Leader Bike Warranty

As I wrote a while back, I sent my fork back to Leader Bike USA for warranty replacement because there was something loose inside one of the fork legs.

I finally heard back from the today (more than a month after I sent the fork), and their official statement is that "there's a foreign object in the fork leg". Well, no shit. That's why I sent it in!

He goes on to say that it's not their fault, and that there's no way it would have passed their quality control. While I do want to believe that it didn't leave the factory this way, it's my feeling that something must have jiggled loose during shipping. Unfortunately, it seems the burden of proof is on me.

I don't know how I could possibly have gotten something inside the fork leg. By the sound of it, it's clearly too big to have gone in through one of the drain holes in the bottom of the legs. If there's no way it could have gotten in, it must mean that it was ALREADY THERE, right?

The customer service rep was quite pleasant, and explained that since an engineer had tested the fork, found it to be structurally sound, and determined that the object was in fact foreign, his hands were tied. I understand that the company is operating on pretty small profit margins and doesn't want to be all free and loose with their warranty program, but I was hoping to hear better news.

At least I know that the noise is just an annoyance, and not a danger to my safety.

Regardless, I'm thinking about transitioning the Leader into a TT bike and getting a new road bike. The Leader has TT...er, Triathlon...geometry anyway.

I know what you're thinking: When the fuck are you going to use a TT bike?

Shut up, I do what I wanna do. Plus, look how pretty! Want!

Aw, who the hell knows. I'm pretty fickle these days.