Friday, December 28, 2012

oh the holidays

Well it sure has been a long time since I had a rant on my blog but man I haven’t been this frustrated in a long ass time!
First off I think I have ordered my last thing from Price Point. You might save some money but in the end if it isn’t what you want you end up spending way more!
So here we go. I always get to purchase my own Christmas gift on behalf of my mother because she doesn’t like to give me cash or gift cards and never knows what to get me.  Nothing new here, I went online to get something bad ass for biking. I checked all the sites and none of the had the shorts I wanted.
 I wanted some loud colored mtb shorts. I searched and of course it ended up that Troy Lee would be the brand to go with.  I was really digging the Cam Zink’esk TLD Moto shorts. Started looking for the best price. I found them at Price Point for what I thought was a good price, $84. Went through the check out and $11 bones for the shipping. I was like dang that’s a lot but no big deal, it will be worth it and no other shop had them in stock. So click and purchased them. $95 bucks total and got them in a week. Sweet they are so dope, try them on they don’t fit…WTF, I wear 32inch pants, I followed the sizing chart and ordered 34 inch waist! I know I didn’t gain that much weight in 7 days. I waited 2 days tried them on again, nope they just don’t fit. I looked at the return policy.
Pricepoint: customer is responsible for all shipping when product is returned for not fitting… Ok that is lame. I wanted to make sure that the shorts were not just mis-labled or something so I called around and of course no bike shops even carried TLD products at least not clothing. I called Bob’s Cycle and they did, so I drove over to Bob’s and they didn’t have any shorts but they did have few styles of pants. I tried them all on and the 34’s fit a little better but definitely needed 36inch! Damn it. Well time to return them.
I went to the post office yesterday to send it, wow what an experience. I show up 1 person in line. I walk up to the lady and was like, hey I need to return these and would like to ship them as cheep as possible what is my best option? She says all the boxes are there on the shelf and the price is on them.  Ok? Zero help. So I went  to the shelf and start looking. Find a box that works and by that time 5 people have walked in. Back of the line I go. I get everything filled out and box loosely put together make my way back to the front and the lady is like, what are you not going to tape it? I was like I don’t have any tape, can you tape it? No we don’t have tape for the public but you can buy a roll right there for $3.50. I stood there for a second, like are you serious? So I ask well do I have any options that don’t require me to go get tape. She is like a priority package. I was like I don’t really need priority but how much is it? She is like $10. I was like no way and she was looking at me like hurry up, making me all nervous and the line was growing behind me, so I was like fuck it give me the box and I will go home and tape it and come back. $2 for a box. On the way home I was like that was dumb I have a box at home for sure. Oh well $2 down the drain. I get home pissed off at this cumbersome process growing ever more frustrated with Price Point and now the US Postal Service. I get it all packaged up but now it is too late to take it back so I ask Kelly to take it back today.
To put this inter prospective. Per price point policy I have 30 days from delivery to return the produce. I received the shorts on 12/14/12 that means  I have till 1/13/2013 to get it back to them for them to except it.
She is there going to send it and they said standard shipping could take up to 14 days. So that is cutting it super close so she has to send in priority anyways and price point requires insurance and I wanted delivery confirmation. All in all it ended up costing almost $13 to ship it back! Plus $2 for the box, so $15! Totally not Kelly’s fault and I’m thankful she could help me out but that sucks big time! Thanks super unhelpful USPS lady, you could have told me when I asked what the cheapest way to ship it back that regular is not cheaper!  I should have just shipped it priority to begin with and saved my self $5! Man postage has gone to the roof. I was just a pair of shorts going to CA. I’ve sent packages to Germany way heavier then this for the same price or less!
Needless to say I am super annoyed. I spent $26 to find out that the shorts I wanted didn’t fit and now I have nothing to show for it! So I might have well said fuck it and donated $26 to a good cause and not to Fed Ex and the worthless USPS! Oh and forget PricePoint not worth it they have low prices but get you on the shipping… I’m not sure I’m 100% done with online shopping but I’m not happy with this experience at all! I can’t say it isn’t some my fault for not being patient with the online shopping and doing some more reviews but if the sizing chart says it will fit it should damn well fit!
That said I don’t have much of a choice since the local bike shops aren’t that great they don’t stock anything that I would ever want. If you don’t ride road, are a fixie riding hipster, ride XC or a fat bike your fucked! Yes they probably can order just about anything that QBP sells but at an inflated price!
I’m at a loss. I don’t know what to do! I wish I could just move but that isn’t realistic at this time! It would  be great to be able to just go down the street and buy cool shit locally. No waiting, no extra costs, no head aches and good for everyone!  Heck the closest bike shop is 10 miles from my house and there isn’t even one in Cottage Grove…. Oh well thanks for letting me rant. I feel better now and I guess it is another life lesson learned!
Keep it real!

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Survey TIme!!!!!!

Hey everyone it is game time! MORC Gravity Advocates has released a survey to gauge the interest in alternative riding such as gravity, freeride and BMX

Click here for survey

Sunday, December 9, 2012

..... hmmmm

Hey hey hey every buddy! That was my Fat Albert reference of the day for all you old school lovers out there! Anyways, life has been going in warp speed but it's going great. Heck we finally got some snow and it is finally starting to feel like winter and I love it. I still live in this state because I love the seasons. I love riding my bike only second to my family but even the most hard core riders need a break to recover and refuel our drive.

I don't plan on taking as much time off as I have in the past. I want to come out of the gate full speed next spring so I have decided to bust out the trainer and put some flats on the Surly LHT and tossed that in the basement, along with my kettlebell and hope to get tons of use out of them to stay sharp for next year. On top of that the really money training will come from racing indoor BMX. As you know I bought a 24inch BMX bike and I plan on using that and honing the skills over the winter by going back to my roots and racing BMX. I hope to learn some new skills from my BMX cohorts!

I was going to start today but this awesome winter weather has kept me home bound but I did get to rock the XC skis so that was cool. Hopefully next week! On top of the XC skis I got to spend some serious time with the family! It was awesome, did a little back yard sledding with Kelly and Jerry. We then went to Kelly's parent's house and helped clear snow and decorate the Christmas Tree. Tis the season and with this new snow it is really starting to feel like it. I will tell you, you know that you are a dirt bag mountain biker when end up shoveling your drive way with a flat shovel, haha. That definitely makes it take way longer! Menard's here I come!

Things have been moving quickly with MORC and other bike related endeavors. I hope that some of them can come to fruition. I have a meeting with Cottage Grove Park's Commission to discuss building a bike park in Cottage Grove. I hope that goes well, it would be great to have another bike park in the metro and great form me to have one this close to my house!

Vail Resorts purchased Afton Alps, also really close to my house, and this could be huge news for mountain biking but we will have to wait and see! Vail Resorts owns Vail, Breckinridge, Keystone, Beaver Creek, Heavenly Valley, Kirckwood and Northstar. Keystone and Northstar are home to two of the biggest and best
bike parks in the nation and almost all of their resorts have mountain biking and they are expanding into lift access riding in many of their other resorts.

Afton has tons of potential and the best possible terrain near the metro area. They have close to 350ft of elevation loss, 300  acres of land and multiple chairs. They could run the bike park off of lift 2 and 14 and with a few pedal strokes you could access the entire ski area and since you are on a bike you could even ride to areas that do not have ski access as riders could cross the rode and trails could be built through tree areas! The potential is massive and I hope that Vail realized the potential market here as there is no other lift access gravity riding near the metro. Only time will tell. It would also be awesome for them to redo and upgrade some of the XC trails. Per the US ski association, the average ski hill that runs a lift access bike park they average $190,000 in income during the bike season! That is better then letting your lift sit still and doing nothing and this would not interfere with their Golf area!

Well enjoy the snow and keep it real!