Waa! Waaaa! WAAAAH!

It wouldn't be October if I wasn't whining and wailing about wanting more trees, so here I am. I have decided to try web voting for the entrants in TARATS again this year and I have made a display page for the entrants that I will add a voting widget to when the time comes.

 

Until then, all current entrants can be viewed on this page, from now until the end of the contest or even longer, I guess.

 

If you follow that link you will find 4 trees in the slideshow. 4 is a paltry number. I fear my contest is losing what little popularity it had, perhaps because I am constantly whining about it.

 

I know many parts of the USA (my largest trading partner) aren't ready yet, so I'm hoping I'm just being stupid and all kinds of entries are going to come flooding in soon.

 

Anyway, that page will always be up to date with the latest and greatest for anyone needing a foliage fix. 

 

  

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Warranty / Customer Service Report / Mutant Winter III is ALIVE!

I am really happy with Chain Reaction Cycles right now. Remember how one of my new Schwalbe Marathon Winters had a cut in it? I said I would report on the customer service I got. The news is very good.

Here's the timeline:

Tuesday, Oct 16, 12:01 PM - I emailed CRC a filled-out warranty claim form (easily found on their web site) and a picture of the cut tire.

Tuesday, Oct 16, 12:02 PM - I receive an auto-reply from their "Warranty Team" saying that based on current volume I could expect a reply to my specific claim within 2 to 3 working days. Fair enough, I thought.

Wednesday, Oct 17, 11:04 AM (the next day) - I receive an email from a real person:

Hi Patrick,

Thank you for your email.

We are sorry to hear that your tyre is damaged. On this occasion we are sending you a replacement and there is no need to return the faulty item.

 

This should be dispatched within the next 24 hours.

We trust this helps.

Kind regards,

Noel

 

I had mentioned in my original claim that there was no way I had cut the tire by accident or anything. Still, I was super pleased that there wasn't any nonsense at all from CRC. They simply said sorry and were sending a replacement. Perfect.

 

Yesterday, Tuesday Oct 23 (one week after sending my first email) - The replacement tire is delivered to my house. No duties, taxes or shipping charges because they filled out the paperwork properly. I pay nothing.

 

Call me crazy, but 5 business days from warranty claim to complete replacement and resolution, from a company based in the UK (as in across the Atlantic Ocean) seems pretty stinkin' good to me.

 

Now, some would say that I simply got the good customer service we all deserve, and I suppose they would be correct. The fact is, however, that in my experience things rarely go this well and I truly appreciated it. I've been aching to ride this bike before real winter snow and ice comes, so that we're really good buddies by the time we need to trust each other.

 

I mounted the tire last night and rode Mutant Winter III to work today. I must say that after riding fixed all summer, gears sure are weird and fun! Here are some pics of this year's winter bike:

 

 

 

I decided to skip real fenders on this one (sorry, fellow fender freaks). The tires will clear their treads of snow better, and the clearances with this frame and the 35c tires were kind of tight anyway. I strapped a flexible plastic fender I had lying around to the downtube as a kind of crud guard for the drivetrain, and the rear rack / plastic tub blocks spray from hitting my bum or back.

 

I can't wait to see how the "skinny" 35c tires do compared to wider MTB tires. It is my hope they will cut through snow to find hard surfaces for the metal studs to grip. We shall see.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

PS - I think I'll send the warranty people at CRC a link to this post. It is important to praise good work, especially if you want free reign to complain about just about everything else.

Dauntless and Pantless

Over the last several years I have come to inhabit a new reality. While reviewing video the other day, I saw something and said to myself, "woah. When did I get used to that?" 

The clip that actually made me think that was worse, with closer passes and more transport trucks, but you get the idea. When I step outside of my new reality and look at those buses and trucks rolling past on either side of me, it looks downright scary. In my new cycling reality, however, it doesn't even make me nervous. Alert? Yes. Daunted? Not at all. I am dauntless! In this way only, but dauntless!

I also inhabit a new work reality in which the following voicemail message makes perfect sense:

You see, I arrive at work in my cycling gear, including stretchy bike shorts, every day. Everybody knows that I change in my office. Sometimes I shut my office door and work for a while still in my cycling gear, cooling down before putting on long pants and sleeves. It is well known that people choosing to knock on my closed door do so at their own considerable risk.

Even knowing that in this context the voicemail made perfect sense, it made me laugh pretty hard when my good friend and colleague delivered that snappy line in such a deadpan, matter of fact way. In my new reality I am pantless! In the way described above only, but pantless!

Congratulate me on my new found dauntlessness and pity my widely known pantlessness, brothers and sisters of the bicycling universe! I think they balance each other quite nicely, don't you?

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K