trek from local bike shop vs motobecane online

[warneral]

I definitely use my low gears too. Tis why I had my shop switch out my double for a compact.

In fact I spoke with a gal in the shop I was at and she said that compacts are good for our region of wisconsin adn that you'd probably only NEED a triple if you were in the mountains.

But then I'm not a racer, just a rider

I do think that some shops make their bread and butter from repairs and building. One of the local shops told me they make most of their profits from repairs and not bike sales. This was a small town shop that only sells Jamis for the purpose of being price competitive with the nearby Madison Trek stores...

[batsheva]

i personally would never use bikesdirect.com they have very mixed reviews online about damaged goods being shipped and the bikes needing significant assembly and people having to pay LBS to assemble... a friend of mine ordered one anyway, despite the mixed reviews online just to save some money and it took a couple of hours of a bike mechanic to assemble it correctly and unwarp the wheels and fix a bent derailleur.. appparently the customer service was very unhelpful she told me... she also got a bike that had the 'bling' of a rear ultegra derailleur - but most of the other components were really low quality.