[Yak] RE: failure of Bike Friday Service

[Vicente Santiago]

I am surpried at this string of e-mails. I'm surprised because I thought all this time that I was the only unhappy camper in this e-mail group.  I bought an XLQ tandem which I'm not happy with. Someone asked for an opinion about this bike before purchasing it and I e-mailed to him my experience. He was surprised and suggested that I get in touch with Bike Friday. I wrote a review but it has not been posted in their site yet. I think I was being generous when I wrote a 7. I wrote as my comments: poor welds, poor handling (sluggish and twitchy), paint had a thumb mark or something when I got it. I also noted that the head badge was not centered, and the quick release that holds the handlebar does not appear centered and so is very annoying when I look down. The bike just does not feel like my favorite road bike. I am also having to stop frequently to adjust the sram dual drive. They have offered to take a look at it and I will mail it back to have it checked but a bike trip is coming up and I'd hate to miss it due to a delay in repairing this hub.  I tried out other tandems from other manufacturers and I was quite happy with the build quality of the other bikes. I thought the idea of converting a tandem to a single is a good idea so I went ahead with this purchase.  With all the issues I mentioned above, I don't think I'll be taking this single on a trip soon. I'll either take my regular bike and pay shipping or buy another packable bike. It's good to know that I'm not the only one. I hope that Bike Friday will get in touch with each of the unhappy campers and offer to fix the problem - whatever it takes to get a "10" rating - if they are really what they say they are in their website. I learned not to purchase on-line without local support from this experience.  I this offends anyone, I'm sorry - but after spending close to $5000 on a "custom" bike on these difficult financial times, I expect it to be built well and to run well.
 
vince santiago