Spoke Replacement

Ever have one of those days when you're going to work on something and expect it to take 5 minutes, but it turns into 5 hours? In my last post I showed how to service a rear hub with a freewheel. I didn't show this however:

The outer drive side spokes were mangled up from the chain jamming into them (a dork disk doesn't seem quite so bad now). Worried that these spokes might snap on a long ride, I decided to replace all 9 of them. I'll walk you through this process in case you have a busted spoke on your own bike. 

The first step is to remove the freewheel or cassette (rear spokes break more often than front ones). Next deflate the tire, and unscrew the spoke from the spoke nipple at the rim:

Here I removed the tire, but you can usually just leave it in place if you're only doing a few spokes. Now measure the offending spoke so you can find an adequate replacement:

You want to measure from the end of the threads to the inside of the curve at the elbow. Generally you can go plus or minus 2mm if you don't have the exact size available. Put some grease or oil on the threads, then stick the replacement spoke through the hub:

 

 Work it around the other spokes and join it to the rim with a spoke nipple:

Finally, put the wheel back in your frame, and tighten the replacement until the rim spins straight again:

That's all, cheers!