Worst Bike Shops...

Wouldn't quite call it the worst bike shop, but I used to work in a shop owned and operated by some middle-eastern guys who didn't know jack diddly about modern bike parts. They actually had really really competative retail prices on bikes (only moderately so on parts), but you couldn't ask them a technical question without getting a bunch of roundabout rhetoric about somethingorother, leaving you thinking at first that they answered your question, but later realizing that they didn't have a clue what you were talking about. They were like a couple of politicians in that sense. You'd ask them one thing and they'd just ramble about this or that and divert your attention to something they did know about (double-wall rims - they loved to point that out).

Nice guys, but just terribly ignorant and neither of them bothered to keep up on TODAY'S bike parts and technology developments. As a teenager working in their store I knew 5x more about anything mountainbike-related that was developed since the late 80's/early 90's. The sad fact was that even though I could answer customer questions far better than either of them, they tried to keep me off the sales floor because it made them look bad.