Favorite bike stores

bike lane in the woodlands is pretty nice.  pretty good selection of bikes and most of the guys that work there are pretty outgoing and willing to help.   they carry c-dale, scott, qr.

bike land in the woodlands is pretty good to.  just a little south of bike lane.  a little small selection, but they carry different brands (specialized & felt).  one of the guys i talked to there races for specialized so he's got a lot of knowledge and is willing to suggest a diff brand. pretty cool guy.

there are several bike barns in houston too.  a lot of people like them, i've just never been cuase there's not one close to mi casa.

This may only serve to muddy the waters, but...

Performance isn't bad ~ Tri on the run too... Bike Barn (Westheimer) has always been very nice - they even let me borrow some bike tools, rather than buy them.  Bicycle World & Fitness has a decent selection but their prices on things are higher than others... not sure about that.  Their service guys have always been helpful (advice and repair).

everyone has good and bad stories about many of the stores... so it may just be a matter of trial and error unfortunately. 

I talked to the guy from Bike Lane at CB&I (I think) and he was super nice and seemed to be very helpful.  If it wasn't so far from me, I would probably pay some visits to that shop. 

I found great service at all the mentioned stores.  I bought my road bike from Performance in North Houston...I was fortunate to work with one of the more experienced guys there (I think his name was Chris), but my friend worked with one of the younger guys when she bought her bike there and had to get re-fitted.  I liked that they asked me a lot of questions about what I was going to be using the bike for and then didn't try to get me to buy more bike than I needed at the time. 

I also like NW Cycles on 290 and the guys at icycle are great too.