Broken bike accessories
Here’s a copy of the email I sent to Performance Bike after breaking their store brand headlight:
Dear Performance Bike,
I enjoy shopping at your Dunwoody location. The staff there has always been helpful and courteous and the service prompt. Also, although I dislike the idea of your customer loyalty cards, it seems to work well for purchasers of new bicycles, since the 10% store credit effectively adds a handful of accessories to the initial purchase, aiding the purchaser in outfitting the bike while helping you to retain a customer. I’ve been spending the credit from my own bike bit by bit, and one of my recent purchases was a headlight.
I don’t ride frequently at night, so I ended up buying one of your store brand items, the Viewpoint Flare 5. There was a significant jump in price between it and other similar lights, but I assumed that this was mostly due to a markdown on the item; I believe bicycle equipment generally uses September as the beginning of the fiscal year, so perhaps the price cut was simply to clear out old stock for next year’s model. Maybe the new one is blue or something. I didn’t really care or think much of the disparity, assuming only that the cheaper light was perhaps not as bright, or perhaps cheaper due to the lack of a helmet mount. The advertised brightness and battery light were attractive, so I took it.
I followed the directions for installing the light, mounting it so that the screw is at the front of the bike and the release tab on the side of the rider. The hand-tightenable screw was a nice touch, making the light easy to adjust on the road without requiring a screwdriver. I got the light pointed where I wanted it to go after a couple of tries, and for the past couple of weeks I was happy with it. However, tonight I began to have some trouble. While attempting to turn the light off at my destination, the switch began to malfunction. Sliding it forward did nothing, and it took me a minute or two of careful flicking before I finally turned it off. Unfortunately I had little time to ponder this dilemma, since, while turning the light back on as I pointed myself back home, the light came free of its mount and shattered the clear plastic housing on the pavement.
I didn’t expect the world of my $15 light, but I also didn’t expect to fail nor break so easily. What’s left of the housing still clicks into place on the mount, so it would seem that rattlings of rough roads and repeated pressure of hitting the switch were enough to unseat the light from the latch. Also, in retrospect, it seems like having the light detach towards the front of the bike, the direction a slightly down-pointed light will tend to travel, augmented by the forward pushing of the switch, is a bad design. I enjoy shopping in your stores, but if this light is any indication, your products are a disappointment.
dshea