Good News...

...I think.  

Decent bike shops are thin on the ground, even in a city the size of London.  Condor are reliably well-stocked and the staff know what they're talking about, though you'd be looking at their prices for a very long time before you mistook them for cheap.

Some people swear by Mosquito Bikes or Sigma Sport -- though they're in the wrong part of town for me, and Cyclefit in Covent Garden has its fans as well.   Further out of town, there's the excellent Geoff Butler in Croydon and Pearsons down in Sutton. 

Years ago, FW Evans in Waterloo was a haven for roadies -- before the Evans brand grew like Topsy and became a  characterless nationwide retail chain.

There were a couple of other Evans branches in those days, but everyone knew that the one in "The Cut" was for the hardcore.  If you wanted serious racing bikes - new and secondhand, proper own-brand touring machines or bomb-proof handbuilt wheels, then Evans Waterloo was the place.

I bought a couple of excellent 531 racing frames there in the 'Eighties, and was once nearly talked into buying an aluminium, Colnago-badged, ex-pro-team bike which I suspect may have seen hard service in the Northern Classics and would probably have come unglued by the time I reached the Elephant and Castle roundabout.

In recent years, it's become just another bike shop, full of hybrids and anonymous Taiwanese racers but it's now going through a re-brand -- being advertised as "a road-riders paradise" with an emphasis on top road bikes and parts.

Good business sense, I suspect, given the explosion in road bike sales over the past year or so -- but good news as well for London's roadies.