Here's another short story.....

Back in 1993 when I was a new graduate, struggling to make a living by working in a bike shop a day or two a week and doing whatever freelance design work I could get my poor arse hands on, 'one of the owners' of Groupe Sportif wanders into the shop I was working in. Not long after the owner and him get chatting, his phone rings and it's some French restaurant he's confirming a booking on "Wee Wee, Gee ThompSANNNN!" and all that ****. I swear to this day it was a bogus call that the other guy who runs GS made so he could sound all important and stuff.

But anyway, I digress. Not long after that, they asked me to design some Look and Mavic jerseys for them after seeing the one I did for the bike shop I was working in. I did. They loved them. I even did the colour separations BY HAND, which was insane.

We had an agreement that I'd barter a Mavic Gruppo for the work, and they could write it off as a promo/sponsorship type thing, which worked well for the both of us. ( the gruppo wholesaled for about 900 bucks, which I thought was pretty good considering the ammount of work I did and the fact that it probably cost them only about 700 anyway ) Anyway, after I finished the job, I went to their warehouse to pick up the parts. "So what would you like, some cranks or some hubs?" They say. "Err, the whole ensemble?" I reply. "That's not what we agreed" they said.
Well, I was farken mad, and insisted they honour their agreement, go look at all the work I did for them and pony up the parts.
After making me wait for over an hour while they ********ted on, they eventually agreed, but I had a bad taste in my mouth and was reluctant to run the parts because they were such PITA's.

Naturally I did run the parts and had a great time on them as they were bullet-proof and shifted like a dream *clack clack*

Over a year later I was approaching home after going out for a ride.....a small divot in the road.....*bump*......cassette locks solid, bike skids, I crash.

The following day, we take the hub appart and noticed that one of the bolts holding on of the drive pawls on has sheered off, and locked the freehub solid.

We send it back to get replaced, they say "no warranty, because the chain has dropped off the cassette causing the freewheel to freeze." I say "********, the chain has dropped off maybe 3 times while adjusting the derailleur, but I haven't had to touch anything since then, coz they're actually, like, good parts", they then change their tune and say "Sorry, it's out of warranty period".

I still haven't got those wheels back. This was 10 years ago.

Subsequently, I will never use or recommend anything they wholesale. To anyone. Ever.

Just to rub it in, they used my designs for 4 years but only paid for 1.

Nice PR job, fellas!