Originally Posted by shepdave

Thanks. This is part of what I was trying to say.

After riding a recreational road bike for 16 years, I wanted to find a commuter-style town bike. I spend time in Europe every summer, and I wanted good, European-style basic transportation. I came back from Europe this summer to see that gasoline cost about $4.25 in the DC area. Who needs that?

Most shops in my area looked at me as if I was from Mars when I described what I wanted. One LBS, which used to carry Breezers, has moved into recumbents and "special-needs" bikes. The rest thought I meant either a mountain bike or a drop-bar bike for long touring. They had no concept of local transportation for errands on a bike.

Only in one shop did I see a decent town bike with fenders, rack, chain guard, comfort geometry (the Schwinn World Avenue 1). That shop happened to be Performance.

They had what I wanted, and so I bought it there.

In all fairness to hosehead, though, at the end of his post he does point out that the LBS experience can be just as negative as the corporate-chain experience.