Now I'm just about to let loose with a full on RANT here - twice in the last month I have responded out of selfless goodwill for the sport and the people in it and supplied list members not known to me with GOOD PARTS.
And got not even a thank you.
I had the occaision recently to ride my Off Topic Carbon/Ti parts hanger, festooned with black clicky-shifty things on the handlebars, about 15 miles up the pike to assist a fellow traveler in distress who needed a Campagnolo pedal dust cap, which I installed, for free, on his pedal, to make his world complete.
Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothin'.
Days later came another piteous bleat out of the darkness "help, where can I get a part for my stem, the bars they are a slippin". Whereupon I took pity on the poor gentleman, ascertaining thru a process of deductive logic and inspired guesswork that he was in possession of a Cinelli 1/R stem, and then, executing a virtuoso performance of remote control, virtual reality, telepresent least-branch traversal of the domain of possible malfunctions I determined that his stem had a stripped wedge nut and would not in fact secure the handlebars.
I then proceed out to the veritable PILE of twisted, broken, rusty junk in my out-building and found a ratty 1/R stem, which I disassembled, extracted, and mailed to the aforementioned gentleman at my own expense, the requested part, which was delivered today, according to the USPS, the one remaining government agency that still provides any services at all, but that's yet another rant.
And again received not even a thank you!
Try buying either of those parts at your local bike shop. I'm not trying to blow my own horn here, but courtesy makes the world go round. Fer cryin out loud, people. If you post a request on CR, and somebody helps you out, well, a note of appreciation is in order, don't you think ? Huh ?
</RANT>
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Mark Petry
mark@petry.org
206 618 9642
Bainbridge Island, WA in the good old U.S. of A
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