Thanks, that’s perfect Stoner! My solicitor sent one but it was so long-winded, didn’t have time to go through it all!

Ok, cheers, I’ll have a nosey. Thank you!

😯

No idea! I own a building that I’m remortgaging. My business rents part of it off me and I need an agreement to satisfy the bank…

Sorry to sound dim!

Charity begins at home, so I’ll be spending the money on more bike bits to keep in my home… Is that allowed?

Placed the order last week – Well chuffed

Got cancellation email – Well pissedoff, not impressed with Oakley

Got email this morning – I want to find the wonderfully named Mark Wilderspin and give him a big kiss. Very impressed with Oakley.

I’ve probably had 5 or 6 pairs of Oakleys over the years, so always been a fan, but the cost of some prevented me buying. I’d have been more than happy at 93 quid, at FOC I’m over the moon!

If your order is in Process
If you have not been charged for your order, we are working diligently to get all orders built and shipped as soon as possible. Once completed, your order will be delivered at no cost to you.

In light of the obvious balls-up, I don’t think for a minute they’d try and fob people off with a cleverly worded email. As far as I can tell, that sounds pretty clear to me: They’re sending me 250-quids-worth of pimp-ass jawbones AT NO FRICKIN COST!!! WOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOO!

I can’t describe how happy I am right now!

He was a bit overly chummy! Not the easiest person to interview I would imagine though!

He looked like a lost little boy on that sofa! He’s a very endearing character and a brilliant rider. I hope he does the business in the Worlds and the Olympics as it will have a huge impact on the popularity of the sport…

Not to mention the number of barely-used Specialized McClaren Venge framesets going cheap on the classifieds… 😉

My order status has gone back to “in process”, price remains at £93… Looking good!

To be honest, they can take what they want from my account – I have a confirmation printed off at £93.

I’ll wait til I get the glasses then kick up a stink – I’m sure Oakley’s legendary customer service would illicit a swift refund and some sort of compensation… 😉

I’ve got the email too! Awesome! Well chuffed as I’d wanted a pair of Jawbones since they came out but always thought £200+ was a ridiculous amount to drop on a pair of sunnies.

Big thanks to Vinnie! It came good in the end mate… 8)

Have a shop around for Montane Featherlite – you can usually find them for around 30 quid and are great as a stowaway emergency waterproof.

I have an Aldi Crane Bike one that was about 14 quid – excellent for the money, but you’re not going to get anything remotely breathable for your budget…

Woohoo!

How about a Christmas tree…

I’d have thought trading standards would be very interested to hear if they’re completing transactions for 93 quid, then taking £205 off the credit card! I hope they try it on with me, there’ll be hell to pay!

Even at the price I paid last night, they’ll be making significant profit on a website order, so I would expect them to honour it…

Oh well, if they don’t, it was an impulse buy and I’m no worse off. I was quite looking forward to getting them though, White/Black jawbones with red sparkly bits and fire iridium vented lenses… Lush!

I have a friend who sells eye wear to opticians. The markup is outrageously high – a pair of Hugo Boss frames that I have which retail for £200 costs his company (the importer) about £6.

Retail sales for Oakley via their website will be an absolute cash-cow compared to their retail sales through authorised retailers.

If if you doubt the retailers are making significant margins on these products, look at the amount of shop/display space Oakley insist on, and the exclusivity arrangements they put in place.

Whilst I don’t know what margins they work to, retailers wouldn’t stock them if the profits weren’t there.

Trading standards wouldn’t be able to do anything as per above they have the clause in their t+c’s

An article in STW about how they disappointed so many of their readers and forum members might annoy them a bit!

Mine says “in progress”, but the price of the equivalent spec is now £205 as opposed to £93!

I suspect that with all the adverse publicity this would generate, they’ll honour it. If everyone that’s ordered after seeing this thread reports them to trading standards, the adverse publicity would be very damaging…

Cheers Houns, ordered a pair – fire iridium and clear lenses, 93 quid! Bargain!

Just about to order some jawbones, do they look ridiculous on smaller heads? I’d go for split jackets, but they don’t do the vented lenses…

That’s the first half decent application of the logo I’ve seen to date! I quite like the pyramid treatment. Still looks like Lisa Simpson performing a solo on Bart’s yellow saxophone.

Probably more resignation than admiration though.

Can’t speak from experience of course but it’s only 5 years, it’s not like you were some teenager or young man in your twenties.

That’s my point – when I was a younger man, starting a family wasn’t part of the equation. When I was 18, I had a fling with a 32 year old – as far as I was concerned, I was just spreading a few wild oats.

But when my wife’s age started to impede her ability to have a family, that 5 years suddenly became a gulf. If she’d been the same age as me, we’d have had a 5-year headstart on the position we found ourselves in, which would have made a huge difference.

Drac – Moderator

No age gap here but some of you seem to think that just a few years is an age gap, I’d say 10 years before you talk some sort of age gap. Not this 4, 5 or even 7 years thing.

I’d disagree with that, as per my last post, when you’re a mid-thirties guy, being with a woman 5 years older puts huge pressures on the relationship. I agree, 5 years younger is hardly worth a mention – it all depends when and where people are in their lives.

When I first met my wife, I was 21, she was 26. The age gap wasn’t an issue at all then.

With my most recent ex, the 12 year age gap (her younger) didn’t really seem to cause any issues as we were very similar in terms of mentality and maturity… And other ways too! 😉

My ex-wife was 5 years older than me, that caused problems as I always felt pressured by her bio clock and by the time we got to a place that was right to start thinking about a family, her age worked against us.

I’m 37 now, spent the last 2 years with a girl of 25 which worked pretty well but fizzled out. We were on a far closer wavelength and far more evenly matched when it came to the physical side of the relationship.

And I can’t deny, going from a saggy 40-something to a pert smooth-skinned 25 year-old is definitely to be recommended. 😉

Current play-thing is 24, not marriage material but great fun when the lights are out!

I often ride at sub-threshold HR. That’s when I get passed by other cyclists, usually blowing out of their arses and red-lining their tickers to get a ‘scalp’.

Leave them to it, try and pass me on a 3 mile 20% climb after 80 miles at 20mph. Then we’ll see how good you are. 😉

If you’re wobbling, you ain’t doing it right.

THAT, is NOT a waistcoat. It’s a Paul Smith-designed Rapha gillet.

You can’t trackstand????

I’m a roadie, and I think the biggest nobs are commuters in jeans that want to be your friend and try to catch up with you and tell you how they are really a full on biker, they’re just using mudgards, jeans and mtb-spds on their commute.

They come out with drivel like “is that the 10speed Ultegra groupset? Are you going to upgrade to Ui2?” to try to convince you that you know what they’re talking about. Who gives a sh*t?

And the biggest numpties are the ones that misjudge traffic lights and have to stop/unclip, or don’t even have the basic skills to trackstand!

These are the same numpties that, after you’ve cruised past them, pedal like fury to hold your back wheel (you can usually hear them panting desperately to slow their breathing down) and then they pass you whilst trying to look like they’re not making any effort!

Arses, the lot of ’em.

Cheers all, I think I’ll do just that. I bought the Blur with some money left to me by my grandmother, so I’ll do whatever’s necessary to keep the old girl on the road… 🙂

Probably good advice andyl, I think I’ll do that… Cheers 🙂

magowen100 – Member

Just a thought but surely the crack and the broken shock linkage are connected? The crack would weaken one side resulting in the linkage twisting, and thus failure.Thinking about it is the shock worn on one side?

No, I don’t think it is, and no, the shock is original and shows no signs of wear.

It’s a minute, hairline crack, and it’s impossible open/close it by flexing it in any way. Hence why it’s not got any bigger in 5 years of hard use.

If there was any movement in it whatsoever, it would show visible flexing and the crack would grow.

The link wouldn’t be under any twist or sideways load, it broke due to 8 years of constant pounding from the shock!

The mounting is still perfectly square – look how much weld is left unaffected and how thick that alu plate is!

I’m quite sentimentally attached to the bike, so I’d like to keep riding it. It’s not often that Elfin-padded-brain-fred says anything I agree with, but I think he’s right here – even if that weld failed completely, the bike will stay held together by all the other links etc, as happened last night.

However, I think it’s time to start packing out the old PayPal account and replace her with a Carbon LT in the next year or so… 😉

I’ve ordered the replacement and I asked if it was a common break. The guy said he’d never heard of it, but they sell a few so others must have failed – apart for wear, or really ham-fisted spanner work, I can’t see why else you’d need to replace it.

For all the amateur metallurgists, here’s a close-up of the crack.
I’ve cleaned it up a bit and picked a bit of the paint off to make it more visible…

I certainly don’t think it’s had any bearing on the snapped link.

There’s absolutely no chance of movement. The link failing will just be down to metal fatigue – it takes the full force of the shock pushing sideways against pedal strokes, and being such a short link, it’s under a helluva lot of pressure.

There’s so much good welding around the crack that I can’t see it budging.

If I can get the link for 24 quid, I think I’ll keep running the old girl for a bit longer…

Aww, I don’t want to retire the old girl. The crack, if it is a proper crack, is at the bottom of a very long weld, I’m sure I’d notice it start to expand before it failed.

It’s been fine for a long time…

jedi – Member

is that weld behind the link ok?

There has been a tiny ‘crack’ on that weld for about 5 years, it’s never got any bigger and it’s kind of on the top of the weld, not in the tube at all. It might even just be in the paint…