I'm not one to tell someone how they "should" run their business, but here's a collection of LBS experiences over the years (at various shops) that has trained me to buy almost exclusively online:

• Being out of standard sized road or mtb tubes, and trying to upsell me the twice-as-expensive "race" version. This has happened several times.
• Stocking two dozen pairs of arm warmers...but not one in size small. I didn't care the color, brand or price...just wanted to keep my arms warm.
• Opening later than 7:30 a.m. and/or closing earlier than 6 p.m.
• Being closed on Sunday.
• Refusal to schedule an easy maintenance appointment in advance (ie: "Can I make an appointment next Tuesday at 11:00 for you to install a new cassette and have it finished by 12:00?" LBS: "No, we only do first-come first served, if you drop it off then we can have it done by Thursday morning.") My response, over the years, was to buy all the tools I needed (online) and teach myself maintenance.

I don't even care much about price/variety anymore...I order online because I can do it at a time convenient to me, and have it delivered to my door 1-3 days later.

In other words...just getting to the LBS when they're open, without knowing if they'll have in stock the item they "normally" carry, is just too much of a hassle. So even if they said they stocked the entire Performance Bike catalog...I'd still just order online from Performance Bike.

A retail shop? open before 730? AM?

Keep dreaming.

I agree about the "Learning bike maintenance" thing, every bloody knuckle I've gotten over the years has been worth it in independence and time saved.

My personal item: Every store should have it's own brand of coffee and/or beer. And every shop should have a mascot, preferably kittehs.

Plenty of nutrition and normal stuff (like gu, stinger, etc) not just super expensive stuff
Cleats and other consumables in stock

what consumables? give me a list. specifically.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

pedal cleats
latex tubes with removable valve cores
butyl tubes with removable valve cores
stan's yellow tape- rolls only, not tubeless kits.
race tires
selection of chamois creams

those are the big ones for an LBS

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"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

x2 on latex tubes. Removable core or not, just carry them.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

This is one of those things that you can't predict when you will need, and when you don't have it, you can't ride. Of course you can always use a butyl in a pinch, and they can always order them for you. I don't mind my LBS being short stocked, as long as they are happy to bend over backwards to order things for me, I will be happy to bend over backwards to buy from them.

-Spare Cables and Housing shift/brake
-Bar Tape
-Latex tubes
-Any proprietary parts for the bike brands that they sell. (i.e. taller/shorter seat mast caps for trek domane/madone if you sell treks)

• latex tubes.
• fast tires. even if they only stock 2 of the top 3 or 4 tires would be enough.
• chain lube. I use Dumonde Tech Lite. I currently get it at REI.
• Bar tape.
• Demo saddles that I can test out.
• Shift and brake cable housing in bulk. Pay per foot.
• Shift and brake cables.
• A kiosk of various Park tools.
• Jerseys / BIBs / shorts & other cycling clothing that isn't ridiculously overpriced.
• Some nutrition stuff. Maybe pick one brand, and stock most of their products.

All of the above, price-matched to amazon.com + shipping fee.

Small Stuff that wears out and I'd need immediately
Tubes, cleats, cables, cheap emergency tires, patch kits, shoe parts

I think selection is a big factor for me. That being said however, the longer I am in the sport the more willing I am to pay for a higher end product, versus when I was a newbie and I just wanted to get in cheap without knowing any better. In my experience of hanging around my LBS, a good majority of the customers complain about a $60 Bontrager bike short. I think the fear of the bike shop owner is that if they stocked a Desoto short, nobody would purchase due to the price. Without this demand for a better product to force the shop owner to stock it, I am forced to shop online for certain products (mainly shorts, jerseys, and shoes).

IMO, the shops that I frequent do a good job of trying to educate their customers why they should consider a higher end product, but either the majority can't afford or are unwilling to spend more on these products. In response to the person who said their LBS won't fit them into their repair schedule, from what I have witnessed/experienced, if you shop their frequently and are a loyal customer, they will remember that and bend over backwards for you. If you show up sporadically you get in line and wait. I do agree that working on your bike is a huge benefit though. I don't see how a bike shop opening later than 7:30 is more of an inconvenience than waiting 2-3 days for your product to arrive from shopping online though.

"Demo saddles that I can test out... price-matched to amazon.com + shipping fee."

help me out here, because i can't find it. can you tell me what the amazon price is for the specialized sitero saddle? so that your LBS can match it?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

It would be great to see the LBS carry:

• More tri/aero specific accessories
• A variety of nutrition gels, snacks, etc.
• Some less expensive tires, tubes, components, etc. for those that don't need/want high-end

While not something they can carry, staying open past 6pm and open on Sundays, even on limited hours, would make a difference in where I shop.

I keep all the consumables (tires, tubes, lube, etc) in supply before I used the last one. I don't expect the shop to carry every part for me. That just seems unreasonable, but I'll echo what another said about scheduling service. It would be immensely helpful to get slotted in at some future point to bring the bike, get it serviced and leave with it about an hour later. I'm not talking about having a group installed or something -- just minor things. I can think of some reasons why that doesn't work well for the shop, but it would be a competitive advantage.

The situation makes me think similar to clothes alteration. There are some standard tailors who want you to drop off the stuff and come back next week, but some clever immigrant tailoring shops have gone to making alterations while you wait. They are putting the nail in the coffin of the traditional tailors.

 
>help me out here, because i can't find it. can you tell me what the amazon price is for the specialized sitero saddle? so that your LBS can match it?

Also, even for, say, the Adamo saddle which *is* listed on Amazon, there is no single "Amazon price." Amazon itself won't be troubled to stock such, er, specialized product, so all the Adamo saddles are listings by a range of 3rd party vendors, with a corresponding (wide) range of price and shipping costs.

> Of course you can always use a butyl in a pinch

Oh the HUMANITY!

When it comes to nutrition, it would help if they carry a wide variety of the "sample sizes". I don't want to purchase a $45 tub of something only to find it messes with my stomach, or tastes bad.

Just a list of the last few things I went to get from my LBS (several different stores in fact) to get but they didn't have:

- latex tubes (was told at one shop that they didn't stock them because they're no better than butyl)
- any tubes with valve longer than 60mm
- valve extenders
- Park green spanner wrench for cup/cone bottom bracket
- 14/15/16 mm cone wrenches
- DeSoto 400mile bibs

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@davempratt

I know you're talking about products, but I have a service request: fit adjustment. Most places have a full-up fit which costs ~$150-$250, and then an optional follow-up session. That's it.

I've done my road & TT fits. I know my numbers. But I'm a tweaker. So I spend a lot of time adjusting my bars, swapping stuff in and out. Stuff that could be done more efficiently with tools such as the Guru fit bike or Retul system. I'd like to be able to buy open-ended fitting services in like 30-minute increments, so I don't have to spend 2 hours hopping on and off my bike with allen wrenches and measuring tape scattered everywhere. At my shop I sometimes ask if I can hop on their Guru setup when there are no customers in the shop, and they won't say no, but I'm getting race-team treatment, and I don't think they'd be so generous to most customers. Maybe the fit time becomes free or deeply discounted if it results in product purchase (e.g. Sitero).

As others mentioned, hours are #1 (and 2 and 3). Stay open til at least 7pm, and be open all weekend. During the week, you can open at 4pm for all I care. It's nights and weekends, or else I go online.

And I love the scheduled appointment idea- such a pain to have to go back and forth to the shop, better to do it all in one trip, plus you get the customer browsing your store for an hour.

remember that amazon.com has implausibly low profit margins.. they are riding a stockmarket bubble to market domination by undercutting everyone, until everyone else is out of business.. it's not fair to expect your LBS to match Amazon's price..

"Amazon sells things to people at prices that seem impossible because it actually is impossible to make money that way."

Water bottles.

Sounds strange, I know. Ahead of a stage race last weekend I went out to buy a new set of large (24oz) water bottles. Been using the Specialized 'little big mouth' style for years. My normal LBS only stocks bottles with crappy leaky tops. No dice.

Went to another shop: only small bottles
Went to another shop: only crappy leaky tops
Went to another shop (Specialized dealer): only Purist/Hydroflow bottles (I'm not a fan of the hyrdoflow caps)

4 shops and not one of them had what I would consider a 'normal' bottle. Ended up picking up a pair of camelback bottles, one of which I lost to a feed zone. Since when do bottles cost $9 anyway??

I have 3 local shops and 2 Performance Bike retail stores in the area. I am 5' 5" tall and 120 to 130 lbs. In every brand I have tried, I am a men's size small. It is impossible to find more than 1 or 2 pieces of size small clothing stocked. I realize that the population is trending larger but I can't believe that the section represented by active bikers or triathletes is this biased toward the large side. At group rides, even though I am one of the shortest there, it seems more people are closer to my size than to the XXL end.

Also, when I stated racing 10 years ago, I was between a S or M race shirt, whereas today some of the size S are almost too big - and yes it is the clothes changing, not me.

So, we have size drift to where a Medium does not fit like it used to, and shops stocking very few smaller sizes. For me, at least this has led to a situation where I purchase almost all of my clothing online.