On Saturday, servicing my son’s bike, I found the rear drive side end cap to his Sun Ringlé Dirty Flea hub had cracked.

I took my oily mits to the internet and found 2 replacements in stock. 1 at Hotlines at £11.99 the other at Chain Reaction for £9.99.

Today I got an apologetic email from them saying there was a stock error – they didn’t have one. So I thought never mind, I’ll get the one from Hotlines.

Lo and behold – the Hotlines website denies all knowledge of such an item. 404 not found.

So I’m thinking if you go on the Hotlines website and request an item which they haven’t got, does their system do a search on CRC and charge you £2 for the privilege?

But more to the point – Anybody got an end cap they don’t need?

PS this isn’t a grumble at CRC. I can understand the difficulties of keeping records of tiny low value spares, they were super quick in letting me know, AND they gave me a £5 voucher for my trouble.

Hotlines is CRC so I assume the sites share a stock db which has now been updated? Odd to get a 404 though.

That would explain it.

Which is why any LBS that carries Hotlines-distributed kit is a fool. I know of one with a stock of NP Megas that they paid more for than CRC have banged them out for in sales.

Try the German sites (no not those ones), always seem to have stuff in stock we cant get in UK.