A customer dropped off the rear wheel from a Cosmic Pro Carbon (high-end Mavic wheelset).
One of the radially-laced spokes on the non-freewheel side had been replaced with a non-original round spoke—this was a temporary fix we did at the shop back when.
At that time, I looked up the part number for the spare spokes for this wheel's non-freewheel side and gave it to the customer.
I told them to ride gently until we could swap it back to the original spoke,
but they came back saying "I even finished a brevet (long-distance ride) and had no problems at all!"
A few months later, they managed to get the spare spokes in stock and brought the wheel back. We were able to do the repair properly this time.
When they first brought the wheel in, I told the customer:
"Even if the spare spokes come in the manufacturer's bulk packaging unit, I'll buy the rest myself, so just go ahead and order them."
But the shameless Wise Road (major Japanese bike chain) did exactly that,
so we ended up buying the remaining spokes from them.
I thought the spare spokes came in packs of 10, but it turned out to be 20 per pack.
Either way, it's clear this quantity isn't meant for end users.
While the manufacturer's shipping unit being 20 spokes per bag is unavoidable,
it should be the job of distributors or bike shops to break that down into smaller quantities.
But neither wants to carry the inventory or management risk,
so it gets passed on to the customer instead.
I've written before that "Mavic's distributors should tell shops to stop selling spokes in bulk,"
but if they did that, shops would obviously respond with
"Then the distributor should break them down and sell smaller quantities."
So the distributors just tacitly accept forcing customers to buy at the bag level.
With Mavic wheels, setting aside the wheel performance itself,
when they switched to thru-axles, they replaced the FTS-L freebody (which had bearing compatibility issues)
with the Instant Drive 360 freebody,
which has an abnormal maintenance frequency
(officially specified: apply proprietary grease to the ratchet surface every 1000km),
and from what I know, nearly every shop forces customers
to buy spare parts in the manufacturer's bulk units—
it might be going too far to say I don't understand why anyone would buy one,
but I can't really recommend them.
One of the radially-laced spokes on the non-freewheel side had been replaced with a non-original round spoke—this was a temporary fix we did at the shop back when.
At that time, I looked up the part number for the spare spokes for this wheel's non-freewheel side and gave it to the customer.
I told them to ride gently until we could swap it back to the original spoke,
but they came back saying "I even finished a brevet (long-distance ride) and had no problems at all!"
A few months later, they managed to get the spare spokes in stock and brought the wheel back. We were able to do the repair properly this time.
When they first brought the wheel in, I told the customer:
"Even if the spare spokes come in the manufacturer's bulk packaging unit, I'll buy the rest myself, so just go ahead and order them."
But the shameless Wise Road (major Japanese bike chain) did exactly that,
so we ended up buying the remaining spokes from them.
I thought the spare spokes came in packs of 10, but it turned out to be 20 per pack.
Either way, it's clear this quantity isn't meant for end users.
While the manufacturer's shipping unit being 20 spokes per bag is unavoidable,
it should be the job of distributors or bike shops to break that down into smaller quantities.
But neither wants to carry the inventory or management risk,
so it gets passed on to the customer instead.
I've written before that "Mavic's distributors should tell shops to stop selling spokes in bulk,"
but if they did that, shops would obviously respond with
"Then the distributor should break them down and sell smaller quantities."
So the distributors just tacitly accept forcing customers to buy at the bag level.
With Mavic wheels, setting aside the wheel performance itself,
when they switched to thru-axles, they replaced the FTS-L freebody (which had bearing compatibility issues)
with the Instant Drive 360 freebody,
which has an abnormal maintenance frequency
(officially specified: apply proprietary grease to the ratchet surface every 1000km),
and from what I know, nearly every shop forces customers
to buy spare parts in the manufacturer's bulk units—
but I can't really recommend them.