So, while the Internet has done wonders for business, there are still issues with ordering something online. For example, the other week I ordered a pair of Oval Concepts A700 SLAM aerobars. I went with what I thought was a reasonable on-line bike merchant; they have an ebay store and are highly ranked; no bad feedback in the usual locations. They arrived Friday, 4 days later. However, they were missing a number of parts… it was clear that somebody had opened it and removed some of the parts. It’s not clear if somebody did this to check that everything was there and forgot to replace anything, or removed some parts for some other reason, and then somebody else shipped the package thinking it was complete when it wasn’t. Who knows.

Anyway, someone at the shop responded to my e-mail pretty quickly… said the unit was new, but the last one they had, and somebody had probably messed up getting it ready for shipping. OK… well, we’ll see when they ship a new one and if it arrives complete…

PS - name is currently withheld pending how they resolve this. A follow-up, regardless of how this turns out, will be forthcoming.