Friday, January 20, 2012

Props to Bell

The maiden voyage of My Orange Bike was last Sunday.  I noticed that my headset was a little loose so I had Sebastian at Spokes, Etc. check it out after the ride.  Turns out that the top cap was binding on the stem and not applying enough pressure to preload the bearing.  He added a black spacer and was able to get the bearing preloaded properly.

I still have a little bit of adjustment to do on the rear derailleur but that's really about all.  Everything else wen without a hitch.  Yea me (and Sebastian)!

While waiting for the headset to get squared away, I was having coffee and some bread when my hand slipped and hit the restraint system on my Bell Volt helmet.  Broke that sucker in two places!  I guess it was cold enough that the plastic was brittle enough to snap with little force.





As you can see from the photos, the system was easily removed from the helmet.   I figured that Bell might have a replacement piece so I gave them a call on Monday and lo and behold the nice lady at Bell said she'd send me a free replacement piece.  She told me that it should arrive in 7 to 10 business days.

That's a long time not to be riding.  Almost 2 weeks!  So I started searching around for a 2nd helmet.  Being me, I spent entirely too much time looking for another helmet.  I went to Performance to look at what they had and called a bunch of local shops to see what was in their inventory.  I didn't want to spend too much but I do have my standards you know!  Nothing local appealed to me.

The search then moved to online stores worldwide, mostly in Europe where I had good luck before.  I figure that CEN safety certification, the EU safety standard, is just as good as Snell or CPSC.  Plus there are some stylish lids to be had over there.

I bought my Catlike Whisper from a UK shop before they got certified here in the US.  I was in luck!  I'd liked the Met Stradivarius since I saw it a number of years ago.  It tuns out that a site in the UK was selling this helmet for $110US + $13 shipping.  I couldn't pass it up!


This helmet except in Glossy Black

Well, wouldn't you know it.  I was working at home today and Mailman Mike left me a package during his normal rounds.  It was the replacement restraint system from Bell.  I will now have 2 nice helmets from which to choose for my ride.

Props to Bell for getting the part to me within the week.

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