Then why, pray tell, do bike shops lose so much market share every year? How do bike shops hope to survive if ppl can get nice parts online, or get cheap/free service at co-ops?** The price-gouging business model has buried plenty of shops already; it's going to get harder and harder to make that work as time goes on.

-rob

**Before you start in on how co-ops produce some terrible hack-jobs (and, admittedly, co-op repairs can be pretty abysmal), try to recall some of the LBS repair horror stories that have been recounted here and elsewhere.... Shops are far from infallible.