bjtesch

I'm rebuilding a road bike. I've been riding a hybrid for the last couple of years after I had a bad crash 4 years ago. I needed tires for the new bike and I wanted to ride it tomorrow, so last Sunday I got around to picking some tire models and I ordered my preference from mail order retailer #1 , along with some other misc. items. I wanted to be sure I had the tires in time to get the bike put together so I paid extra for 2 day shipping. The website for store #1 said everything was in stock.

The next morning I have an email saying that some of the items I ordered are not in stock and would be placed on backorder, but it did not tell me what items were out of stock. I was at work so I had to waiit until lunch to call about it. I asked the phone person which items were out of stock and she said it was the tires. Since I wanted the tires right away I didn't want them to be on backorder so I asked if she could remove them from my order and she said yes.

Since I needed the tires I went online to retailer #2 and ordered the tires that were second on my list.

Then late that night I get a shipping notice from store #1 and it lists everything I ordered, including the tires. And 2 days later, Wednesday, the package shows up, including tires.

And of course on Friday the other package arrives from store #2 , including the second pair of tires. I had paid for quicker shipping but it took 3 days from that company.

So now what do I do? I have 2 pair of tires and I only need 1 pair. The bike that I am building won't get a lot of miles so I won't be wearing out tires for many years. I intend to complain to store #1 about their inaccurate emails and inaction by their telephone person. Even though they shipped me the tires that I really wanted, should I send them back and keep the tires from store #2 ? Or should I send back the tires from store #2 and keep the tires that I wanted from store #1 ? Store #2 didn't provide me the bad service, store #1 did.

I have ordered from both stores in the past and got good service.

Steve B.

Don't return anything, keep both sets of tires.

There's no such thing as never needing tires, they are perishable items. Store away till that day arrives.

fietsbob

Call in a drone air strike.

skijor

Assuming store #1 did not send a confirmation email or text about the tire cancellation, take the polite approach and give them the chance to honor the phoned-in transaction and send their tires back. Keep store #2 out of it.

gl98115

Buy at your LBS next time.

TrikeRider1961

I would have to agree with SteveB and skijor. First I would keep them, as the need for a replacement is only one obstacle or hazard away. If that isn't an option then clearly store #1 should be held responsible for processing the return of the tires.

thank you

fietsbob

bjtesch

Even though I live in a big city, there is no LBS near to me. The closest shop is about 15 miles away, the closest good shop is more like 20-25 miles away. I've been through this before though- go into the shop looking for specific things and they don't have them. Hence the reason to use mail order. Maybe it is just that I am too picky about what I buy. BJT first rule of retail is- you can't sell a product that you don't have. I had to change jobs a year ago and now I am basically punching a time clock without much extra time or flexibility to spend a couple of hours driving across town to search for tires.

I understand the suggestion to keep the extra tires for spares. For a long time I had 2 complete bikes and several times I would come home to ride and the bike I intended to ride would have a flat so I would just grab the other bike and go.

I finished the new wheels today. I'm using a Park tension gauge to measure the tension and I was able to set the front wheels at 100-110 kg. The rear wheels I got to almost 90 kg NDS and about 130 kg DS. My dish is about 2-3mm off of center.

Now that I have the gauge, I checked my old wheels just for grins. I have one set of wheels that I built over 25 years ago and have ridden a lot since then- Wolber TX rims and 2.0mm spokes. The fronts are 76-107 kg. The rears are 62-85 kg NDS and 107-137 kg DS. The spokes are fairly uniform, with just a few off more than the rest one way or another. Even though the spoke tensions are all fairly good and I have not had any problems with these wheels, I think the rear needs a bit of touchup on its truing. I don't recall that I've done that before.

My other set of wheels come on a used bike that I bought 23 years ago. I have ridden these wheels a lot and not had any problems with them, I don't recall that I have ever done any truing on them. The spoke tensions on these are not as uniform as the ones that I built. The maximum tensions of the front wheel were 68 kg, with a lot of the tensions much less and a couple almost zero. The rear wheel tensions are at 137-179 kg DS and 56-107 kg NDS. I'm surprised that the DS tensions are so high, and that the front wheels have performed well with such erratic spoke tensions.

spdracr39

call both and see which has a better return policy or sell the extra set to a friend. Better yet donate them to a bike shop that builds bikes for kids or homeless.

no1mad 

Welcome to General Cycling from Foo.

FBinNY 

Compost happens.

Sometimes there's an information lag, and stuff that was out of stock had arrived, but not been keyed into the computer as arrived. So they filled your order as originally placed. This isn't that big a deal either way, and I wouldn't call it bad service.

Call the seller, and explain and arrange for a return.