Originally Posted by grayloon

Over my 59 years, I've dealt with the small shops and large box stores. Frankly, I've never understood the nostalgia some have for those small stores. Many had crappy employee relations, paid poorly, and treated employees as slaves. My experience often was that they were way over priced and some owners were down right rude. Most went out of business because they over charged and did not serve the needs of customers. As for local bike shops, a few are quite good, others need to be dissolved. Many are nothing but part of a chain of stores that provide poor service and no better putting together of bikes than the big box.

I shop where I can get the best deal and/or what I need. Sometimes, that may be Walmart or other big box stores, other times its small locally owned shops. But, in the end, its my pocketbook that matters. Life's too short to worry about big box stores raping the earth. After all, we were ***** by mom and pops for much longer. Frankly, that 15% I save on groceries at the Nieghborhood Market grocery (a Wal-Mart grocery only store) makes a nice jingle in my pocket and is a great help.