people knock massive chain bike stores like 99 bikes and brands like merida but at the end of the day they’re franchises and it all boils down to the staff because i had one of my best bike shop experiences today at a 99 bikes store. a genuine, friendly chat where at no point was a purchase pushed upon me. Said employee is now taking the time to compile together a list of 2015 bikes with 105 that are still available in my size and price range and emailing that to me so i can take my time to weigh all my decent sale options which is a lot more than i can say for the “service” i’ve received in certain other shops recently, which are solely exercises in ego buffing
I’ll still always prefer to buy and get services done by my local independent bike shop (which is awesome and has a coffee shop built in, sadly the bikes are a little out of my price range). so yea that happened, I’ll probably own a Norco soon :P