Bike Repair

Ah, my little bike shop.  Just like most Americans with the rising price of gas I've decided to start taking my bike to work.  Truth be told I've been biking to work for over a year now and luckily enough I haven't had a bike problem for the better part of this year, not even a flat tire.

Well, the other day I'm riding home from work and I hear this 'TWANG!' and my rear brake partially engages.  I was only a couple of blocks from my house so I just unhooked my rear brake and rode the rest of the way home at a slow pace while depending only on my front brake.  Once home I set my bike aside and since the next two days were my days off I simply forgot about it, until the night before I had to go to work.  I opened up my rear brake thinking that my rear brakes just dropped out of alignment and when I got on my bike to go to work I discovered that the problem was more than my brakes.

As it turns out that TWANG! I heard was one of my spokes, and when you loose a spoke your wheel warps thereby causing your wheel to hit the brake on certain parts of the wheel.  I learned that by visiting a bike shop website.  I didn't have even the faintest clue on how to replace a broken spoke so I took it to a bike shop that I trusted.  I would have taken it to the same place that the website recommends but the last time I was there they screwed up my derailleurs and wanted to charge me to put them back.  So I took them to Mad Dog Cycle where they charged me $25 to replace the spoke and true the tire.  I thought it was a steal since they originally told me it was going to be about $35.  Hopefully later on today I will be able to take a ride just to make sure everything is okay.