> Amazon has the attitude of “get the thing to the customer, immediately”. Most of the other places have an attitude of “we want to build a long-lasting relatio

> Amazon has the attitude of “get the thing to the customer, immediately”. Most of the other places have an attitude of “we want to build a long-lasting relationship with you, the consumer”. Sometimes that long-lasting relationship is what ends up paying dividends in better service, though. I'm by no means unwilling to shop around, but I have been a long-time customer at my LBS and will always look to them first. I crashed in a weekend cross race two years ago and bent my rear brake rotor when the rider behind me rode over it. My LBS didn't have my rotor in stock, but they called around and found when at another shop in the US and had it shipped up before the weekly Tues night series. That's for a lowly low-category masters racer. When you have a personal relationship with a business, it is possible for them to pull out all the stops when it matters.