Day 45 - Breakdown!

Shock horror, the worst of all disasters!

As I previously reported, on Friday, my steed returned to the Bike Shed, Exeter, for it's first service; this is when they tighten cables and check it over for safety. Over the weekend, persistent rain and other activities - decorating! - kept me away from the bike, and so it was not until this morning that I was finally able to return to my training.

We made good progress climbing Seaton Down Hill but on turning down Marlpit, the somewhat potholed lane, an awful rattle became very audible from the front of the bike. I initially thought it to be cables which had worked themselves lose, but no, there was nothing obvious there. In fact there was nothing visibly wrong anywhere, but the knocking was becoming quite disturbing. I made it down to the Esplanade where I pulled up to give it a further looking over. Dismounting to get a better view, there was still nothing obvious and I wondered whether it could have anything to do with the adjustable  shocks in the front forks. There is a small plastic switch on top of the shocks which, coincidentally, I remember examining on collecting the bike on Friday as something did not quite look right but nothing came of it then, tragically this morning, however, with one turn - to see if this could be the cause of the rattle - it sheered off! There was also a broken flange around the left shock. This made me believe, without doubt,  that the forks were at fault, something catastrophic had obviously happened. I was left with no option other than to nurse the bike home, drawing an early close to my morning ride.

If like me you hate having to return faulty goods, you'll appreciate my feelings making that early morning call to the Bike Shed. My view was that on Friday the bike was running perfectly and on Monday it has a rattle and visible signs of damage and the only change between these days had been the service. Why did I not spot this, you may ask - I did - on my way back to the car on Friday afternoon? Well. Exeter is a whole lot noisier on a Friday afternoon than sleepy Seaton at 07:00 am, also, my attention was focussed on finding my way along a very unfamiliar route. I reserve commenting on the Bike Shed's view for now, as just as your car insurance company advise not to admit liability in the event of a knock, it is safe to say that the sales team were adopting the same approach with me today, both on the phone and when I dropped it off in my lunch hour.

I was hoping to hear back from the Bike Shed this afternoon on how long it was going to take to fix, but alas no call was received. They have, it was explained to me, a very formal way of dealing with warrantee claims, only the Crediton branch can deal with these, so they were unable to tell me how long a fix would take but I was promised that they would call me later in the day. I always believe that you only see the true quality of a great retail outlet by the way they handle complaints. How the Bike Shed now perform will be of most interest to me. Their lack of an update call this afternoon, when they could see how anxious I was to get my 6 week old bike back as soon as possible, has not been the greatest of starts!