Broken spoke - what to do?

[brno]

Had an accident on the way home today. Luckily no one got hurt except for my bike. Front wheel now has one broken spoke. Can I still save it somehow? Or do I need to get a new spoke and are they sold one by one just like that? Or better to visit local bike repair?

   

[Joe_W]

Spokes are sold also by one. They have different lengths (in 2mm increments), getting the correct length is important. It looks as if the spoke broke at the elbow: Unscrew the spoke from the wheel, take it to the bike store, get a new one. Increase the tension until the wheel is round. Take care to take out the twist before you call it a day / when checking roundness (stick some tape to the spoke and watch it, you'll see what I mean). Look at howtos, terms like stress relieving etc. It's not difficult.

Oh, and really look at how the spoke is laced through the others

[Papa Dom]

Joe already nicely covered the key points, i'll just stress the importance of checking if there is damage on other spokes besides the broken one. that can make the wheel bend while rolling. inspect other spokes as well and see if they are loose or a bit twisted.

https://www.bikeride.com/broken-spoke/

[brno]

Cool! I appreciate your tips and video advice, those will guide me through the process. Now I noticed that the wheel is not straight and rubs against the brake pads How can you tell if the spoke is damaged {not broken} and needs to be replaced without using the tension tool? I will have to get the spoke tool from bike shop so I might also get 2-3 extra spokes because couple of them don't look straight to me.

[Joe_W]

When a spoke is broken the whole wheel is off balance. Best case: replace the spoke, some fine tuning, back on the road. A tensiometer helps to maintain equal spoke tension when building and truing a wheel. It is not strictly necessary.

A damaged spoke can be found by visual inspection (chain drop on the rear wheel). Most spokes fail due to metal fatigue, ultimately caused by poor build quality of the wheel. Too low spoke tension, no "setting" (bending the elbow of outside spokes a bit), now stress relief and messed up torsion are the main factors there.
When more than two spokes break on a wheel: replace all of them. Build quality was shite (most likely).