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Saturday, March 8, 2014

Wonder of a Scrap Truck!

Yea, I have to admit, as I continued to work on that Free Spirit yesterday, I was more and more impressed.  Cleaning the frame I discovered the Reynolds Tubing" badge!  This one is a REAL gem!  VERY lightweight lug frame.  I went ahead and did her as a simple single.  I am still apprehensive about producing a fixie for the floor.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I'll do them up as special orders, but the thought of putting it out when we allow anyone to do test drives?  Golly Bob Howdy!  I don't want to kill anyone!  I figure, the folks that want to ride a fixie have already done so and have experience.  It's an easy enough conversion anyway. 
Beyond the fixie, I really didn't have much of an opportunity to get anything else done, aside from a few repairs.  I'm not complaining, we had a steady stream of folks coming in to check out our wares, and the phone barely stopped ringing.  Of course, at one point in the day we had to deal with the Florida Dept of Revenue.  Oh, yes.  Fun, fun, fun.   Nothing more then an annoyance of bureaucracy.  Here's the gist, We sent out January's sales tax  on the 19th of Feb (has to be post marked by the 20th) but they didn't deposit it until Feb 14th.  Either it was a mail flub (which has been happening when mailing stuff out from the shop, lately) or someone in their office dropped the ball!  And when you read the rest of this sad story you will see where that is HIGHLY probable!   On the 22nd we received a notice, post marked the 20th of Feb (six days AFTER they deposited the check) that they had not received my Jan payment.  To contest, I had to do the paperwork triathlon, and send them a photo copy of the cancelled check with a "What the...?" letter.  2 days later I received another letter post marked the 19th of Feb (for those of you confused, as I was, this letter was sent out the day before the letter that stated I didn't send a check) stating that they had received the check, but it was late and I needed to pay the penalty.
SO WHICH ONE IS IT!
Then I made....the phone call.  DUM, DUM...DAHHH!!
ARRGH!!
I won't go into it too much, suffice to say, it took over an hour and several transfer to get sent right back to the office in Largo that I was dealing with when I first called!  Now, all I wanted to do was pay the bloody fee! (I swear, they run you through the gauntlet so you will become a supplicant!) BUT, had to apply for authorization on line to pay over the phone with a credit card!?
LORD!
Once that was done, it took three bloody days for them to get back to me, then 20 minutes just to take my damn number!!
OK, OK  I'll calm down. 
ANYWHO
We picked up a few newbies yesterday that I really want to get out.  One of them is a gorgeous SunCycle three wheeler that looks like it was never rode, just sat and collected a little rust.  Then on to other goodies.  All right, I am rambling, best get at it!
See ya soon!


SWEET, SEXY AND SINGLE.....SPEED!
ONLY $145.00!!!

4 comments:

  1. Steven-

    Of the 43 machines in our bicycle collection (not all are bikes, some are trikes and one's a unicycle), Queen Anne's Revenge, my glorious (and infamous) fixie, is by far and away the most addicting bicycle I own. It is the pure, distilled essence of cycling, undilluted and full strength. It is the double espresso with a side of crack bicycle. It's... well, you get the idea. But not until you ride one. Very few ride one and not understand afterwards what they have ridden: Satori on two wheels.
    Embrace the fixie, Grasshopper. Pedal to the Dark Side.

    Join us... join us...

    ReplyDelete
  2. You
    're not my REAL Father! I'll NEVER join the Emperor! LOL! By the way, the gear ratio for the Free Spirit was based on Queen Anne!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You honor me, my young apprentice. The Queen rolls with 52 x 20 macro gearing for a "Sheldon Brown Seventy" gear ratio. It has taken almost twenty years to tweak and nudge and Get It Right, but baby, that bike do FLY!

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete