Broken Spring in Autumn
You know when on the weather forecast, they say "sunshine and showers"? Turns out that they sometimes mean it. In a ride of just over 12 miles to see my first client today, I ended up changing clothes THREE times:
- Got ready to leave the house - raining hard, so I put on coat & over-trousers
- Five miles down the road it’d stopped raining & the sun was shining. I was getting hot, so I stopped to take off the waterproofs
- Ten minutes later it was pishing down again. Stop to put ‘em back on.
- A couple of miles later, the sun was smiling down on me again, and rather than sweat, I stopped again to peel off the waterproofs.
Then when I got to my clients, and was putting the Pashley on it’s stand, I noticed THIS:
See the top of that spring? It’s completely snapped - all three wires!
OMG - have I really put on that much weight?
The saddle was rideable though - I’ve separated the broken strands for the photos above - the spring still pretty much works - so after my meeting with my client, I headed off to the office, picking up fish & chips for lunch (hey - it’s Friday!) on the way . . .
. . . and called Brooks. I was expecting some sort of argument - the saddle’s about 18 months old (past the UK’s statutory warranty period), and I have no receipt for the bike’s purchase either. You know the sort of thing - "Computer says, ‘No’".
Not a bit of it. The splendid Brummie chap who answered the phone at Brooks explained what causes the problem with the B33 saddle (the two springs are both right-handed, so one gets additional loading relative to it’s location), and that they’ve now rectified this by re-tooling with left- and right- handed springs being made. Would I like to send my saddle back to Brooks for repair? Or would I prefer that they just send me a new pair of springs for DIY repair?
As one of my Twitter buddies commented,
Brooks saddles the quality is remembered long after the cost is forgotten. Nice
I’d add to that . . .
… and so far, the customer service seems to match!
Have you dealt with brilliant bike shops when you’ve had a problem? Or have you found that your bike was made in Little Britain?
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 09/10/2010
- Time: 17:50:00
- Total Time: 2:40:00.00
- Calories: 1558
- Distance: 35 miles
- Average Speed: 13.12 mph
