BEWARE - Boxed bike

Just completed another internet bought boxed bike build for a kiddy bike. I get really frustrated about these. An awful lot of the bikes that are bought on the internet do not turn out to be such a bargain especially when you have to get your LBS (most won't) or mobile outfit to put it together for you- a customer wasn't very happy about the price we charged for sorting out his purchase - he felt that because it came 'part built' he should pay a lower charge. I'm sorry but 'part built' only meant it had the back wheel on - everything else needed fettling. The front wheel was well buckled so the brake would never have worked unless we spent a fair bit of time turing it up so the wheel would go round. Both brakes needed a lot of fiddling to get them as right and as safe as possible. The bar grips were made of soft spongy rubber and had been destroyed in transit so needed replacing - which is a pain because we had to cut standard grips down to fit a kiddy bike. The components on these bikes are dreadful. Oh and plus we provided a door-to-door service going out on icy roads saving him the effort and fuel - and a round trip of 36 miles!!! He could have saved himslef this cost by going down to his local bike shop and buying the bike there - and the PDI and problem solving would have been done by them at no extra cost! OK he may have had to pay a little more for the bike than he did on the web but not what it has cost him to get me out. All of the things wrong with this bike we see so often with internet purchases and it may be in future that we decide not to handle them as they can be more trouble than what they are worth!! Rant over

A bit of snow

Having been smug about escaping the worst of the bad weather, it duly arrived last night and we have six inches or so here - very pretty. Even the A6 which is a big road was just passable. Still we managed to deliver a promised bike back this morning much to the surprise and delight of its owner - not that he'll be going out on it at the moment! Let it never be said that we don't deliver on our promises.