What should you do once the spokes break during cycling?

No matter how well crafted or expensive your carbon wheelset is, you may eventually break the spokes or the spoke caps while riding. Nowadays bike wheelsets typically use steel spokes and aluminum or brass spoke caps. Spokes typically use different thicknesses along their length to provide maximum strength and durability at both ends, while maintaining the lowest possible weight through a slightly thinner middle section. Most spokes break at these thickness transitions, which occur near the hub, but spokes may break at any point under sufficient external force. There are various types of spoke breakage, such as rock impact, tree branches getting stuck between spokes, spoke caps passing through carbon fiber wheels, and spoke cap threads falling off, causing spokes to be unable to secure. When these situations occur, you need to do two things: remove the broken spoke fragments or wrap them around adjacent spokes, and then ensure that the spokes that break when the wheel rotates can pass through the frame without touching it. If the spokes shake around, they may get stuck in the transmission system, leading to bigger problems. Many times, a well structured wheel can continue to roll even if it lacks one or even two spokes. Due to the shape of the wheel hub and the location of the broken spokes, you cannot always remove the broken secondary strip and continue riding. In this case, the best option is to firmly wrap it around the nearby spokes, ensuring that it is tightly wrapped to avoid causing other problems. You may need to tighten some relative spokes to better force the wheels so that you can ride home.

Carbon bike wheels with more spokes are usually better able to maintain their original shape after the spokes are broken than wheels with fewer spokes, and many carbon fiber wheels seem to be better able to maintain their original shape when the spokes are missing than alloy wheels. After replacing the broken spokes, it is best to inspect the entire wheel. The external force that breaks the spokes and transfers it to other spokes to compensate for the missing spokes can cause significant pressure on the entire wheel system, leading to more spokes breaking. If the spokes break randomly and no impact event occurs, the entire wheel may fatigue to the point where the spokes begin to break periodically. More spoke fractures during continuous cycling may indicate the need for wheel reconstruction or replacement.