Introduction and Bloody Taxis

[Bl4d3]

Hey all
So I recently started cycling at the end of November to try aid in strengthening my knees from 2 previous motorcycle crashes.
Been in the cycling industry for a few years having worked at Silverback for just short of 4 years and now moved on to another position in the industry. Perhaps some of you had the pleasure of dealing with me. I know I left some with a sour taste in their mouth, sorry about that, literally didn't have a choice.
But nevertheless, I'm sure nowadays considering the circumstances, I'll be able to be of better assistance.

When I started at Silverback I handled sourcing and compliance which saw me spending months at a time in Asia, visiting many factories and vendors, making sure quality was top notch and productions where moving ahead on schedule. Then was pulled into logistics and warranty support where I mainly handled logistics to SA and warranties and tech support for all 48 countries Silverback was in at that time. Towards the beginning of 2021, I was put in charge of handling all of Silverbacks productions.
I then moved on to an importer and retailer who took over Silverbacks agency for SA.

Hopefully that's enough backstory of who I am and where I come from

Anyway.
2nd ride out with my new Bianchi and I'm coming down La Belle in Stikland, heading towards Bottlelary Road.
Green light for me and I'm maintaining about 32km/h. As I'm about to enter the intersection at Cilmor Rd, a taxi coming in the opposite direction decides to do a u-turn, blocking off the entire yellow lane and partially blocking the left lane. I slam on brakes locking up my rear wheel. I managed to come to a complete stop.
Not thinking quickly enough, I begin to fall sideways due to my cleats and fall onto the taxi. No damage to the taxi or the bike.

The driver has the audacity to just laugh at me while one of the passengers tells me that "you cyclists cause so much **** on the roads".

How do you guys and gals deal with something like this, what if the bike was damaged or I was injured. 
 

[braailegend]

Rough start, but welcome! I avoid roads on all together. Mountains and dirt only, for me, preferably where no cars can go. Still worried about the ebikes though😅

[Andreas_187]

All that history with Silverback and you ride a Bianchi! 

[madmarc]

7 minutes ago, Andreas_187 said:

All that history with Silverback and you ride a Bianchi! 

Was my thought as well 🧐

Maybe the Taxi driver used to own a Silverback and had a warranty claim rejected 😁

Jokes aside though welcome to being a ZA roadie and yes Taxi's killing cyclists is a thing here.

Edited January 22, 2022 by madmarc

[Bl4d3]

40 minutes ago, Andreas_187 said:

All that history with Silverback and you ride a Bianchi! 

In all fairness. There haven't been any carbon road bikes from Silverback since 2019 in SA other than Scalini but thats a TT bike. But truthfully, I wanted something different.

[Bl4d3]

37 minutes ago, madmarc said:

Was my thought as well 🧐

Maybe the Taxi driver used to own a Silverback and had a warranty claim rejected 😁

Jokes aside though welcome to being a ZA roadie and yes Taxi's killing cyclists is a thing here.

You never know, I peed off a lot of people.

Perhaps I should ride with some ceramic in the pockets, jokes, don't want to get shot now.

[Me rida my bicycle]

2 hours ago, Daniel Amos said:

Hey all
So I recently started cycling at the end of November to try aid in strengthening my knees from 2 previous motorcycle crashes.
Been in the cycling industry for a few years having worked at Silverback for just short of 4 years and now moved on to another position in the industry. Perhaps some of you had the pleasure of dealing with me. I know I left some with a sour taste in their mouth, sorry about that, literally didn't have a choice.
But nevertheless, I'm sure nowadays considering the circumstances, I'll be able to be of better assistance.

When I started at Silverback I handled sourcing and compliance which saw me spending months at a time in Asia, visiting many factories and vendors, making sure quality was top notch and productions where moving ahead on schedule. Then was pulled into logistics and warranty support where I mainly handled logistics to SA and warranties and tech support for all 48 countries Silverback was in at that time. Towards the beginning of 2021, I was put in charge of handling all of Silverbacks productions.
I then moved on to an importer and retailer who took over Silverbacks agency for SA.

Hopefully that's enough backstory of who I am and where I come from

Anyway.
2nd ride out with my new Bianchi and I'm coming down La Belle in Stikland, heading towards Bottlelary Road.
Green light for me and I'm maintaining about 32km/h. As I'm about to enter the intersection at Cilmor Rd, a taxi coming in the opposite direction decides to do a u-turn, blocking off the entire yellow lane and partially blocking the left lane. I slam on brakes locking up my rear wheel. I managed to come to a complete stop.
Not thinking quickly enough, I begin to fall sideways due to my cleats and fall onto the taxi. No damage to the taxi or the bike.

The driver has the audacity to just laugh at me while one of the passengers tells me that "you cyclists cause so much **** on the roads".

How do you guys and gals deal with something like this, what if the bike was damaged or I was injured. 
 

In all honesty there's nothing you can do. I had someone drive the wrong way round a roundabout into my car. He had no license, no ID and car not registered in his name. 

Police just said it's a accident it's his fault and that's it, they refused to open a case against him.

I then asked jokingly what if I just kick the k#k out of him to feel better and was nearly arrested.

I know it's frustrating but that's SA for you. 

You have to think for everyone around you to stay alive and then you still get cyclist who think the road belongs to them flipping cars off while driving 2 or 3 next to  each other. They are the same people surprised when they get hit by a vehicle or mo#red.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Me rida my bicycle

[Mamil]

There is nothing you can do about this other than know that it is going to happen fairly often. Riding at 32kmph into an intersection is not advisable given the above. I don't feel inclined to trust that other road users will adhere to the law 

[eala]

Accept the worst stupid thing a Taxi or other person that passed metric with a 20% average and bought his drivers licence  can do , and you won,t be surprised by their actions on the road 

[Eldron]

17 hours ago, Andreas_187 said:

All that history with Silverback and you ride a Bianchi! 

That word still gives me chills up and down my spine. Silverback is the worst supplier I have ever had by a significant margin (hell - Silverback gave me worse service than all my other suppliers combined). I wouldn't touch the brand again if I was paid in wheelbarrows of gold.

Such a pity too - great products at great prices but service that make the SA government looks like a well oiled machine.

[MajG]

1 hour ago, Eldron said:

That word still gives me chills up and down my spine. Silverback is the worst supplier I have ever had by a significant margin (hell - Silverback gave me worse service than all my other suppliers combined). I wouldn't touch the brand again if I was paid in wheelbarrows of gold.

Such a pity too - great products at great prices but service that make the SA government looks like a well oiled machine.

Eish, seems bad and makes me worry as I own one

 

Do shed more light on your experience 

[Eldron]

3 minutes ago, MajG said:

Eish, seems bad and makes me worry as I own one

 

Do shed more light on your experience 

For context - this is a European experience not South Africa.

The B2B site was offline for 18 months - only way to find stock/price was to email 1 person. Reply time was anywhere from 4 hours to 3 days. I was never given the option of dealing with anyone else.

Never available by phone for anything urgent. In fact they didn't even give me a phone number - I had to Google it but they never took a call in 30ish attempts.

Website riddled with errors (pricing, geometry, sizing).

Spec on actual bike lower than spec on website (to be fair this is forgivable in covid times).

Staff knowledge on sizes, spec, bicycles in general was awful.

No interest on solving problems (they created the majority of problems).

Profitability was random. The new Scarosso gave the dealer a 2% margin compared to the online price - No point in trying to sell bikes at that rate.

It is by far the worst experience I've had by any supplier (both in bike industry and in general).

This does not in any way reflect on the quality and value of the bikes - I became a dealer for both of those aspects - I only stopped selling Silverback because the stress, frustration and pure WTFery was not worth the money I made.

 

[MajG]

For any business that kind of service is unacceptable,  regardless of covid situation.

Could possibly be linked to the huge demand and short staffed and boom in business that led to the don't give a damn attitude,  Sad tho.

[Eldron]

4 hours ago, MajG said:

For any business that kind of service is unacceptable,  regardless of covid situation.

Could possibly be linked to the huge demand and short staffed and boom in business that led to the don't give a damn attitude,  Sad tho.

Agreed. This was early to mid covid when the pressure was really on suppliers. That could be fixed.

What could not was the arrogance and rudeness of my Silverback contact.

 

[porqui]

Why all the history with Silverback ??

Taxi's meh!! be aware of all the other idiots.

And just a tip be aware of your own attitude we often don't do ourselves any favours.

[Dadbod Racing]

Good luck, expect the unexpected. 

Don't judge a book by it's cover (so you see a taxi and imagine it pulling off something stupid) but then you see an Aunty in a Nissan X Trail with a bike rack and Mom's Taxi sign and imagine all's well in the kingdom? Don't trust anyone on the road!! 

Other than that enjoy the kilometers, enjoy the early morning rides, enjoy the feeling of being broken when you get home but be glad you did it. 

If someone pulls a k*k move on you, just let it be (something I'm trying hard to do on a daily basis) don't go on a rant, it's not worth it.

#belekker