I did a 24 mile loop on my homebound commute, and the rain caught up with me, but by then I was kinda sweaty so it was good. 3 miles from home, I'm cruising down a "hill" (quarter mile long little pimple in the prairie terrain) and a hokey spoke (a big light that attaches to two spokes and sits between them), which had been occasionally clicking, does something noisier and bam! the whole mess is loose and banging around and I'm in danger of being hurled to the ground. I brake sorta hard (I'm incapable of slamming on the brakes... too much winter driving!) and now I'm fishtailing!
I was still mentally trying to decide whether that imbalance was because of the spoke thing or something else, when I realized that a: it was your basic "brake on slimy wet pavement and you're going to skid" and b: I had already moved hips, feet and hands and, without the usual necessary painstaking verbal instruction from the brain, steered out of it *and* braked some more.
I'm limping it forward the 100 feet on this skinny road to a little chunk of gravel so I can take that spoke off, watching like a hawk and yea, here comes a truck... he slows... "Do you want a ride?" ... and his badge says Urbana Police. Alas, I turned him down on the grounds that it was just a broken spoke and I was just a mile out (only a slight fib)... now I'm thinking I should have taken him up on it becuase a: I might have been able to advocate (yes, I'm an almost normal commuter person and it's normal to ride a bike!)... and b: I still had to limp the bike in 'cause one spoke short (and with one hokeyspoke weighing down one side) the front tire had visible (tho' not severe) wobble. OTOH, it would have been a significant bunbite to get my creature into his truck and I was really wet and sweaty and gritty.
So now I switched off wheels with my trek, have the wheel in back to take to the bike shop (because I'm still a Klutz and have some questions about taking it on GITAP):