A customer dropped off the rear wheel from a Racing 3 (a classic Japanese racing bike model) with us.
The spoke had broken at the neck
（not from a crash, accident, kickstand, derailleur catch, or metal spoke wrench damage — just pure spoke neck failure）,
but I'd already fixed it.
↑the replaced spoke
Since this alone doesn't really make for interesting blog material,
I didn't bother taking photos initially,
but the customer came from north of our shop — not terribly far, but far enough —
and had already taken the wheel to Uemura Parts and Wise Road first.
At Uemura Parts, a spoke costs around 3,000 yen,
and with labor it'd come to about 7,000 yen total,
but they said they didn't have the spoke in stock.
The 3,000 yen spoke price isn't made up —
that's the listed retail price for a box of four spokes,
so basically they're saying they'd do it if the customer bought the whole box outright
without leaving inventory sitting in the shop.
At Wise Road, they quoted around 10,000 yen including parts
（of course, no spoke stock）.
As for that quote,
whether it was 800 yen per spoke + 9,000 yen labor,
or 3,200 yen for four spokes + 7,000 yen labor,
the breakdown wasn't clear.
If this had been a close friend,
I honestly might've offered to pay just to see what kind of repair
costs ten thousand yen to replace one spoke,
and asked them to go get it done at Wise Road.
After adjusting the spoke nipple alone on the replacement spoke,
once the largest lateral runout point stopped being directly below the broken spoke —
essentially back to the state right before the spoke neck failure —
I lightly adjusted the nipple at two spots and got the runout nearly flat without moving the wheel center,
and only then did I check with a centering gauge, finding the rim slightly offset to the right.
I showed this to the customer and explained it was probably less about original misalignment
and more about wear and play from years of use,
then I did a proper center adjustment.
I also tightened the right locknut that had come loose
and adjusted the hub bearing preload which had some play.
The total charge was one spoke（we do sell singles）plus labor: 2,670 yen.
The spoke had broken at the neck
（not from a crash, accident, kickstand, derailleur catch, or metal spoke wrench damage — just pure spoke neck failure）,
but I'd already fixed it.
↑the replaced spoke
Since this alone doesn't really make for interesting blog material,
I didn't bother taking photos initially,
but the customer came from north of our shop — not terribly far, but far enough —
and had already taken the wheel to Uemura Parts and Wise Road first.
At Uemura Parts, a spoke costs around 3,000 yen,
and with labor it'd come to about 7,000 yen total,
but they said they didn't have the spoke in stock.
The 3,000 yen spoke price isn't made up —
that's the listed retail price for a box of four spokes,
so basically they're saying they'd do it if the customer bought the whole box outright
without leaving inventory sitting in the shop.
At Wise Road, they quoted around 10,000 yen including parts
（of course, no spoke stock）.
As for that quote,
whether it was 800 yen per spoke + 9,000 yen labor,
or 3,200 yen for four spokes + 7,000 yen labor,
the breakdown wasn't clear.
If this had been a close friend,
I honestly might've offered to pay just to see what kind of repair
costs ten thousand yen to replace one spoke,
and asked them to go get it done at Wise Road.
After adjusting the spoke nipple alone on the replacement spoke,
once the largest lateral runout point stopped being directly below the broken spoke —
essentially back to the state right before the spoke neck failure —
I lightly adjusted the nipple at two spots and got the runout nearly flat without moving the wheel center,
and only then did I check with a centering gauge, finding the rim slightly offset to the right.
I showed this to the customer and explained it was probably less about original misalignment
and more about wear and play from years of use,
then I did a proper center adjustment.
I also tightened the right locknut that had come loose
and adjusted the hub bearing preload which had some play.
The total charge was one spoke（we do sell singles）plus labor: 2,670 yen.