A Tale of Two Tires
Over the last two days I've been trying to track down a tire for my recumbent bicycle. Those of you that know me know that during the summer months in Calgary that my Vision R44 is pretty much my sole means of transportation. Part of this sad little saga is that Vision Recumbents is no more, they shut down their manufacturing in the latter part of 2003, also the shop where I'd purchased my bent and relied on for parts and accessories followed suit within a few months of that. Fortunately most of the parts are standard bicycle equipment other than a couple of odd components, one of which is the front tire.
You'd think in a city of a million or so people that you'd be able to find a bike shop that sells or stocks a 20" x 1.35" (406) tire and maybe a new tube with a Schraeder valve, or is it a Presta valve. I can never remember which, it's the one with the valve stem that screws into place. To borrow a phrase from a comedian recently seen, "nay nay." So began an internet search for a Canadian dealer that might sell said tire, again, "nay nay." Where'd I wind up? A little outfit called Bike Friday, the term little being relative, based in Eugene, Oregon.
What's all this got to do with graphic and web design? The other sites I looked at while offering the product I ended up buying made it difficult either through layout, navigation or text to find what I was looking for. Remember my valve dyslexia, these guys had pictures. Something that cinched the deal though was displayed on the site along with the price was an online inventory of what was in stock. So I was off to the races and ordered two new tires and tubes.
Unfortunately the ordering page, at present, doesn't support multiple countries when creating a new account, but Ian informed me that will be fixed shortly. That was the other plus, back up telephone support in the form of a 1 800 number available from Canada. Ian tells me that I should have my new wheels for Tuesday or Wednesday.
It may not be the spiffiest site, from a design and layout perspective there are a couple of things I would probably change to make the navigation and presentation even better. The crucial "but" being though is that in comparison to some of the other sites offering the same product this site made shopping there the easiest. The product I wanted was easy to find, presented both in text and visually so that I as a consumer knew what I was getting, I knew the price and that they had it stock and that I could expect delivery in short order. So, the moral of the story is, today Bike Friday, gets my nod and money because they made shopping there the easiest.
Leave a comment