Always sad to see a local shop go under, no matter the business. When I got back into biking after a 30+ year break I bought a cheap bike from Wallyworld. After a few weeks I realized I needed to upgrade so went to only LBS and they had a used mountain/hybrid pretty cheap, then realizing that I had only had the other bike 29 days I cleaned it up and took it back to Wally for a refund. I wouldn't have done that with a LBS but didn't mind taking it back to Wally since no one there cares about the place anyway. A year later I wanted to upgrade to more of a casual road/touring bike but LBS had no interest in talking with a guy with grey hair that wasn't a triathlete. Looked around online but really wanted something from a LBS. Finally drove 7 hours to see my nephew, who manages a nice LBS out of my town, and bought two brand new bikes (one for me and one for my adult daughter, by biking buddy). Went back to our own LBS to see about some service and adding some options, pretty much told me that if I didn't buy it from them then they really didn't have time to work on it. Went online to buy what I needed, including some tools and downloaded some maintenance books. My closest option now for a LBS is a really nice guy about 90 miles away, a long way to go to just drop in.

Maybe now that I am retiring I will open a small LBS for the "rest of us" that don't want to race. Just a place for some maintenance, good coffee, and fellowship. . . hmmmm?