Good news/Bad news – Yin & Yang – Update #19

Hopefully this will be the final update until the frame is shipping!. If it’s not one thing it’s another. Believe me when I say that having a custom frame built is one of the most frustrating experiences anyone can ever go through. Broken promises, delays, lack of communication, more delays, more broken promises.

Unfortunately when you Google search for custom bicycle frames, what you get are links to people that will sell you or build you a custom frame. On all of those websites their are testimonials from happy customers that say how great everything was. How their experience was so good that they wondered why they hadn’t ordered a frame sooner. Well I am beginning to believe that those people are the minority. Everyone I have directly corresponded with has had a different story, one like I described in the opening paragraph, or at least in part.

One of the big problems is that once the bike arrives and you look at that thing of beauty, with dimensions hand selected to fit every nuance of your body and riding style, the rose colored glasses go on and you forget about all those other things. Like the pregnant woman who suffers a nearly unbearable labor but after her child is born forgets just how painful those birthing pains really were. That is probably the best way to describe it, just like giving birth to a child!

I suppose any time you are dealing with an artisan you should not expect someone who has mastered interpersonal relationships. You shouldn’t expect someone with a high degree of customer centric thinking and behavior. After all you are most likely dealing with someone who has taken a passion and turned it into a job, and we all know how we feel about our jobs! Still there is the big payoff at the end. Guaranteed the future will be filled with stories about how this bike is the best you have ever ridden. You will wax poetically about how every millimeter and every component was painstakingly researched. How all the pieces came together to become more than just a bicycle. How the final product transcends the sum of the parts.

What the heck does all this have to do with our tandem? I am just preparing everyone for all the gushing, all the praise that will be heaped upon anyone that will listen once we have our new ride on the road. In the meantime here is where we stand.

Frame painting is near complete. The frame, if it were just that would likely have shipped at the end of this week. Of course that is not what is going to happen. You see, it seems that every small business wants to follow Michael Dell’s model of inventory on demand. Just like that new Dell computer you bought today that really should ship tomorrow, but wont until next week while they put it all together, custom bikes are the same way. This time the delay is due to not having the Alpha-Q tandem fork ordered and ready to go  when the frame was ready. Inventory on demand, so the fork won’t get delivered  to the framebuilder until tomorrow. I really don’t know what he will need to do to the fork before delivery but I guess it is better to have everything delivered at once rather than one piece at a time. Along with the frame and fork included in the package will be the eccentric and seat post clamps. For those interested here is the tracking number provided for the Alpha-Q shipped from San Diego, CA to Mesa, AZ: 1Z 975 681 03 4395 155 9. I have decided that as soon as the frame ships I will post it’s tracking number also so that anyone that has been along for the ride will be able to wait with me following it’s route around the country until it arrives at my house sometime next week.

Until next time, happy riding.