I've seen wheels on Craigslist with mostly Z-Bend spokes, so it should be secure enough, but yes, I would think it is temporary.

I wonder if for touring, one could just carry a few extra long nipples, then if the J-bend breaks, put in a quick Z-Bend, and add a long nipple. Of course, that would mean removing the tire and rim tape and truing the wheel.

As far as commuting. I have 32 or 36 spoke wheels, and if I break a spoke, I can generally make it the 10 to 20 miles home, sometimes loosening the brakes.

My experience has been that, when a broken spoke is replaced and tightened up, the wheel is almost always 99% true. I have pretty low standards when it comes to truing my own wheels, though.

I saw a touring bike once, I forget which kind, that had little clips/brazeons on the non-drive-side chainstay to carry spare spokes. If you thought real hard, you might be able to do a similar kind of thing on a regular bike with duct tape. Cork in the seatpost seems like a good idea though, not so fugly.

I ride MAVIC Ksyriums and the only way to get extra spokes is if you are the president of France...

For commuting? How far do you commute??

Three miles each way, but I do longer rides as well.

I built my bike up as a "fast hybrid"; quality components on a nice road frame:

If I thought there was ANY likelihood or breaking a spoke on a daily commute, I'd replace the wheels. Wheels can and do go thousands and even 10s of thousands of miles without breaking spokes.

So while carrying spare spokes might make sense for an extended multi-day tour, especially where services are minimal, it doesn't make sense for anything shorter, including long day or weekend rides. You might carry a spoke wrench so you can do some corrective truing, just in case, but I don't bother with that either.

I've been trusting my wheels for almost 50 years and they've never let me down.

Yeah, I've never broken a spoke either...

I guess the 10 grams extra weight would be a downside to carrying a couple of spares plus another 10 for the corks ...

I have broken spokes, but in three different scenarios - (1) a wheel built by someone who is respected as a wheel builder but I always thought built with too little tension for big riders, and on wheels that I have built including higher tension than I generally see from other builders has pretty much ended my broken spoke days, except for when (2) I had a junk bike taken from a dumpster, and all I did was pump the tires and oil the chain; condition and build quality of wheels unknown. (3) And, a bent derailleur hanger allowed my chain to get behind the cassette and chew up the spokes next to the elbow on a wheel I built for my mtb - at first I was heartbroken, thinking my wheel build was not as good as I thought, then remembered the months previous chain-behind-the-cassette problem and lo! found the spoke was broken right in the middle of the biggest gouge.

But my current wheels, built ~10 years ago have many thousands of kms on them, some on pavement, but many on rough gravel and dirt roads and trails, have not broken a spoke. Two frames have reached the end of their lives (cracked) while using these wheels, but I slapped them onto the most recent replacement frame and have not had a problem yet.

Same here. I've never broken a spoke in town... even when commuting with a heavy load. But I have broken spokes on tours... and I carry spares for just that reason.

I do keep spare spokes at home... but I throw them all into the same spoke box... and I have so many bikes here that the spokes sorta all just get mixed up.

One thing I do carry all the time is duct tape. It just comes in handy. I still use frame pumps, so I just put several wraps of duct tape around the frame pump... and then don't worry about it.

I make up a couple z bend spokes when lacing the wheels......zip tied to the rack.....I don't want to mess with my saddle to fix my wheel.