Originally Posted by
Eyes Roll
FYI, about an year ago, I took the bike wheel from my other more recent bike and purchased a couple of spokes from the first LBS. Actually, I needed only 1 spoke then, but I kept the second one, as a spare. I did the same thing and took the entire bike wheel to the same LBS today, without a success. I did not have to remove a good spoke from the bike wheel, and take it to the LBS, then.
Actually, it's a rear wheel, with a cassette. I removed the cassette by myself, without a fuss and without a specific cassette removal tool.
By the way, this is my first time removing a cassette of a bike rear wheel. I thought I would need a special cassette removal tool and was planning to buy one, but I did not need it.
Your cassette lockring must not have been nearly tight enough if you got it off with channel locks or something.
As far as $30 go, that sounds normal. Bike shops don't just put new spokes in, they assume that a wheel that broke spokes probably doesn't still have balanced tension - if it ever did. So they are going to spend $20 on truing labor plus spokes, nipples and tax to equal $30. For expert work that is a fair price.