Sunday, August 12, 2007

Tubes

So, there was that little issue of the tube that should have had a schrader valve, that instead had a presta value, that Freewheel bicycle gave my dad for his ride across Iowa, even though he told them he was bike illiterate and they had his bicycle sitting in front of them - i.e. he was buying it from them at that time.

After RAGBRAI, he went back to complain, and they comped him three tubes for his one presta tube. Except today, I pulled my Trek 7300, same Trek as his, different color, off the back of the car as it had come back from Freewheel, and noticed the flat tire was still flat. No big deal - they might have just assumed it had deflated over the week - it had a very slow leak. I yanked the back wheel, pried the tube off, grabbed one of the two tubes Dad had left with me...and it was the wrong size. Way too wide. Surprised, I went over to his bike - still in my garage until it can be shipped south - and, as suspected, it had the same size wheel as mine. They replaced his one inaccurate presta tube, with three inaccurate schrader tubes.

I went to Freewheel because I've always liked their competence, particularly compared to Erik's and the Penn in my neighborhood - but I'm starting to suspect that it was a very bad idea.

2 comments:

Ed Kohler said...

That's a major drag. I've had good luck with Freewheel. In fact, I was out shopping for a roadbike yesterday and found the salespeople at Freewheel the most competent out of the shops I visited.

Scooter said...

The sad part is it's still better than my experiences with Erik's and Penn (south). The good part is trips to Freewheel put me very close to a cask ale at Town Hall.