Rant

Turns out I need a super-secrete part for a SRAM hub. Fine, whatever. I contact SRAM and find out if I can get one. No, I can't. It has to be ordered through my LBS. Fine, whatever. Lame but fine. This is the same LBS that gave me NO help to begin with which led me to contact SRAM myself. So I go to the LBS, provide them with the part # and phone # to SRAM. Ask them to please call and order me the part from the nice people at SRAM (they really were nice).

At the same time I order some generic bike parts. A new handlebar and a shifter that are available through QBP. You know, available anywhere sort of thing. I've already researched their availability and found them for X% cheaper at various internet sites. But no, I order there, happy to support a local business, families, etc. Quite the humanitarian I am.

A week goes by. I stop by the shop on a Friday after being told they should arrive that Thurs. Get their 10 min before shop opens so decide to ride around the neighborhood for a half hour. Get back @ 11:20 and shop still not open. Fine, whatever, I gotta' go pick up a kid at pre-school by noon so take off.

Then ride back that afternoon. They're open, but the guy there looks at me with blank eyes when I say what I'm there for. I go home.

So I wait a week and this time use the phone. Call up and get the owner. Conversation goes something like this:
Me: Have the parts arrived?
LBS: Well, no, must be Christmas and all.
Me: But I ordered them two weeks before Christmas.
LBS: Uhhhhm, yeah, check back next week.
Me: How about those small SRAM parts, did they arrive yet?
LBS: Ohhhh, those, I don't think I called yet.
Me: Could you maybe call right now?
LBS: No, I'm kinda' busy. I'll try next week.
Me: Sigh.

So now I'm waiting for bike parts I could have ordered elsewhere (for cheaper!) and have had them long before the Christmas holiday. I'm also relying on them to order a part I can't get myself.

And I have two weeks of holiday to put all this stuff together and see if I like it. Well now one week of that is gone and instead I'm writing smack anonymously on the internet.


/rant