My favorite bike shop is starting to look like it will end in a few years. The owner has dramatically reduced his bike stock and is having trouble determining what his niche is. There's a bike big-box store that came to town two years ago plus a Trek dealer and a Specialized dealer that grab many/most of the name-brand mid-high end folks. His shop has the best mechanic in town, but doesn't have a large inventory of parts so there is always a wait. I send as many people there as I can, but in a city that has lost 37% of its cycling community over the past six years there are fewer and fewer folks to send in.

I'm really going to hate having to do everything over the internet. I enjoy going into a shop and having the staff and owner know me. I like buying them lunch every so often. I even like ordering parts from them that I could get cheaper and faster on the internet because sometimes they have ideas about what I should do that are better than what had occurred to me. These shops are a part of what has made cycling fun for me over the decades. It's always sad to lose a good one.