I do most bike maintenance myself, including servicing forks, replacing bearings etc. The only thing I’ve never done before is build a wheel. I need to replace one broken spoke on my wife’s bike. Is this a job the competent home mechanic can do, or is it a right pain in the arse?

If it’s hurting your arse….your(sic) doing it wrong HtH.

Wheel off, tyre off maybe rotor and cassette too then rim tape depending on the tape. If you can unscrew then you can reuse the nipple and just replace it. If it’s other out of true simple enough.

Should be a doddle, should.! just find the right length spoke and replace. You should be able to re true it just by tightening the spoke back up and pulling the rim straight. If it’s the rear then you may have to remove the disk and or cassette.

However more importantly why did the spoke break.? Check the tension of the other spokes around it and make sure the rim isn’t bent too far and therefore causing too much stress in the spoke when the rim is true.
If the rim has had a hard life then you can get away with 4mm of deflection in the rim if it’s a disk without worrying too much.

ime once one spoke breaks you will find others will follow in the next 6 months (if the bike is ridden regularly) Replacing spokes and truing up is one job I always leave to the LBS and most I deal with do this job for a tenner or 15 quid. If the wheel is still true, tape the broken spoke to another and wait until another one pops?

Hmm….no idea why, but she’s not heavy and not a particularly aggressive rider. It is currently taped to another and she’s ridden it a couple of times like that.

The most difficult part is when you go to the lbs and there’s a sharp intake of breath while they decide what length spoke you’ll need.

After much conferring a Yoda-like roadie known as ‘Bert’ or ‘Fred’ will appear and make a sage decision and everyone else will nod in agreement

Good luck

Use an online spoke calc to figure the length you need. Should be able to put in the hub and the rim and it’ll pop out the result for drive side/non drive side. If it’s for commuting… I wouldn’t worry about it really. taped to (or bent around as in my commuter) the next nearest spoke will do for a while. Unless you desperately want it perfect. Workhorses aren’t meant to be pretty, imho. Road grime and broken bits give it character 😀

I’m assuming it’s a commuter. If it’s a mountain bike it needs to be binned immediately and replaced with the nearest £3k bike in her size and baby blue.

It’s really easy if the wheel’s otherwise in good shape. And sometimes fairly hard if it’s not. But the start point is the same, bung in a new spoke and try and make the wheel sraight, then see what happens. I do it all by eye and ear, you can see the wheel straighten and you can hear the spoke tension up (and sometimes, these things don’t happen at quite the same time- you don’t want a mentally tight spoke just to try and get the wheel perfectly straight)

(I didn’t realise this til recently but straightening a well used wheel that’s gone out of true is harder than building a wheel)

It’s sometimes easier just to back everything off.

New bike will not be mentioned, can’t afford that until the extension is built, despite her regular opinion to the contrary. No harm in giving it a go I guess.

The most difficult part is when you go to the lbs and there’s a sharp intake of breath while they decide what length spoke you’ll need.

Use an online spoke calc to figure the length you need.

Or you could just take one of the other spokes out and measure that..