Agreed on all counts, Bill. Patronizing LBSs is fun, and I love the connection with owners and workers. It feels good to support real people.
But it's not always that easy for me. I tinker with my bikes because it's fun, and I enjoy it, not because I *need *to. Can I always afford to pay my LBS--where prices are generally, but not always, competitive with online sources--for all of the parts/bikes/tools I need to fuel my tinkering fire? Nope, I can't. So I figure I've got four choices: 1) Don't buy the stuff at all because I don't really need it; 2) Only buy stuff when I can afford it at LBS price; 3) Default to the world wide interwebernets when LBS prices are "out of reach." 4) Buy used/second-hand whenever possible and forego the whole retail/discounted retail thing altogether. I generally get all of my consumables (brake pads, cables/housing, etc.) from my LBS, but the first places I look for parts are generally this list/iBob/eBay--and it occurs to me that this could also theoretically hurt the LBS, although perhaps the parts were or may've been purchased there originally and this train of thought is now making my head hurt. And I do often default to scouring different sources online for the cheapest price on the parts I want. In fact, I'm working on a build right now for a frame that I'm planning to buy from a LBS, and I'm still scouring the www to find cheapest prices on parts. I know this hurts my LBS, but I allow the desire to have the part and the desire to make it fit into my non-existent bike budget overwhelm my desire to support local business and real people--but then again, aren't there real people behind those websites, too? And now my head hurts again. Anyway, perhaps this has been less a productive contribution to this thread and more a personal confession. So it goes. Bob K. in Baltimore -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
