Performance is hit or miss. One of my friends swears by the mechanics at one of the local Performance and he always takes his bikes (bought elsewhere) to Performance over any of the dozens of LBS around. But obviously it depends on the particular mechanics at the shop just like any LBS. But I do think you'll get more responsiveness to make things right at Performance or REI than you will at a lot of LBS. Another friend spent $150 to have an LBS build up a bike for him. When he got it back the RD was basically unshiftable. They held it for 3 days to fix it and talked sh@t about him as he was leaving after picking it up as it was somehow his fault and how he doesn't know anything about bikes. I would rather deal with Performance than that kind of arrogant nonsense that goes on at most LBS