Actually I use the Park Headset press to set King headsets. Just reverse the stepped cones on the center rod and you have a Large surface to act against the outside of the Chris King h/s. Done 5 of them recently and nary a burp. It is a good idea to make sure the surface of the head tube is trued up though. I don't have a mill for this so that is one job that I farm out to a shop. The Park tool which will do bottom brackets and head tube surfacing is a few hundred bucks so I am loath to spend that on something so infrequently used. Cheaper to have it done. I think you could jury rig something up on the H/S Press if you used small abrasive grinding wheels on the 3/8" rod home built press. I may try something like that on an old frame I have that is f/u and unusable and see what happens. I could purposely get the h/s out of square with a file and then try to bring it back to true. Hmmm...


fixedgearhead

peddle pushers in el cajon.

Nothing fancy, but they've got plenty of old bikes laying aorund.

I'm close to the Velodrome in Northbrook Illinois, so the LBS up thattaway has a lot of fix gear parts. They can be a little conservative when it comes riding in the streets though - lots of high flange campy hubs.

What is the name of the shop that has the high flange Campy Hubs?
I am interested in some.

Fixedgearhead

Not only is my favorite LBS the closest one to me (less than four miles), but it is the best shop any fixie/SS fan can aks for. Cycles Gaansari (on the Web at gaansari.com). Check'em out!

They specialize in fixies and singlespeeds and even sell some used ones. They carry Surly and Gaansari, thier own house brand made by Co-motion, amoung other brands.

Another awesome shop, sixteen miles from me, is International Pro Bike Shop. Mainly for the racerboyz, I have bought a couple of track cogs there. Campy spoken here!

An honorable mention is Tipp Cyclery, about fifteen miles away, but in the other direction.

All these guys really know thier stuff!

might as well chime in with my reply, since i started this mess..

Chicago LBS's...

my fave is On The Route, Belmont and Lincoln...

my second fave is Cycle Smithy, N. Clark, just north of Fullerton..

Sprockets...Broadway and Wellington...

Urban Bikes is cool, close, good parts bins...

Higher Gear on W. Fullerton seems snobby, bunch of lycra freaks!!!

Performance is lame for bikes, but decent for shoes, clothes, some parts, blah blah...

Kozy's is decent...not a fan of the Halsted location, but 400 S. La Salle has saved my ass a few times in the loop!

Village Cyclery on Wells has a nice selection of bikes, but I don't think they know what fixies are...let alone service...

there..ive said it..

randy

I forgot to mention Gravy Wheels... It's only 1/2 mile down the road... They make some of the sweetest stuff I've ever seen https://www.gravywheels.net/

Yojimbo's is always good.

Performance is close by, Kozy's on Halsted is right around the corner literally though I never go there unless I have to. Sprockets is decent though I never go there or to any of the other Lincoln Park shops (save for Performance for 27 inch tires).

Working Bikes takes the cake though.

seconded

Good:

[and expensive] Spokes in Vienna (VA)
[and cheap] Performance in Tyson's Corner

Sucky:

Performance in Reston. Hopped of the bike path with a flat. Grabbed a new tube off the rack and asked the mechanic if I could borrow a couple of tire levers.

"We don't loan out tools."

"Okay," I said. "It's just a tire lever."

"We don't loan tools."

So I get some tire levers off the shelf, rip the package open in front of him and change the tube in like one minute. I ask him If I get get some air or if I need to buy a pump too. He lets me use the pump.

So, I go up front to pay and the kid at the counter tells me I owe $20. I do the double take and he says "We charge $10 to change a flat."

I'm like "Do you think I bought tire levers so you could use them to change my flat?"

I went from going in there twice a week to get stuff to never again.

Superchivo - sounds like a bunch of uptight pricks to me.

I actually had the same thing happen to me and I dropped in the Performance by me. They were kind enough to let me use tire levers and a demo floor pump. I suppose it's up to either the discretion of the employees or how cool/nice they are.

No Doubt. The guys at Tyson's rock. They're generous with the used parts and love it when you bring by the project bikes.

Why bother? Now he just helps himself to my parts bin every couple of weeks.

The Performance in Redwood City, CA rocks too. Both Mike and Greg, the mechanics I've dealt with there, are great guys.

So my recent bad Bike Route (in San Bruno) experience is that I brought a bike there to install a headset, the headset didn't fit (1" BMX aheadsets have different cups than 1" road aheadset cups, apparently). Good to know but they don't really stock much parts there, so I went to Performance and bought a Cane Creek S2 and took it back to have it installed. I get the bike back and a couple of days later, I start to install the handlebars. But I notice when I tighten the compression cap, that the play doesn't go away. I took the headset apart and found they had used a fork crown race as a top compression ring. What happened to the top compression ring that came with the headset?
Well I go back to the shop and "they don't know what happened". They suggested the fork race was what came in the new Headset package! I give them the benefit of the doubt and went to Performance who graciously replaced the fork race with the proper part from new headset. Thanks Greg!

First headset I had installed at the Bike Route (another S2), they left the compression ring out altogether. Luckily it was still sitting on the mechanic's tray. Both botched jobs were don't by the same mechanic. This same mechanic who installed a short cage Ultegra rear derailer on a 11-32 cassette on his Specialized Enduro Pro frame and ripped the derailer hanger right off the frame!

George Garner in Northbrook has some decent fix stuff. I bought a high flange campy hub from them five or six years ago pretty cheap.

Just my opinion, but I don't think that Performance counts as a Local Bike Shop. It's like saying that Walgreen's, WalMart, Safeway, McDonalds, Applebees, etc. is a local business. My idea of a LBS is one that's locally owned and operated, reinvests its profits into the LOCAL economy, and ain't part of a friggin chain. OK, rant over.

I guess I'm lucky in that there are four really good LBS here in Portland, all within a 15-minute ride of my place. In no particular order:

En Selle - One man shop. Sells high end road gear - Merckx, Colnago, Pinarello, etc. Great service.
Veloce - Another one man shop. Lots of vintage and classic, as well as new road stuff. I bought my Vitus track frame from this shop.
Sellwood Cycle Repair - www.sellwoodcycle.com - Great service and a big selection of used parts/bikes. Big into cyclocross. Fun guys to hang out with.
River City Bicycles - Big shop. Sells bikes for all ages, styles. Has Colnago, Merckx, Calfee, Waterford, plus LeMond, Specialized, C-dale, blah, blah, blah.

What about small local chains? Do those count? For instance the biggest local bike shop chain here in Seattle is Gregg's. I think most people would still consider them individually to be an LBS.

My opinion is that if it's a local chain, like The Bike Gallery here in Portland, that counts as a LBS. But Supergo or Performance...no. They're NBS. National Bike Shops.

Yeah, I know what you mean... I did take my bike to the LOCAL shop first, they got my money and I got a botched job (actually two out of three now ). I'm taking FGH's advice and making my own headset tools to I won't need them anymore.

Well, it's the only shop in the area that always has what I need, at a price I can afford, and everyone, everyone in the shop knows me by name. Marin County in general is extremely snooty, and the bike shops are no different. Also, I can't afford to pay the $7.85 (no b.s.) that the closest LBS charges for their cheapest tube (all their other prices follow suit).

From the IRS
"Over the past 30 years, the Bay Area counties of Marin, Santa Clara, San Mateo, and Contra Costa have consistently reported the highest median incomes. Marin County again had the highest median income for joint returns, reporting $96,826. The highest median income for all filers was also in Marin County, at $42,879."

I'm super poor, especially compared to that.

my favorite shop is the one i work at.

I like the Hub Bike Co-Op in Minneapolis. They have a lot of fixed gear stuff, and it's on the way to my brothers house, who's got all the tools. They did a good job on re-building my Surly hub when the first rim got wrapped around a fender.

I do almost all my bike buying at a North COunty Performance...Like the store mostly because they have a great mechanic.
One problem with PErformance...They carry a limited number of bikes...Jamis, Giant, Performance, Fuji..
Had almost considered a Giant(road bike). Accessories are just fine..The staff is almost always very helpful. Up here in NOrth COunty not too many independent stores.. Don't know why never been too big a fan of Supergo.But they do have a bigger selection of bikes.

I do all of my bike shopping at Indy Cycle Specialist here in Indy. It's a nice, friendly, neighborhood shop.

The owner is all about biking and making sure his customers are 100% happy. He won't try to sell you something that you don't want (if that makes sense). Sure, the money is important to keep the business running but you can tell he loves biking and getting others interested, as well. He supports local advocacy groups, as well. Nice thing about this shop is that the owner and his employees are all avid bicyclists. They would rather ride than drive.......

We have "corporate" shops around Indy but they're just not the same.

I ride old bikes and do all my own work, so a good LBS is one that doesn't try to get me to upgrade to "modern" crap and that let's me root around in the parts bins. In Eugene, OR I've had good experiences with Hutch's, Paul's in Oasis, Paul's on Alder, and Revolution Cycles. The first three have let me spend a fair amount of time digging for stuff. The last one is just a really cool place to go to. They only do used bikes and often have something cool hanging on the wall. None of them really have much in stock for fixies, but they're all willing to order what they don't have.