one at a time, please

When I last had a popped spoke on my front wheel (an irritating mere couple of weeks back) I bought a couple of replacements along with a couple of spares for the rear to speed up the repair process the next time one went rather than having to limp about for a bit until I could get to a spoke-selling shop. Last night when I was doing nothing particularly offensive (I think I was just turning at low speed, albeit quite a tight turn on a hill) when I heard what is quickly becoming recogniseable as the twang of a spoke either rapidly losing torsion or tension by untwisting or snapping. I thought it was just untwisting (though the wheel had Pringled sufficiently to be rubbing against the brake on both sides) until I inspected it this morning to find two broken spokes, which had not rattled as they'd broken so close to the flange. The whole point of last night's ride had been to let my new (though extremely cheap and quite possibly quite shite) rear wheel bed in a little and ping out the torsion in the factory-built spokes before re-truing it (though it'll remain a spare wheel when I get a half- decent one built, but I needed something reasonably immediately in case the Rim of Damocles decided to break whilst moving) so it was irritating to find the front joining the party. Whilst I still had one spare spoke from my recent purchase I thought I'd have to either use the twenty-year-old spare front wheel or limp to a shop for another spare until I popped up to the loft to see if any of the sixty-four spokes in the two old rear wheels would be a close enough match. Those from the twenty-year-old companion to the spare front wheel looked (and turned out to be) close enough, though by chance the first one I picked to detach turned out to be the only one I was able to detach using the spoke key I'd remembered I had in a box when I forgot to take my multi-tool upstairs with me.

The front wheel is now re-trued and ready to be taken out for some settling and pinging. Parts have been ordered for building a better rear, and if that works I'll maybe try the same for the front, which will then leave me with some spare wheels for my spare frame to use when I get round to trying to get it back on the road.