 | 0.036 | 0.9144 |
| 21 | 0.032 | 0.8128 |
| 22 | 0.028 | 0.7112 |
| 23 | 0.024 | 0.6096 |
| 24 | 0.022 | 0.5588 |
| 25 | 0.020 | 0.5080 |
| 26 | 0.018 | 0.4572 |
| 27 | 0.0164 | 0.4166 |
| 28 | 0.0148 | 0.3759 |
| 29 | 0.0136 | 0.3454 |
| 30 | 0.0124 | 0.3150 |
| 32 | 0.0108 | 0.2743 |
| 34 | 0.0092 | 0.2237 |
| 36 | 0.0076 | 0.1930 |
| 38 | 0.0060 | 0.1524 |
| 40 | 0.0048 | 0.1219 |
| 42 | 0.0040 | 0.1016 |
| 44 | 0.0032 | 0.0813 |
| 46 | 0.0024 | 0.0610 |
| 47 | 0.0020 | 0.0508 |
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