| Purchase 1 |
October 27, 2018
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| He bought an electric assist bike from overseas. It was the biggest purchase for him via internet shopping. It was about $1,300. He was attracted by the electric assist bike. He had never used an electric assist bike. He knew the existence of electric assist bikes because his country invented them a couple of decades before. But their users were mainly mothers who had small kids. The bike he saw on the internet had stronger assist power, a good design, and the price was rather cheap. He knew about the risk to buy things from abroad, especially electric appliances. The maker of the bike didn't have any agencies or member shops in his country, and the bike would be sent from the maker's country directly. If it broke, how would it be fixed? He had no idea. But the bike's attraction was bigger than his concerns. He ordered it. After a couple of weeks, a big cardboard box came to his house. He opened it and started to build up. Some of the postings on the internet about his bike mentioned some needful tools and explanations how to build it, but his bike had an instruction booklet and the tools  included were perfect. While he started to charge the battery, he started to build it. After about one and a half hours, it was completed. It was modern and the design was as cool as he had seen it on the net. After taking a long lunch (the battery needed 4 hours to charge), he set the battery and went riding. The assist was strong and the bike rode like the wind. He thought that he definitely made a good purchase. After that day, he spent a splendid time with his bike. The bike gave him a different life. Before the bike, his life depended on his car. If he went to the convenience store about 300 meters away, he would have used his car. He had a normal bicycle, but he didn't use it at all because he became tired to pedal. But now his bike's motor was strong. He started to go to various places with his bike. But, when one month had passed from the purchase, the bike's meter started to show something wrong. The running speed always showed 99.9km/h, the distance from the starting point showed like 129km. He emailed the company and explained the situation. The returning email was very fast and very polite. The person in charge apologized politely and promised to deal with this carefully and with full effort. The email stated that he would immediately ask the engineering section, and would offer the best way to fix the problem as soon as possible. He was very relieved. After a couple of days, they sent pictures and instructed how to operate the gadget. It was simple. There were buttons near the left handle of the bike: £, M, ₯. Using a short push and a long push on these, he changed the numbers instructed. But nothing happened: no improvement. He emailed again. This time another guy replied with polite expressions and promised a reply as soon as possible. And, his instructions came, the same type. He did what was instructed, but no improvement. This type of communication was repeated many times. After several weeks, he became tired of the communication exchange because nothing came of it. As for the meter (speed and distance) was out of order, but the others (the amount of battery charge, assistance level (1-5), WATT (used electricity amount at the moment)) were ok. So, he decided to stop emailing. Soon, he found a smartphone app for those speed and distance meters. They were better than the bike's meters because they could record the info. Later he found a cheap speed meter at a shop and bought it and set it. He used his bike almost every day. He bought rain shoe covers and sometimes rode on rainy days. He charged the battery every night. After a couple of months from purchasing the bike, he posted his impressions about the product on the shopping site's bike corner. He honestly wrote. He mentioned that he had to change the grip's rubbers because they made his hands black. He had to change the stand because the stand bent. He, of course, mentioned about the speed meters' disorder and the usage of a smartphone app. Even so, he gave four stars out of five as points, and he wrote how he liked this bike. He went to a bike shop and registered his bike, anti-theft registration, and had the label seal attached on his bike. At first, he didn't have confidence registering the bike because it was imported from outside the country. But it was registered, and he was relieved, and he posted about the registration process. Once he got a flat tire from a nail that was on the road, the bike shop fixed it without problem. As another poster mentioned that the tube of this bike was special and the person had a hard time to fix it, so he posted about his case that it was as simple as other bikes. He was happy for introducing his new bike's good points because it seemed that his posting could help stimulate his country's assist bike situation: not good design, not strong assist, too expensive for sports type. But one day in May, when he was riding his bike, suddenly the assist faded out. He was upset. It was the first time. He thought a little and turned off and on the switch. The bike started to assist again. He was relieved, but this event started to happen more often than not. This was a big problem. If it didn't assist in the middle of a slope, he needed to pedal with all his might, and it was very tiresome. As the bike was heavier than normal bikes, if the assist stopped, the power needed for pedaling was more than just a regular bike. He sighed. This sigh was not only for his physical tiring of pedaling, but also thinking about the communication with the maker: very polite but no action. (To be continued) |
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*needful :KvΘ
*stimulate :h·ι
*more often than not :ζ ι
*might :Ν