My experience with REI has been excellent.

An example: I'm on my second Sierra Designs Lightning 2 tent. I had my first one for a little over 5 years when one of the carbon fiber poles split. It was a great light weight 3-season tent that had seen hard use snow camping, bike touring , and backpacking. I brought the pole into REI and asked if they had a replacement pole I could buy. After checking, the sales person found that Sierra Designs had changed their poles for that tent to aluminum on the newer models. While not as light a the carbon fiber poles they solved the splitting problem with light weight aluminum poles. He also said that they did not have any replacement poles in their catalog, but would see if he could find a set. After a fruitless search, he asked if I had the rest of the tent with me, which I did. When I returned with the old tent after retrieving it from my truck, there was a brand new Sierra Designs Lightning 2 tent sitting on the counter. That is the kind of service that I have always received at REI, but what came next really surprised me. He looked up my old purchase in their computer system to verify that I had indeed purchased it at REI and found out that when I purchased the tent 5 years earlier I had paid full price for it. He then told me they were on sale at this time and handed me a $75 cash voucher.

Bottom line-- I walked out of the store with a new tent, $75 in cash, and I got to keep the $30 I received as a dividend for the purchase of the original tent 5 years ago! Do they have a loyal customer- you bet!

Our REI stores are located in "biking towns" , and have pretty good mechanics.

Having said all that-- saving money on an ill-fitting bike is not a very good investment.