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Breakdown in the Desert At this point in the journey the worst case senario came round the corner. As Al struggled through the desert the bike frame cracked near the rear drop-out. This is no problem when you can pop down the High St to 'Joe's Bikes' and get it sorted. When you are a stranger in a strange land this is big problem, possibly bad enough to send Al back home. The first I heard was when an email arrived from Al telling me of the problem. A local bed maker had got the welding torch going and put in a temporary repair, a lucky break, sorry, no joke intended. You can see from the picture that it was not the work of a skilled frame maker but Al was able to pedal further on for a while. The repair would not last. Al needed to get a new frame. After reading his email and looking at the CC's I rang Specialized at their UK office and spoke to --. The first response was for the lady to say "I'll check to see if we have a distributor there" I don't think she knew the depth of feeling in some parts of the world when it comes to US trade! No surprise to find that there was no distributor! Next step. "Can we have the frame number?". I will find out and proceeded to email Al to pass the request along. Each of these steps take a full day. I get the info from one or the other and then we pass it around. Frame number arrives and Specialized check their database
and very quickly come back to me with the good news that the frame is
full warranty for the original owners lifetime! This should be good
news, it is good news but we realise that Al will need quite a few special
tools to do the change over of equipment and running gear. I thought we should stick our collective necks out a bit and I asked Speciaized if I could suggest something. Like what? I ask if the could supply a complete bike, with all the racks etc, ready to go out of the box! About an hour later the answer comes - Yes. In the current climate you often expect and rightly so to suspect that the least amount of help is what you should expect. I have to say that Specialized have proved that you should not jump to conclusions. This is like the days when if your Rolls Royce broke down the factory would send another one just to keep you in the manner etc. A friend of Al's took the bike as personal luggage and delivered it. Some one is now riding around on Al's old bike as probably as pleased as punch!
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