First off, I'm sorry to hear you had that experience. Working in a shop it makes me sad when people share things like that.

That is a typical response from the "Big box" shops. I may be biased, as the shop I'm at is a small mom and pop, but they should have placed your son on what would best suit his riding style, how fast he is taking to it, and what he felt best on, not what was more expensive, or based on brand.

We sell giant and fuji as our two big names. We also carry soma, but only keep the cross stuff in stock. we get "incentives" from fuji if we sell there stock, but all of us never push them. If someone likes the giant better, we place them on that. They might get something from Specialized if they sell more of them. Its experiences like yours that make people shop elsewhere, and why we have good business right now. There is a trek, GF, Kona shop in town, and you can't imagine the amount of people come to us talking about the pushy attitude and bad service. People even come to us from across the county and over the state line for our customer based service, not our brands. May even be why the "other" shop is going under.

Are there any other shops you can look in? The trance 2 is a nice ride, we sell a lot of them, but there may be more out there better suited for him. Does he like to go big? Do you think he may want to compete one day?