I’m still in a bit of a holding pattern
during the “Winter That Won’t End”, struggling to find a few key parts, like
headsets and bottom brackets, without which I can’t make reasonable progress with
my current projects. The high-end Campagnolo pieces are rare enough to make the
search difficult, but the prices these components have been commanding doesn’t
help, when trying to keep within a budget.
Brendan and I have been exchanging ideas
about some slight compromises to achieve the right look on his Tommasini. I was
thinking we might be able to save bucks in some areas, in anticipation of
having to sink a bit more money into others - namely the elusive C-Record rear
derailleur and Delta brakes! For example, he really likes the classic Cinelli
Volare SLX saddle, particularly the model with perforated white leather, but I
pointed out that there was a recent release of the saddles, which are nearly
identical, except for the elimination of the gold script logo on the sides. The
important factor here is that the new saddle is about a third less in price!
 |
| Not much of difference here, except the price tag! |
He also liked Cinelli’s engraved Tommasini
stem, which features a slick Italian tri-color strip across the top and the
T-logo on the face plate. I found a similar 3T version that needed a bit of touch-up
and polish at a significant price drop. I did already have in stock a couple
sets of the Cinelli handlebars Brendan had on his checklist, but we like to
match up manufacturers, so I’ll be looking for some 3T bars to pair with that
stem.
While his Bottecchia isn’t going to be quite
as high-end, it still involves some parts that will take some effort to
collect. Anything Campagnolo these
days is proving harder and costlier to find - in this case a vintage, thread-on
freewheel-type wheelset.
In the meantime, I did a little research on
gearing for single-speed bikes. I realize we may end up with a little
experimentation, but a single-speed cog costs under $20, so it wouldn’t be a
tragic financial hit if we made an error in our estimate of what should feel
right. It seemed a popular set-up is 48x16 (teeth count of front chainring x
rear cog), so that was our planned starting point.
We have a Campagnolo Record crankset, which
is attractive, but the small ring is only a 42t version, and it appears pretty
plain by itself. After purchasing some shorter, single ring bolts for assembly,
I looked around for a 48t ring and found a cool-looking 47t ring (close enough)
that was drilled-out.
The Scanini
was coming along nicely, until I had an unpleasant experience with an eBay
seller who sent me a set of Mavic wheels with a noticeable hop in the rear. It
definitely wasn’t damage that had happened during shipping, because I could see
a dip of the wear marks on the brake surfaces exactly where the hop occurs.
I can true a wheel and make minor
corrections to a rim, but I wanted my buddies at Bikesport to take a better
look at it and set the correct spoke tension. Knowing that they normally charge
around $20 to fix a wheel, I let the seller know what was going on. To say he
hasn’t been helpful is an understatement, as he made it clear that he was
disappointed that I had won the auction at such a low price and was willing to pay
the shipping to have it returned, with the hope to re-list the wheels and make
more money.
During our exchange of messages, I explained
my annoyance with the concept that he would rather give $25 to whatever
shipping service he wanted to use, instead of trying to help a buyer by
reimbursing $20 to repair the damaged goods he had sent. The seller really didn’t
care, and responded with a “Do whatever you need to, dude,” when I asked what
kind of feedback he would expect to receive for his apathetic response.
I sent some rather tame negative feedback,
and then looked into the steps for filing a claim. Thinking about this a bit
more, I was annoyed that this guy might not repair the wheel before trying to
pass the wheelset off to someone else, but then my thoughts came back to the
present situation and the fact that the nice deal I made on these wheels would
be lost.
Ebay has kind of messed up its
complaint/claim process by initiating returns automatically, with the hope that
buyers and sellers will sort out issues before involving the resolution process.
Buyers (supposedly) have an option of leaving a note in the returns page
regarding partial refunds or other possible solutions, but it seems the folks
at eBay don’t always read the notes, because I mentioned that I did not want to
return the item and preferred a partial refund, yet received a notice that a
full refund has been approved by the seller about an hour after I filed the
claim. The really strange thing was that I received another notice a short time
later, this time from Paypal to notify me that the seller had sent a refund,
despite the fact that a seller is (very logically) supposed to wait for the
return of the package BEFORE sending payment!
Bikesport gets very backed-up with
repair/tune-ups during the spring and have not finished my work, so I certainly
didn’t want to return the funds to the seller without knowing the complete
story on the wheels. The seller also sent the funds via a Paypal eCheck, so it
was going to take a few days for the money to clear, so it wasn’t like I was
going to send the package out immediately anyway.
When the seller grew impatient for the
arrival of the package, he sent a message asking my intentions, and I repeated that
I did not want to return the wheels and that eBay had made a mistake by
initiating their return process. We then went in circles of explanations, as he
just wasn’t getting it through his head that the money wasn’t yet in my account
and that I wasn’t doing anything until it was. The last thing I wanted to do
was send back the money, find the wheels were trash and have no recourse, since
eBay closed out the claim, assuming the return had been completed.
Thinking that I was trying to keep the money
AND the wheels (wouldn’t that be awesome, though), the seller’s messages
started to border on the ridiculous, including filing reports with the county
magistrate and then, because the transaction took place over state lines (the
seller is from Massachusetts), he would look into making a federal complaint.
Sue joked, “Wow, he really is making a federal case of it!” - remember this is
all really about just twenty bucks!
I informed the seller that I would no longer
be responding to his messages, and a few days later I received a notification
from eBay that my negative feedback was removed because “some of my actions
violated eBay’s feedback extortion policy”. Well, it has become obvious that
eBay is trying to avoid having anyone leave negative feedback (at times ignoring
the reality of a situation or fairness) as a business practice, but the wording
of this notification certainly sounded heavy!
Immediately I contacted eBay, since all I
did was mention that I received a damaged product which the seller refused to
reimburse me for repair – not really inflammatory in any way. I also wanted to
bring the seller’s legal threats to their attention and explain my actions to
this point. The representative encouraged me to return the money as soon as
possible (of course) and reviewed the previous exchange of messages. He decided
to remove the extortion policy infraction (not reinstate the feedback...oh
well), chalking the situation up as a “misunderstanding between buyer and
seller”. Yeah, that was it.
The other day I received a pesty request for a payment return from the seller via a Paypal invoice, but I simply
pushed the “cancel” button. I’m not engaging with this guy until I find out if the
wheels are in serviceable condition – he might just get his wish and find them
back on his doorstep!
