Strictly speaking it isn't fair what I'm doing to poor Sam right now, but the fact is that Sam Collar's Two Wheeler Dealer in Brea (SoCal's North Orange County) ought to be a bigger tri dealer than it is. It's major lines are Trek, C'dale and Litespeed, and if it's a road race version of those brands of bike you want, you couldn't find a better dealer. But he's not really a tri dealer yet (and he doesn't pretend that he is). Why list him then? Because there is nobody that we can point to across a huge swath of Southern California—eastern San Gabriel Valley, North Orange County, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties—that really cater to tri, and Two Wheeler Dealer is as good as any. It might not be a bad idea to walk in and urge Sam to get a bit more tri-involved. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: If you want a road-geometry bike, if you want fair treatment, good service and repair, and so forth, here's your shop. There is not one manufacturer who makes tri-specific bikes—Felt, QR, Cervelo, you name it—that wouldn't do what it takes to get into this very straight-up, straight-shootin' shop. This is precisely the sort of shop that could be the North Orange County analog to the South County juggernaut that Edge Cyclesport represents. It just needs a nudge in the right direction.

Cons: No Cervelo, no QR, no Softride, no Aegis, no Azotos, no wetsuits, no Hed bars, and no (as of yet) hard core experience in tri bike fit. But one can hope.

Covina Valley Cyclery is shop is included because if you're not going to have a good tri shop in your area, you might as well consider at least a good generalist shop. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: Service and repair is good, and you can get Trek, Giant and QR (special order).

Cons: No Guru, Felt, Cervelo, Softride, Aegis, Azotos, wetsuits, Hed bars, nor tri bike fit as we know it.

Incycle is mostly an MTB shop. But it's been around awhile, and it's got impressive lines, like Litespeed, Giant, Trek, C'dale, Cervelo, and QR. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: Service and repair is there, and the available lines.

Cons: You won't see what you'd like to see on the floor. Most of it is special order. If you want to see a row of QRs or Cervelos, you'll have to travel. No tri bike fit expertise in particular that we can discern.

Competitive Edge (their first store) is in Upland, a great place for cycling. But it's not a great place to live if you want to find a shop with a row of Cervelos or Felts on the floor. This shop has nosed around triathlon for years, and if it isn't up to its neck in our sport at least it's done more than stick its big toe in the water. There are two stores, one in Upland, and Mark (the owner) is the guy you'll want to talk to there. Rich and Umaro are the gents that speak tri in the Rancho Cucamonga store. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: Trek and the other usual road race suspects, and it sponsors the local tri events.

Cons: Not the sort of shop where you'll walk in and get floored, because the tri bikes you'd like to see don't get floored. But one can hope.

There are a pair of Two Wheeler Dealers we're aware of, not connected with each other, and on opposite sides of the country. The one in Brea, California, is profiled above. It's a great shop, but not yet a great tri shop. The other one is in Wilmington, NC, and it is a great tri shop. Jim Minscher founded and has owned this shop on North Carolina's surf coast for 29 years. When the shop was four years old his town had its first triathlon, and Minscher organized it. True to this shop's roots, and as of this writing, seven of Two Wheeler Dealer's employees are active triathletes (many are active in bike racing as well). (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: This shop has big, important lines: Trek, C'dale, Felt, Cervelo, Giant. Its employees walk the walk, and keep up with the trendy accessories. It also sponsors and does tech support for most of the local races.

Cons: This would be the premier tri shop in half the states in the U.S., but it shares North Carolina with Inside Out Sports. This shop might be a better road race store than Inside Out, but if it's a long row of P3s on the floor you want to see, or 500 wetsuits in stock at any time, Inside Out is still the Big Kahuna. If you're 300 miles away, there may not be a compelling reason to travel to Wilmington, but if you're proximate to Wilmington and its environs, there's no reason to travel elsewhere.

Williamson Bike Works' owner, Del, has had an interesting year. His was a flagship Trek shop in Trek's own backyard in Madison, Wisconsin. He then had a falling out with his long-time landlord, and was set to move the shop. But Trek reportedly wanted to keep a dealership in that specific location, and very-long-story-short his competitor now sits where his old shop used to sit (the new store in Williamson's old location is called Machinery Row, and is just this side of a Trek concept store). Del has two new shops to replace the old one, and the "East" shop is a very Midwestern store: Trek, Cannondale and Specialized. But his West store has the more eclectic brands: Felt, QR, Litespeed, Softride, etc. He also carries QR and Ironman wetsuits. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: Between the two shops, which are not far from each other, he's got most of the bike brands you'd want, excluding Cervelo. His stores also sell quite a few custom Sevens, and the one who sells these bikes, Edwin, has a long and successful history of selling custom titanium Merlin and Seven at his former employer, Wheelworks in Belmont, Mass. Otherwise, there is just the fact that the "little guy"—Del—has a big bug up his bum about what he feels is Trek's nasty behavior toward him, and he's trying to stick his thumb in Trek's ear by making a non-Trek shop work in downtown Madison. You've got to admire his pluck, and frankly he's a shrewd strategist, having surrounded himself with the better non-Trek brands in every category.

Cons: These are a very good pair of shops, but they are in the "generalist" category. If you compare these shops with, say, Cronometro (down the street from the West store) there is a difference between a shop that specializes in custom bikes and wheels versus one in which custom bikes are but one part of the overall business.

Cronometro, mentioned just above, is a specialty store with a capital "S". There is probably no other retailer in the U.S. that is more synonymous with the category of wheels, and in fact if you like Cane Creek's wheels, they were more or less the brainchild of this store. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: When it comes to custom-built wheels, and custom-built bikes, this is probably the premier location in Madison. These guys are in the top-5 nationally with Seven Cycles, and also do a lot of Waterfords and Calfees. In fact, you can get a custom bike in any of the big four frame materials here. Cronometro is also well-known as a bike fitter, both on road and time trial/tri. Though not a custom manufacturer, Cervelo is also sold here.

Cons: Forget Trek, Specialized, Cannondale or any brand like that. Forget wetsuits. Custom bikes, custom wheels, custom fits, and a few tricky custom doo-dads that come from owner Colin O'Brien's fertile mind. That's it.

Emery's Bicycle & Super Fitness Stores is own by Brent Emery, a former Olympic medalist in cycling. Emery's stocks Felt, Cervelo, you'll see Litespeed Blades here, QR's TiPhoons, Kestrel's KM40 Airfoils, you'll find a deep selection of race wheels, and you'll even see Orca and QR wetsuits. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: As you can see, Emery's has a depth of lines that few shops can boast, and when you consider P3s and P2Ks, you'll see size runs on the floor, with the middle sizes stocked two and three deep. They also do well with apparel, especially women's.

Cons: Emery's is a busy shop, and sometimes shops are so busy they don't—can't—get out much. It's always reassuring to see shop personnel out at the events, manning expo booths, with the employees doing the races, stuff like that. I don't recall seeing Emery's at events very often, probably because they're just too busy servicing their customers in their shops. Hard to blame them for that.

Atkins Verona Bike Shop is owned by Dan Atkins, and is included not because it's of the same stature as the other Southern Wisconsin bike shops in the breadth of lines carried or the depth of models and sizes stocked. It's an authentic, Midwestern bike shop in the best sense of the phrase. Owner Dan Atkins is third generation—his father and grandfather have been at it since the mid '50s, and their shop was a top Schwinn dealer in the '60s. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: Don't assume, however, that this is just a mom-and-pop shop. It sells a lot of high-end road, including Kestrel, Waterford and QR. Probably the single best feature of this shop is its service—when you've been a roadie as long as Dan Atkins has been one, making a race bike hum is in your genes.

Cons: No Cervelos, no Softrides, no wetsuits, you're probably best off going to Atkins if you already know a bit about what you want, and you just need the assurance of a place that knows bikes inside and out.

Bicycle Doctor is about 25 miles outside of Milwaukee along the way toward Madison. It's got Felt, QR, Trek, Litespeed, Scott, Orbea, among other lines. If you're looking for a good shop with good lines and you're inbetween Southern Wisconsin's big two towns, here you go. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: Well established, good lines, and a historic attention to bike-fitting detail. They are now a full line shop, selling wetsuits (QR), quite a bit of apparel (Zoot, Descente, Garneau). This shop sponsors Team Wisconsin and other tri teams.

Cons: The longtime founder/owner (Tom) rides a pretty mean recumbant, but recently he's graduated to an upright bike, this year a Litespeed Ghisalo. We can't think of any cons right now.

To simply say that In Competition is a full service shop does not do it justice. Not only is this Green Bay store a full service bike shop, but it is also a large running, swimming and apparel shop. It works with two clubs, including the growing Fox Valley Triathlon Club. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: This shop sells Softride, Kestrel, Giant and Klein, with a lot of apparel, triathlon wetsuits, and is a sort of "general store" for most of what a triathlete might need.

Cons: Green Bay is off the beaten path when it comes to triathlon. This shop's premier triathlon bike is Giant, and while this is an important brand, it probably ought not to be THE premier tri brand in a tri-specific shop. To be fair, it probably wouldn't be if this shop was situated in a larger triathlon market.

Transition Cycles is a new shop, so new that as of this writing it's still a couple of weeks from being open. But as we're writing about Wisconsin shops right now, we'll include it. John Huenink, the owner, is a very good athlete in his own right, and is also well-regarded in the business end of the market. He was the general manager of Bicycle Doctor, 20 miles away, and is most knowledgeable in upper end road and tri.

Pros: Expect Huenink to be at every tri club meeting, every race expo, and pretty-much everywhere in which at least a half-dozen triathletes will congregate. When you're getting a new shop off the ground, and you're young and you have a family, you can't wait for the market to come to you. In this sense he reminds one a lot of Hank Iglesias of South Orange County's Edge Cyclesport. Huenink is engaging, clever, and will end up with a lot of the local tri and road race business on the strength of his energy and smarts. People will buy from him simply because they'll like him and want to give him their business. He'll be a wetsuit and accessory seller, and he's FIST-certified.

Cons: The shops in his area—Bicycle Doctor, Emery's to the East and Williamson and Machinery Row to the West—have largely tied up his lines. You won't see the depth and breadth of lines in this store, and that's likely to be the case for some time.

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