Continuing our litany of mid-ride disasters, let's move on to broken spokes. As strange as it sounds, they're actually fairly easy to fix trail-side: the only tool required is a spoke key.Touring riders often carry spare spokes and the cassette removal tools, but that's getting a bit carried away for your general afternoon cruise through the hills.

There are generally only two causes of broken spokes; either metal fatigue from wear and tear, or catastrophic failure due to external forces like sticks, rocks, poorly adjusted rear derailleurs, etc., going into the wheel.

If you only have one broken spoke caused by metal fatigue (no accident, just the "ping" of a breaking spoke) all you have to do is loosen the spokes on either side by a turn or two with your spoke key. This will cause a bit of an egg in the wheel as you've released the tension in one location, but as long as it's straight enough to miss the rear stays/fork legs/brake shoes, you should be able to continue well enough--just don't go and do any six foot drops; it's good enough to get you home and that's about it.

If you have multiple broken spokes, things should look pretty messy. Was this caused by a foreign object entering the wheel, or an accident where the bike has landed sideways?You'll want to be careful here as the wobbles may be due to either random spoke tension (as there will be several points with no tension at all), or a bent rim (usually an impact has occurred for this one as sticks/rocks/derailleurs don't tend to bend a rim).

Assuming an object has entered the wheel, do the same operation as per the single broken spoke repair: wherever you have a broken spoke, loosen the spokes either side until the rim is straight enough to continue riding. If, however, the wheel has suffered sideways forces due to an accident and it now look like a potato chip, you're going to have to do some serious panel beating.