I had a nice conversation recently with a small shop owner that just opened up his shop in the SF peninsula (Redwood City). Real nice guy, maybe a bit younger than me, but old enough to know all about C&V bikes so we had a real nice time reminiscing about the good stuff back then and he recognized and can described all my C&V bikes when I mentioned to him him their names and models after he asked what I ride....just before I had to leave, he politely asked me what he can help me with, so I asked him if he had any toe clip straps that I can use on my 70's project bike. I wasn't really expecting that he had anything close to what I want (something maybe similar to Bindas), maybe some modern straps from newer makers I never heard of, but I was surprised when he apologized and said that he just can't carry such things in his shop unless he decides to specialize on selling SS or Fixie bikes, because his market niche are modern racers that only have clipless pedals. I then just stat to notice that he only has these uber expensive CF monocoque modern racers on his showroom floor and modern parts that are all current tech. Which kinda tells me that these guys who put up these new LBs's really have to find a particular niche to sell to and the days of the old "all purpose" LBS with all sorts of nice modern and C&V stuff that you might find in their dusty backroom shelves are pretty much going extinct and I was talking to the future of LBS's.

Chombi