Recumbent - Help!

All,

I have terrible back problems and am disabled because of them. So my husband recently bought me a Burley Sand Point.

We live in Slovakia so he had to bring it back from the US in 2 boxes, unassembled. The information provided to the purchaser with regard to assembly is not very precise. We have contacted a Burley rep. and he has sent the following email:

"Ralph, Oh Boy! That is going to be a hard one to help with. We have dealer agreements that require our bikes be preassembled before being sold for just these and other safety reasons. It is not intended that the purchaser do this assembly These are built up by experienced shop mechanics who understand the process. Unless you have some bike assembly experience this could be very difficult. The BPSA manual and recumbent insert just give basic information. It should give you a diagram of how the cabling is routed. I'm sorry but I would suggest you get a copy of a basic bike mechanic book like the one from Bicycling Magazine. We don't have any further detailed literature to send you unfortunately. I do wish you luck!

Best regards,

Pete Stasney
Sales Support
Burley Design Cooperative
1-800-311-5294
staz@burley.com
www.burley.com
http://www.burley.com/dealers/default.aspx
___________________________________________________________________________________________

It was not possible or advisable to have the bike preassembled prior to shipping. Further it's not as if the warranty would be do us any good in Europe, we have not found a single shop that sells Burley recumbents in all of Europe.

If anyone has any expert advice regarding assembly please email me at Ladyhawk2808@hotmail.com

I intend to contact the CEO of Burley, Tom Wright-Hay, regarding the above email. This kind of response is not good for the company's profile or business.

kind regards and thanx in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Maybe someone with the same model or similar can take a lot of close-up pics, including cable runs and mounting bolts, and send them out. Then a good bike shop should be able to put the bike together and adjust it.
You might also ask this over at the message boards at:http://www.bentrideronline.com/

Thanx much, I will do as you have suggested with regard to posting this message. I think the other suggestion you made is not possible unless someone from US answers my email as I haven't a clue who, if anyone, in Europe might have such a bike.
kind regards!

well if either one of you know how to repair a bike you should be fine. all the parts are pretty standard bike parts. if not a bike shop should be able to handle with little problem.

I have terrible back problems and am disabled because of them. So my husband recently bought me a Burley Sand Point...It was not possible or advisable to have the bike preassembled prior to shipping. Further it's not as if the warranty would be do us any good in Europe, we have not found a single shop that sells Burley recumbents in all of Europe.

Burley does not sell direct. So your complaint with Burley should not actually be with them but with the bike shop that the bike was ordered from in the first place.

Secondly, Europe has several Burley dealers. There addresses can be found easily on the Burley website. Not all of them sell recumbents. They can however, order the bikes and assemble them.

The link to the dealers: http://www.burley.com/dealers/international.aspx

I think for Burley it is a liability issue if you assemble it and something happens and you claim they told you to do it that way. With a bike shop they can always claim it was assembled by a capable bike mechanic experienced at assembly. I would doubt very much that the CEO will give you a reply that differes muchc from the above email. As for assembly, get a good bike repair book, make friends with someone at a local bike shop to ask for advice (many won't touch recumbents but might be able to steer you in the right direction), and learn how to care for these wonderful machines! Once you have assembled one you will have more confidence that you can take care of issues as they arise out on the road (providing you carry a mutli-tool. Anyway, I had back problems and the recumbent has been a beautiful solution.