Anticipating delivery

In May of 2017 I had a business trip to the Bay Area so I visited the factory/shop and rode a red demo. It was pouring rain that day so I had to be satisfied with a brief ride around the parking lot. Nevertheless, I loved the bike and was eager to get mine.

I was impressed with his operation and the bikes "lying around" were also impressive. Excitement continued to build.

With the money down mid-April, I was expecting delivery mid-June. On June 6th, 2011, I sent an email to Marcus (Hays, CEO) asking him if could give me a delivery date. His reply:


"Hi Tony,

Currently I am estimating June 21st.

Cheers,

Marcus"

After the cheerful email, I was excited to begin riding.

On the 27th I wrote him an email:

"Marcus
Did the bike ship last week?
Tony"

And his reply the same day:

"Hi Tony,

The bike did not ship yet. We're having a production meeting in a little while from which I should be able to glean an exact date. I will let you know tomorrow.
Marcus"

So issues can get in the way of smooth operations. I've been in business long enough to know this. But a long held tenet of business is to communicate with customers changes that will affect them.

I'm a design professional so the cool factor far outweighed a little delay in the delivery date. Once I had it, I could look forward to years of fun right?

The next day (6/28) after a prompt from me, Marcus sent the following:

"Hi Tony,

Here’s the revised delivery timetable:
bike is being preassembled now
bike will be then be disassembled and delivered on Tuesday (July 5th) for painting
the painters will take until the following Monday (July 11th)
the will ship on July 15th

Thank you,

Marcus" 

So.... a month late now. My wife was starting to think I was in love with this guy to so easily let him slide. Again after a prompt from me Marcus wrote on July 14th.:

"Hi Tony,

So sorry to report that we have hit a snag with a couple of component suppliers who after repeated delivery promises have let us down again. The only thing I can do in terms of getting you a bike tomorrow is to ship you a 2010 demo.

Please advise and I apologize deeply for the snafu.

Marcus"

C'mon, he was apologizing right? And the bike was Ubercool.

So, I asked for the demo - at least to have a bike to ride while I was waiting. The delivery of that was late as well. Marcus told me how his crew were "going over" the bike to make sure it was perfect when I received it. Well.......

It wasn't.

When the UPS guy arrived, he asked for help taking it off the truck. As we got the box (a YUBA box from a another manufacturer) out of the truck, the bottom fell out and the bike - in many pieces - fell onto the street. Damn....but the bike was cool right?

So in assembling the bike, I noticed the NuVinci hub didn't work as it kept popping the controller off the hub. Easily fixed with (ugly) zip ties. One of the four screws that held the "dashboard" down was missing and the hole had been stripped so I had to re-tap the hole and install a bigger screw. No worries. The bike was cool right?

The front wheel was so out of true that I had to bring it to the local bike shop to true it up.

These are just a few things that needed attention before I could ride. If this was "making the bike perfect", I was started to get afraid for my bike that I had bought and paid for.

After a coupld of days I was finally riding. What a nice ride. It was like a cruiser that held the road well and was very well balanced. If I would compare it to a car, I would say Bentley. Heavy, smooth, and fast.

So from the end of July I was riding....until the end of October when things started to go very wrong. Stay tuned.