without derailling the thread, let me just say....

what many people may not understand is, a bike shop has heating, water, salaries, internet, phone, and other expenses they must pay to keep going and keep providing the knowledge and experience to people who need it. yes, you can always get things online cheaper, which is great if you are going to do all the work yourself and don't care about supporting local small business. some people act like bike shop prices are arbitrarily made up, and they charge whatever they feel like, which isn't true. a bike shop must figure out the line between making enough money to stay in business and charging so much no one will pay.

back to the original thread. as i stated, you can ALWAYS ask if there is a discount, but if you don't get one, you shouldn't get angry and threaten "i'll take my business elsewhere" because that makes you a blackmailer, and when people say that, we don't want them as customers anyway. do that enough times and you have nowhere to shop.