Customer Service: How to Earn a Customer for Life.

Earlier this week, I posted about my hard introduction to the asphalt that is the intersection at University Drive and Woodlands Village Boulevard. I've since then successfully navigated that intersection, with no broken pedals. However, I now know that I've left my mark on the pavement, in the form of a faint white gouge from the broken pedal stub.

But, that's not what I'm here to tell you about.

I said I planned to send off the pictures of the pedal to Crank Brothers, just to see what they thought of the situation, maybe someone might learn something from it.

I certainly didn't expect to get these a few days later:
A brand new set of Candy 2 pedals, to replace a 4 year old pair of abused, no longer under warranty pedals, that I had no proof of purchase for. They didn't have to do this for me, but customer service like this rocks, and definitely puts Crank Brothers at the top of my list for excellent service.

But... orange pedals?

I have a bike that would like orange pedals....

STeve's new stompers. Not bad.

In other news, I put more parts on the Austro-Daimler today. Now, I had planned on posting up pictures of the bike after each individual part went on, but I really don't feel like ordering that many pictures in a post, and some are fairly redundant, and others aren't turning out as well as I'd like. So you get the Reader's Digest version for now. If people want, maybe I'll put together a Picasa album with all the pictures I remembered to take of the build.

Here's what I started off with today:

Now, I know that's not what I left off with. "It didn't have wheels before!" I know, I know. I got a little antsy, and got the rear hub put together, then tossed both wheels on the truing stand. After that... well... I wanted to see what the bike looked like with wheels on it.

You understand, right?

Anyways, Here's how it sits now:
All major components installed. All that's left are brake cables, saddle, bar tape, and initial adjustments. There were some hiccups today, like realizing just why I had to respace the rear axle wider. The tires I had planned on using, the ones that were on STeve, were too big and wouldn't fit in the frame. (STeve now has more aggressive tread cross tires, instead of smooth ones)

The problem I have now is that I hate front derailleurs. The friction shifter that handles the front derailleur can't handle the spring tension from it, so it slips. I have ideas as to how to counter it, but we'll see.

For now, it looks a lot like a bike.

Mileage: ~8 ish.