Originally Posted by Abneycat

If you wish to have a frame mounted pump, I can look in the back of my shop and see if we have any in the length you want. The Road Morph is a very good pump in its own right though, one of my favourites - also, distributed by Norco, heh.

I wish to state a few things, from the perspective of a bike shop:

1. Shop inventory is primarily obtained one of two ways. One way is through mass distributors, of which there are only a handful of common choices in Canada. The other is through independent sourcing, which makes little sense to many shops who are carrying goods outside of their primary focus as an afterthought.

Many shops independently source the bikes and accessories they are specifically interested in carrying, and then supplement through mass catalogue offerings. There are very FEW shops out there who consistently go out of their way to distribute things which are severely out of the norm.

Thusly, the distributors.. Norco is extremely easy to deal with. They have a very small minimum order, free shipping at a low pricepoint, excellent delivery times, an online website that makes ordering extremely easy, and if you're a shop, you CAN get in touch with them RIGHT AWAY.

Contrastingly, some others are not very easy. I have dealt with QBP, Orange Supply, and Asama, none of which are really anywhere near the level of convenience that Norco provides.

Compounded with the fact that a shop can practically operate out of the Norco book, its not particularly surprising that they are "everywhere".

Norco does not cater to specialty needs. Frame pumps are certainly non-standard equipment for modern bicycles out of North America, and its no surprise that nobody is stocking or supporting them - they're out of favour. Its odd to me that the Kwest would come with frame pegs at all, given the status quo of design.

Additionally, they are not a service retailer. Regarding the pannier, if they don't stock it, they will not bend things to make it work. I used to get in bikes that had the odd fork damage or other component get bumped up in transport. Rather than Norco providing us with replacement forks, they would simply get us to send the whole bike back. They didn't carry the forks on many of the bicycles to begin with. While this was a point of irritation for me personally, its simply the nature of their business. They are distributing packaged goods, not cooking in-home gourmet meals.

I personally do not see the problem, in regards to the Kwest. The standard is modern mini / small pumps and co2 cartridges. They included something so that you could take advantage of an older system if you happened to own it. I believe it is intended to be a convenience for owners of such pumps rather than an incentive for people to hunt around for old style equipment.

Its unfortunate that you haven't had a good experience with Norco.

And yes, in my opinion, the Axiom racks and bags are pretty junky as well. But in all honesty, most racks and bags at a value price point are junk in general.