Warning: this is a long post. I hope you like minutiae and bicycles, because you are about to get a lot of both. Don't fit that category? Skip on over to the new Design section.

There are very few ingredients in the company/customer relationship more important than the feeling of "gratitude" at the point of sale. Gratitude from the customer that the product or service they just bought was worth their hard earned money, and a reciprocal gratitude from the company because the customer could have gone elsewhere with their hard earned money.

This small but crucial "emotional" connection is something that Apple has mastered. While being a colossal, multi-billion dollar company, they maintain a human factor by having amazing customer support via their Apple Store mechanism, and in their never ending drive to improve their products, not just rehash and resell.

I bring this up because I had an experience tonight that reassured my faith in a company that I thought was going to leave me high and dry, but then turned around and made me a fan who will promote them to friends.

I'm a bike geek. I love my bikes, and have named every single one of them since I first became serious about them some 5 years ago. I recently decided that I was going to strip down my Bob Jackson, freeing it of every heavy component I could unbolt and unscrew, and then replace it with a better, stronger, lighter alternative. First stop was the wheel set. This past summer I rode it with a Velocity Deep V rear laced to a high flange 36-hole formula hub, and an AEROSPOKE composite material wheel (which I just sold tonight).

After a little discussion with my friend Carlos at "A Bike Shop" on 22nd between 7th and 6th, we decided that a decent replacement would be two Paul hubs laced to 32-hole velocity aeroheads, using alloy nipples and Wheelsmith spokes (lighter than their competitor by a couple grams). Anyone who knows a thing or two about bike will tell you that this isn't the lightest wheelset I could have built, but it is lightER than my previous one, yet strong enough to ride in the city. That's not the point though.

As we were flipping through the catalogue for hub options, I noticed that the black Paul hubs had a "brass" washer flanking each side of the flange. It was a very subtle but nice color addition, and it got me thinking. See, the only thing I'm a bigger geek about than bikes is design. This brass detail was going to be the keystone to my bike update. So, Carlos placed the order for the hubs, and I set about to gather all the parts. I tracked down gold anodized Nitto risers from Japan, and ordered brass nipples (the part that connects the spokes to the rim).

Finally I get the phone call I've been anxiously waiting on for a week: "The parts are in, you can build your new wheels." I raced over to the shop and gathered my toys like a kid on Christmas morning. Only there was something missing: the hubs didn't have brass washers. They had silver ones.

Now, a normal person would have shrugged this off or not have even noticed, but I'm not normal. I tried to ignore it for a couple days, but the question kept coming back in my head: why did they advertise this product with such a unique feature, and then ship without it? Nobody else in the industry has those materials, and it would have been just as easy to sell a picture without the special washers.

Today I emailed the company. I visited their website and sent a quick message to their generic "info@" address:

Hey Paul / Co. -

I am the recent proud owner of a set of your high flange track hubs, which I laced up tonight and plan to ride into work tomorrow. So far, they are tremendous. I love the milling, and the attention to detail. The one thing that surprised me is that the hubs were advertised as having bronze-colored washers (as seen here: http://www.63xc.com/willm/paul.jpg), but they arrived with silver ones instead.

Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, but I built up the wheelset and other components expecting the hubs to arrive with that appearance. I got gold-ish new riser bars, and I ordered bronze-colored nipples.

Are these washers something you no longer carry? Can you point me in the direction of a vendor where I might be able to buy them? I very much like the way they look in the picture, and am trying to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Thanks for your time.

Internally, I figured it was over. Weeks later some form message would reply saying "Oh yea, sorry, we don't carry those anymore." I started to plan a tour of the neighborhood hardware stores hoping that something in the same size might be available.

Then much to my surprise, I got this response:

Eli-

We use the brass washers on our WORD single speed hub only. We would be the only people you can get them from so you need to give us a call to order. Those are rear only washers though.

Paul

Could this be the one and only Paul of Paul Component Engineering? Surely not. And I'm stubborn. So I wrote back:

Thanks for your quick response!

It's unfortunate that that detail isn't made more apparent during the ordering process.

I also see this pictured in your online store labeled "high flange hub; fixed gear" here:

http://store.paulcomp.com/hfhubrearfix.html

...

I'm not going to pout about it because the wheels ride great and we are talking about a very minor detail, but I would seriously recommend updating your marketing materials so that someone else doesn't run into this issue later. I love that you guys answer email quickly, and have a very "small biz" feel, but this is clearly a glitch and a miscommunication that could be fixed easily.

Thanks for allowing me to share my mind.

Now I've successfully burned my bridge. I've mouthed off at a business that ships in volume, and doesn't have time for back and forth with someone who bought one (1) front hub and one (1) rear hub from them.

And then the message that made my evening arrived:

Eli-

You are right, I hadn't looked at that photo for a long time. Please send me your shipping address and we'll see if we can get you some no charge.

Paul

Just like that, they turned me from a frustrated customer into someone who is writing a ridiculously long post because it is the only soapbox that I have to stand on, and I wanted to share this experience with other would-be Paul customers.

Did you make it this far? I'm impressed. You get a cookie.