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Cycling Review

2018 was a pretty fun year in cycling. I took it easy not having the BCBR as a goal, but still had some training goals. Sue and I did the Chafe 150 Gran Fondo, but I also trained for, and raced in, the Island Cup series of Enduro races.

This post though is about my 2018 cycling year in review.

2016 was a build year for BCBR. At the end of the year I started my long rides, and was doing two spin classes a week. 2017 was a big year for me. Lots of cycling, running, and other forms of training all culminating in BCBR. After that race I took a while off riding.

2018 had me on my road bike quite a bit getting ready for the Gran Fondo. Oddly I was also racing enduro events in amongst my road bike training. I’m not sure if that helped my enduro races or not. I didn’t get many long mountain bike rides in, so I wasn’t as comfortable on my Covert as I would have liked. The fun part about some of those races is that I raced them ‘blind’ either not having any practice on the trails, or never having ridden them at all!

The Gran Fondo itself was an excellent getaway with Sue. We rode together the entire way, though near the end of our 80 mile event my back was starting to act up. I wondered if that was due to me not riding at my natural pace?

In the fall we did the annual guys road trip, and this time we stayed on Vancouver Island riding in Duncan, Cumberland, Parksville, and Nanaimo.

What do I see in store for 2019? Well, I can answer that easily since I am late to the game with this 2018 review. So far Sue and I have signed up for the 5 Boro ride in NYC. I would also like to race the Island Cup enduro series again. The final big ride is the Cycle of Life Tour in July. A 2 day 200km ride to raise money for hospice care on Vancouver Island. That is enough to keep me busy I think

Customer Service Denied

Terrible customer service experience. On Monday we had some servicing done on our garage door. The gentlemen that did the work were excellent and I am happy with what they did. They created an invoice and asked how I wanted to pay. I used my credit card, so they whipped out an imprint machine, filled it out, swiped my card and handed it to me to sign (the total was $89.25).

The next day the charge went through for $94.50. I was a little confused about the difference, so I waited a day, then called the company. I was talking with what I think was the office manager, and explained the situation. Her reply was that she had left me a voicemail explaining that their serviceman charged me the wrong rate ($85 per hour vs $90 per hour). I explained that nobody quoted me an hourly rate, and all I knew was that I owed the $89.25. That is what I signed for on the credit card slip. She seemed to get rather angry and tried to explain that their hourly rate hadn’t been $85 for a couple years and that I should have been charged $90.

At this point I was starting to get pretty angry as well. This business, which I felt was a local business, that we had dealt with in the past was being very aggressive over a $5 mistake that someone made. She eventually asked me if I wanted the $5.25 returned to my card, which I replied ‘yes’ to. As I was giving my credit card number to her, I was getting more and more incredulous over this. Credit card companies have agreements in place and they broke that by charging me more than the slip I signed said. I called them as a courtesy to fix the problem (and I was curious what happened). Instead they soured my experience over $5. Instead of calling them I could have called Mastercard and disputed the charge. This company would have had to then look up the slip and send it to Mastercard, and still would have had to refund me money (as well as incurring the dreaded chargeback).

In my mind, what should have happened is they apologize for the mistake, refund the money, and let me know that next time the hourly rate will be at least 90. I would have left happy, instead of angry and pissed off over a stupid $5.25 surcharge.

After the call ended, I checked my voicemail and there was a message letting me know that the serviceman had charged me the wrong rate and asked me to let them know if they could send the amended amount through on my credit card. They didn’t call back, didn’t wait for confirmation, and were combative about fixing their mistake. Terrible customer service.