Welcome to the real world, Mark. I reply to a lot of folks on our list via offlist response, and have had the good fortune to be thanked for whatever small help I was able to lend. Unfortuneately, too many of today's people are adult delinquents and ruin it for keeper people like you. I, me, now, owed me, deserve it, without earning are all too prevalent and worsenng these last years. I don't know if it starts from the top down or the bottom up. I've learned over the last 50 + years in business and starting a cycling club, bike race , etc., doing all sorts of free stuff is a labor of love to what we do , and if any loyalty happens to come back as thanks it's a fringe benefit doing what we do for the sport and activity we enjoy. Figure it a small act of keeping the cosmos in balance, albeit I suspect we may be loosing the tilt an infinitismal amount each year. I always consider it a chop on the ungrateful B's and don't let it get to me. But the SoB better never come back a second time or his A-- is Grass. Keep your good nature and maybe ask a pittance before responding with your generosity, you will still be a Mensch as the Jewish term goes and feel good to yourself without feeling being taken advantage of. Sort of like the Trust but Verify approach. Please don't let the jackels, barracudas, and hyenas change your good nature, but please protect your flank a little. Been there, still doing it, too, but wearing a little armor. Ted Ernst Palos Verdes Estates CA USA Those innocent but faint of heart and any others on this list guilty of unworthy sefish behaviour can breathe easier, as I'm relaxed tonight and didn't really use the terminology such subhumans really have coming. My respect for the list and the overwhelming good folks out there gives the rotters a by for now. Just don't push it.
> 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>
>
>
>
> =========================================
>
> Mark Petry
>
> mark@petry.org
>
> 206 618 9642
>
> Bainbridge Island, WA in the good old U.S. of A
>
> =========================================