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@Oliver Schick
Well, it has long been recognised that the range of the dominant distributors (e.g., Madison, Chicken) of bike stuff into the UK has been quite limited, and this range is reflected in the bike shops. It's not really their fault--not everybody can set up a small specialist import business like Tokyo Fixed Gear or Tour de Ville. My expectation is that these small businesses will become larger and take their place next to the big importers. This is driven by (a) the growth in cycling in the UK, and (b) the growing diversity in cycling in the UK. The big companies can't necessarily deal with niche pursuits very well, e.g. they'll do an OTP fixed range, but not custom/recherché parts etc. We'll see. At present, I quite often don't find things I want, or I don't like what is on offer in the category of the thing that I want.