Quarqs are regularly on sale at Competitive Cyclist/Backcountry. I don't think it's rude - I've done it many times. They're making money on the labor.

thanks. I just went to backcountry since they are having sale, but they said quarq's are excluded..i'll keep looking

I bought my Quarq from the bicycle doctor.....awesome price and super easy to deal with. My LBS only charged me 20$ to put it on.

Install it yourself.

trisports.com sells quarq if your interested!

It says invalid code

Some shops would consider it "rude." Not a very good way to maintain customers giving you flak over it but that's the mentality some shops still have. There are other shops who are just happy to help you and earn whatever business you bring them.

Personally I'd recommend installing yourself if you buy online. To me buying it online means I want to save money. If I want to save money I'm not going to pay someone else to install a part I can install myself. That's just me though. I started out cycling not knowing how to change a flat tire and over the years when I needed to do something on my bike, I looked it up and learned how to do it. years later I can do a lot of my own bike maintenance and repair.

Another vote for installing it yourself. I swap my quarq between my road and tri bike at least once a week. Assuming you have BB compatability issues sorted out, it takes one hex key and about a minute to install.

Just FYI, I'd recommend changing out that crank bolt maybe once a year or so. It's cheap. Because they do wear. And you can end up with a crank arm dangling in the air off your cleat in the middle of a race. Talking about a friend.

I'd just add that in terms of handing maintenance and repair of the Quarq itself, it can all be done yourself. Some things that I do through the LBS are things where they can handle the warranty more easily than I can. E.g. bike frames. But with the Quarq they email you a shipping label, etc. No need for a middle man like an LBS.

http://www.starbike.com/ has some pretty good deals right now.

my LBS is fairly understanding of this. For instance, I ordered a bunch of Tririg stuff and had them install it. They would have ordered it from the same place I did - TR. So me buying it and bringing it in, probably just saved them time figuring it out. When we needed to replace chain/cassette etc, i just let them order through their suppliers.
They have been fairly transparent in that- most of the stuff that I would ask for is specialty and they dont carry it anyways.
But me bringing it in for them to install - gives them a chance to play with some cool tech etc.

Plus I get to build a relationship with the LBS and the guys there because they are awesome, and they have saved my butt a few times with last minute fixes or even saves when i ran out of hydration/etc

Just as an aside - I have a very close local bike shop (non-national chain) that carries like 20 Cervelo bikes at any point and an entire stable of additional racing bikes, in-shop.

I went in to buy stuff to support them (I didn't get my Cervelo from them), and in-person, asked:

- Do you have a Shimano 105 groupset I can buy? No.

- Do you have a Shimano tiagra groupset I can buy? Nope. Gotta order that too.

- Do you have aerobars & basebar that I could replace my current ones with? Nope, only the bare-bones one, and we have to order anything else.

- Do you have the Park tool kit for internal cable routing? Nope.

- Any 31.8mm handlebars? Only a really expensive carbon one.

- How about rim tape for my 6-year old daughter's bike that needs it? Actually, YES, we've got it!

Thanks. Then i went home and ordered all that stuff online. I'm not saying that it's a bad bike shop (it's actually a good one!) but they just don't have the space to carry all the stuff we racers need. (Ok, I was a little surprised that they couldn't sell me a 105 or tiagra groupset.)