Re: Dear LBS

That's really surprising. I thought cantis were pretty common, since all the
cyclocross and many commuters on touring/cx bikes have them (maybe this area
just has a lot more of that?). Really this is just one example, but this
happens nearly every time I go to the shops. Even when I went looking for
just brake shoes several months back, the selection was extremely poor, and
just no name generic things that were not suitable for riding in winter.

There is one shop that tends to have these parts, but unfortunately they are
5 miles up the biggest hill from here. For some parts, it's worth the trip
up there (for example when I got a dynamo hub system on a new wheel), but
generally that's just too far of a trip for me on weeknights. I know 5 miles
sounds like nothing, but I rarely have my car on this side of town, and
going to the shop makes my commute home 14+ miles in the dark.

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 1:57 PM, John Wood <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Andy,
> When your looking for a niche product, most LBS will not have it in stock.
> Just not
> a good business decision to devote limited space to something that you're
> only going
> to sell once every year or 2.  Can't remember the last time we had a
> customer walk in
> off the street looking for cantilever brakes.
>
> John
>
> On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 7:40 PM, Andy Goodell <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> I needed new brakes. My old cantilever brakes just weren't cutting it
>> anymore, and my commute and rides in general too often see large hills
>> ending in high traffic areas, so I couldn't put this off any longer. I
>> looked around online to see what I might want to buy, and thought I should
>> check a few local shops first. If they've got the parts at a reasonable
>> cost, I'd just buy them locally instead of waiting for shipping.
>>
>> Unfortunately of the many brakes out there, wide cantilevers was just
>> something not in stock around here. Ithaca is pretty big on cyclocross,
>> and
>> I even saw one of the bikes on the stand with exactly the type of brakes I
>> wanted to buy. But when I asked for them, there were none to be bought.
>> Neither store I went to stocked what I was looking for. Now, I know not
>> every store can stock everything, but you'd think that not stocking an
>> decent variety of brakes would be a good idea. I ended up going home and
>> buying them online.
>>
>> It made me think that this is really a chicken and egg problem. If they
>> generally had the parts I needed, I wouldn't rely on buying parts online
>> as
>> much. But since I've been let down nearly every time I went to buy
>> locally,
>> it's become normal to just buy the parts online for cheaper.
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>
>
>
> --
> John Wood
> Open Road Bicycles
> Missoula, Montana, USA
>