For me, I've only had about an handful of really positive experiences with local bike shops. Most of the time I'm left wondering, what exactly did I just pay for? I guess my feeling is, if anyone is going to take days, weeks, months to get around to fixing my bike and then finally botch the job, then have to do it all over again (the right way), it might as well at least be me.

That being said, I am my own LBS. I order my own parts, I diagnose problems and replace/repair components myself, but most importantly I stay educated and current and I read the manuals. That way, when I take a fork in to have the alloy steerer tube cut down a few millimeters I won't discover a week later that some idiot sliced through the middle of my star nut (true story--happened many years ago and I swore it was the last time I'd ever take my bike to a local bike shop). At least around here, it seems like any nutcase can get a job wrenching on bikes. So you have either a bunch of teenagers running the shop who have no idea what they're doing or you have a bunch of curmudgeonly old men doing the wrenching who stopped paying attention to technology after the advent of the square taper bottom bracket.

Long story short, I've never been super thrilled by any local bike shop experience.