Originally Posted by madfolder

I was a LBS owner for 25 years, and felt that I had to earn the trust and respect of everyone that came through the door. My pricing was fair, but not cheap. I invested in tools, the correct tools to do virtually anything you could think of. I even had a Phil Wood Spoke threading machine in the event you came in and I did not have the right size and did not charge for that value added service. My shop had a gated kids area complete with a kids picnic table, crayons, coloring books, toys, VCR (yup that long ago) so parents did not have to worry about their kids and I did not have to worry about bikes toppling. I held new owner classes, supported the local club and racing, plus somehow managed to be available for support for EVERY bike event in the area. I also was responsible for creating events that are still going on today, almost 20 years later.


I too went fishing for small parts to help out a customer, and gave used bikes away to those that needed it, or clothing for the young racer that had no family support. This is only a small sampling of what I did behind the scenes, and many other shops do too.

So that $20 charge for the stubborn BB is a gift. They probably would have charged that had it taken 30 minutes, BUT they had the tool (which costs money) and had the knowledge to do it properly. Its easy to whine about cost as we sip a $20 glass of wine or a $5 cup of coffee but here is someone providing a service, while you waited!!


There are plenty of poorly run LBS's just as there are plenty of terrible other businesses. We all have a choice, and I choose to go local as much as possible when I know the backstory, and understand the challenges of running a retail operation.


I'm sure this topic will pop up again, but at least I stated what I wanted to this time.