LBS? what's that? My most 'local' stores are at least ten miles away. One deals with liberal-arts college kids on fixies, and the others are 'chain' stores that look at me like I'm from Jupiter for 1- being over 40, 2- no tats or piercings, 3- riding a steel lugged frame with 27" wheels (and I have several of those ) 4- I don't ride in Spandex 5- They knew nothing of any of the many local charity rides in the area -- even though their shop chain is a sponsor of one of them! Not even any info on the local rides either. 6- absolutely nothing I wanted was in stock. Their whole attitude was "Why don't you come over here and look at our latest CF Uber-bike" -- with a list price of more than I've paid for several cars!

The 'local' co-op is 30 miles away, and only has retail hours one afternoon/week. Well, that's real convenient to a working guy... and their prices are outrageous, to boot! $250-up for a used cro-mo frame ten-speed frankenbike.

Even some of the resale shops have prices based on fantasy. Just because it has the right brand name does NOT mean it is 'well worth $300'

And they wonder why I buy my parts online... Seriously, I tried to support my local shops, but they want nothing to do with 'my kind'...