Originally Posted by Trakhak

TPL's is a preserved-in-amber echo of what many of us felt who worked in bike shops in the 1980s. His remarks reminded me of the time that Kozo Shimano, then an undergrad at Johns Hopkins University, stopped by the bike shop and asked for my thoughts on the company's products and on their approach to the bike market. I proceeded to lecture him at length, explaining that shops like ours greatly preferred servicing bikes with Campy and Suntour components because they kept the same products in their lines year after year, so stocking parts was a cinch.

Some of the nuances of what I had had to say must have got lost between Baltimore and Osaka, since it appears that they did not take my advice fully to heart.