THE SITUATION: I have a 2022 Trek Domane AL3. Aluminum wheels. I broke a spoke early this season on the back wheel. I'm not too heavy; 175 lbs. I thought maybe hitting those rough tracks after just popping the front wheel up, so that the rear slams into it might've caused it. This past Wednesday, I was riding along on smooth pavement, and I heard a PING. I looked down and the wheel was wobbly. A block later, I heard another one go: PING! I aborted the ride and limped back. I dropped the wheel off at the shop the next day. They said after 3 broken spokes, they recommend doing something besides just replacing spokes, as there are probably a bunch of others waiting to go as well. They suggested buying a new wheel or taking the wheel apart and completely re-lacing it with new spokes:

• Bontrager wheel: $300 YIKES. That's a lot of money to put into an aluminum wheel on a 4 year-old $1600 bike.
• "Bontrager Approved" wheel: $160. OK, that's not as bad.
• Labor to re-lace a wheel: $90 + spoke cost.
• Trek carbon rear wheel: $600. Yikes again. A pair of those is worth as much as the whole rest of the bike.
• Zipp wheels are even more.

The other thing I thought of was that maybe this is the motivation I need to learn to work on wheels? I have spoke wrenches and I think the right socket to remove the cassette from the hub. The thing is that it doesn't sound like fun, and I think I'd rather spend my free time riding. My only other road bike is my single speed. However, that would run the cost right down on re-lacing the current wheel.

Side question: Am I right to assume this wouldn't be happening with carbon wheels? It's something to keep in mind for the eventual replacement of this bike. I've heard that carbon wheels don't really go out of true, but it seems like it could be BS.