Well, akirus, what you say can be good for when your on a tour, but I think Sergio just wanted to know in general. But I do have some things to add to what you say:
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When a spoke breaks it is on the road and not at home, lord knows I am not going to bring a truing stand and a bike stand wherever I go. All I carry with me is a spoke wrench, cassete removal tool, chain whip or vise grips and a chain and a few extra spokes.[QUOTE]
All you need on the road is a poke wrench, a Hypercracker to take the cassette apart (for Shimano cassettes) and carry a couple of spokes for the frnt a a couple for each side of the rear. The Hypercraker works with the wheel in the bike so you don't need a chain whip. You put the Hypercranker in place and remount the wheel, then put the chain by hand into the largets cog in the rear and smallest in front, and pedal. Sometimes by hand will genterate enough force, but if not pedal by one foot while pressing on the front brake and press forward on the handlebars to try and make the bike do a 'burn-out'.
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When you are replacing the broken spoke notice the tension of the other spokes around it and try to tension the spoke like the other ones and you will notice after that the wheel is almost as true as it was before, and from there on only minor adjustments need to be made, and your break pads work just as good as a truing stand in this situation.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Well this is good when you stopped for the day, a quicker way on the road is loosen the two spokes adjasent to the one that broke, the ones that go to the opposite side of the hub. This will get the wheel true enough to get you to where you want to go. Then bother to take the whole bike apart and replace the spoke and true the wheel. You can loosen the spokes in a minute or two, and be on your way. I have done this when touring with the bike loaded with 100+ pounds and rode over fairly rough roads for 50 to 60 miles before getting to where I was going.
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Oh yeah I would find a new bikeshop beacause if it is one you patronize often and they charge you that much money for a job that takes a novice 5 minutes to do on a lonely highway somewhere they are scamming you. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Not really, time is money. Just because one spoke broke doesn't mean all it will take is to replace the spoke. I know that whenever I have done work like this, I take the time to check the whole wheel out, tighten all the spokes if they need it, then true the whole wheel, not just the broken one. I have done this for free for friends, but I made $30 and hour when I was working. so a $15 charge isn't much at all, if you want them to do a good job. If they charge $15 and the wheel needs work after the next ride, THEN find a new shop, they don't know what they are doing.