It's only failing businesses who blame their failures on their customers. Have any of you ever watched "Kitchen Nightmares" with Gordon Ramsay? Most often the restaurant owners say "We need more customers" or "We just don't have the customers" or "The customers don't come in anymore." when in reality it's their awful food and service that drives customers away.

Provide good service, and people will advertise for you. Provide bad service, and people will actively drive other people away. People can't claim that the bike industry is going downhill. It's simply not true. In the last 2 years our coop has doubled in size and doubled in the number of customers that we service. We may not always do things perfectly. There are certainly "mechanics" here who don't really know what they are doing, but there are enough of us here that DO know what we're doing that people keep coming back and recommending us to other people.

There have been times where I've failed to fix things. Twice in recent memory. Both times have been with hydraulic disc brakes. Both times I bled them according to the manual and both times it didn't work. I said "I'm sorry, I don't have the experience to fix this, I'd take it to so and so bike shop and they should be able to fix it for you." And then I didn't charge them. I'm not perfect, and I will certainly admit when I'm in over my head.