No need to name names or go into detail, just curious.

nobody should pay full price for anything... ever...

make lots of friends in a great community of cyclists...lots of trading,upgrading,and bro-deals.

or just get a bikeshop job

Or volunteer at a co-op.

Or buy your stuff online. I swear I bought my last $10 tube

I work at a shop which means I get everything at or below cost, but i make comparatively very little money so it kind of pans out. It's the perks that count.

All about the perks.
I make crap at the shop at which I work.

+1
I don't work there anymore, but they agreed to let me keep my shop discounts. booyea.

I work at a shop, but I can't get stuff at cost. :/

I do get paid well, however.

Yeah. I've considered asking my favorite LBS if they could use some weekend help. I could use a few extra bucks and gettin' stuff at cost. I still get the "depends on who's working" deals sometimes. Most of the stuff I buy is used anyway though, so it's already cheap and pretty easy to knock a few bucks off of.

Or find a bikeshop that shut down but didn't get rid of a lot of older stuff and make friends with the guys hired to clean the place out and fill a Honda Civic 4 door with as many bikes/parts that you can over 2 days. (Yes, it happened to me.) Or frequent a shop long enough and they'll discount parts for you whenever you buy.

I'm not going to answer the poll because there are a few categories missing. First of all, unless something's on sale, I pay full price and I don't complain. Even if I did have a bike shop "connection" it would be unethical for me to take adavantage of that person unless they were a close friend and they owned the shop. At that, I would consider any special treatment gifts and feel obligated to repay them in kind somehow.

The other category missing simply "sources" of bike parts. For example, I know a guy who builds odd machines out of junk bikes for a science center. His "raw material" is old junk bikes people have discarded. Some of these old junk bikes have had some rather nice parts hanging from them that he doesn't need. The other source is a neighbor who is now a doctor but used to be a bike shop manager. He has boxes and boxes of stuff that he has said he would probably sell me pretty cheap just to get rid of it.

The beauty of belonging to a club or team with sponsors, beats shop deals any day. But usually I'll pay full price because someone's got to make some money and keep the industry afloat.

Another good aspect of joining a team is that you also end up meeting more people in the community and riding more, which is not necessarily something that happens when you are a mechanic.

I wonder how you'd feel in my situation. My favorite LBS, I spend a lot of money there. A lot of the stuff that they sell is geared towards higher end riders, but it's not what I'm getting. Thing is, nearly every employee there knows me. I ride and/or drink with several of them quite often. I do tend to get a discount on almost everything that I buy there. They say hi when I come in.

Last weekend, I spent $250 there. That was after a 10% discount. I could have gotten the parts slightly cheaper online, but waited. They still made a profit. And they know that I'll probably be back next payday looking for something else.

I feel no ethical problems at all with this. No 'obligation' to repay them.

There have been times where I've needed work done and the wrenches have gone totally out of their way accomodating me. That I do feel warrants repayment. Since I mainly just use their public shop and borrow tools I don't have, that's not too often. Beer is usually the tip currency.

Having a good relationship with your LBS is a good thing. I could see having a problem with a freind working somewhere that hooked you up only when you needed something expensive, and you would never go to normally. If you're a good customer, though, the shop will treat you as one.

That probably goes for pretty much every retail/service establishment anywhere.

Only suckers pay inflated eBay/Craigslist "it's rare 'cause it's track" prices.

Bingo!

Yep, and people if there's a BIN price, it's reasonable, and you want the item, just suck it up. There will always be some stingy idiot who will bid over the reserve then some even richer idiot with run the price way over the original BIN price.

hey marqueemoon, who is your seattle LBS? I'm moving back to washington soon and have scouted out any shops yet

WOO HOO. I just got a wrench job. *endzone dance*

if you go in often and talk to the people you'll be getting near-cost deals in no time