Originally Posted by
positron
fix it yourself for a dollar or so.
make a "z-bend" spoke, or use a fiberfix spoke.
not fixing it is probably fine, until your whole wheel goes to $h1t, and instead of the price of a spoke, its 32-36 times more expensive plus the cost of a wheelbuild...
There's no mechanical reason for the whole wheel to fail in the near future.
If you don't correct the wheel true the components are under less stress than they were before and will survive at least as many fatigue cycles unless you collapse the wheel which is easier now that it has less lateral support where the spoke is missing.
If you correct via decreased tension and live with the radial run-out (it takes more radial run-out to be noticeable as a bump than lateral run-out to cause brake rub) you'll have the same situation.
If you tighten spokes to correct it the increased tension may (rear drive side) or may not (rear non-drive side, front wheel built to less tension than it will take) appreciably decrease the number of fatigue cycles (at 750 a mile) the rim spoke bed survives although in the later case it'll be thousands of miles.
If more spokes fail it's because the fatigue life in cycles is a function of average stress (parts of the elbows in machine built wheels were never taken past their elastic limit and therefore won't survive many cycles) and magnitude of the cycle (which generally comes from your weight as the spokes unload passing the bottom of the wheel although in under-tensioned rear wheels you can have some flexing of the non-drive side spokes) and since all the spokes in a group (rear drive side, rear non-drive side, front) have lived through the same conditions they should be failing about the same time. They'll be failing whether or not you fix the problem sooner.