The Saga of the Two Wheels

Relax, this is nothing serious or bad about the motorcycle, this is about the other two wheels I mentioned, back in July.  I was doing some more talking with Maynard and he seriously recommended against the single gear bike, especially since I’m just (re) entering the cycling gig.  He convinced me that a few gears would not be a bad thing at all, and since the SS I’d been looking at wasn’t going to be available until October, it wouldn’t hurt me to do some more looking.

So of course, the next bike I found that fit the bill of what I was looking for has 27 gears.  What the…??  How the hell did I go from 1 gear to 27?  Simple; the 3-gear options were only available on bikes which did not appeal to me.  Same with the 12-speed, 15, 18, etc.  The bike style, tire size, derailaeiour, seat height, etc. that I liked came in a minimum of 27 gears.  Oh, and a lock-out front suspension.  Fine, let’s do this so I can get rolling.  I’m only getting fatter each day so I need to get going on this.

So I placed the order.  They ship UPS and are very up front about shipping things “signature required”.  No problem, I can just have it delivered to a UPS store and then I’ll sign for it there and pick it up.  Well, in order to ship it to a UPS store, I have to sign up for an account on UPS.com.  I don’t like to sign up for things unless absolutely necessary, but this seemed a necessity so I did it.  Account name, password…done.  Ok, they have my shipment tracking number…click this link to change destination…selected the UPS store in Walpole…done. Ta da!

And then an hour later I received an email from UPS saying they can’t deliver it to their store because a signature is required.  Huh?  But…it’s your store.  I will sign for it when I come to pick it up.  Nope, they have to deliver it to my home address.  But…I work all day and won’t be home??  What the crap…

Let’s see if I can change the delivery location to my work.  Yes, I can do that but it’ll cost and I have to upgrade my (currently) free account to a paying account, and I have to accept emails and texts from them and from their business partners.  No, you can go pound sand instead.

Let’s see if I can get a delivery time from them.  Yes, they send out delivery notifications so I signed up for that.  And voila!  I got an email!  It said my bike would be delivered “by end of day”.  Huh?  That doesn’t help much at all, is there any way to get a tighter window?  Maybe in the morning, or the afternoon?  Nope.  “by end of day” means they can’t give a time window.  And even better; there’s no way to contact the driver to find out where he is or when he might be in my area.  So basically what they’re saying is “It will be delivered sometime between 7am and 7pm, but it could fall outside that window”. (Their words.)

Awesome.

Needless to say I was not surprised to get home last night and find a note on my door which notified me that I hadn’t been home when they’d tried to deliver the bike.  No shit.

The note did say they were going to try again today to deliver it.  Fortunately for me, Tara is just back from vaca and not at work today so she’s going to hang out at my house for a bit and hopefully will be there when the delivery guy shows up.

I used to work for UPS, unloading trucks when I was in college.  I knew the drivers worked hard but I didn’t realize they were hamstrung by the stupidity of their corporation.  The guy delivering my bike today had to make two trips.  It would have been so much easier if they’d just sent it to the UPS store.  Yes, I understand that the stores are independently owned and operated franchises, but still; they’re an extension of UPS, so it would make things easier all around if they’d let deliveries go there.

It’s no wonder the thought going through my head “Fuck UPS” also translates into fuckups.

Anyway.  Hopefully I’ll have a bike when I get home this afternoon.  Wish me luck.

Ride Hard, Take Chances if you use UPS.