Aren't most bike shop owners retired pros?
Not even close, more like a rare few were former pros...at least in American, not sure about Europe; a bit more may have done amateur racing, but most are just business owners that ride as a hobby. The largest shop in my town is owned by a person who use to market fitness machines which he now sells at the store along with bikes, but never has raced in any sort of way ; the next shop in town use to be a mechanic at the other store that sold those fitness machines, so now he and his wife are the mechanics at their own shop and they've never raced in any category; the next bike shop in out town was a avid skateboarder so of course he sells skateboards and bikes, he has never raced but did some street stunts on BMX bikes and boards on the amateur level; the next one is owned by a person that use to do amateur women racing at Cat 4 level, that shop is some bikes, some kayaks, and some camping clothes; and the last shop is owned by beardo the weirdo, who hasn't got a clue about bikes, all he sells is used bikes at inflated prices after he takes off any high quality components and puts cheap ones on instead and then sells the good components online, and he likes to ride his own bike on the sidewalk or against the flow of traffic because he says it's safer and tells all his customers to do the same!
The next closest town to us has 2 bike shops, the one is operated out of his home and he's a fitness trainer but has never raced in any category; and the final shop is a long time bike mechanic, never raced in any category either, nice guy and highly knowledgeable on the older 3 speed stuff, has a huge supply of old new stock parts of obscure stuff that's hard to find, he buys other shops spare parts when they go out of business.
The only place that I ever did business with, note I said where I did business with, and I've done business in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Simi Valley, Palmdale/Lancaster, and Bakersfield when I use to live in California, and the only shop that did any kind of racing was a bike shop in Bakersfield, and he and his team (Team Action Sports) were Race Across America fanatics, but very good, they broke the 4 man team record about 17 years ago or so which they still hold to this day, can't recall how many times they've raced that, that owner of the shop is now retire from that but still rides a lot, Action Sports is a large shop that sold a variety of fitness stuff besides bikes, fantastic place which use to (not sure if they still do but I would assume that Kerry would keep that going, they treat everyone the same with no attitude issues, Kerry is a very smart business man and cyclist along with a host of other sports he does as well as he plays several musical instruments, and worked part time as a motorcycle mechanic since he was 13 years old, been golfing since he was 11, the best bike shop I've even done business at. Believe or not but Kerry at the Bakersfield place started Action Sports when he was just 28 years old, and it grew like a wildfire being fueled by high winds.
