On 3 Nov 2005 15:48:49 -0800, "Fritz M" wrote:

A mom in West Virginia is suing Wal-Mart for selling defective bikes.
The defect? Quick release front wheels. More info at
http://www.shokbikes.org/

Sue Wal-Mart for improper assembly or lack of instruction, but to sue
them for providing a useful feature is a bad move, IMO.

Something tells me they're barking up the wrong tree with their claim
that the QR is inherently dangerous anyway. A few days ago I looked
at the bikes in three different Wal-Marts while I was trying to find
something else; in one of them, I spotted the fact that four of the
five Mongoose XR200 units on the display rack had their front forks
installed backwards. It was rather obvious. That model has a front
disc brake...and the backwards fork put the caliper ahead of the right
fork tube instead of behind the left one. It's pretty obvious that
they have an assembly QC problem. I would not surprise me if some of
the bikes were leaving with the QR misclamped.

BTW, this is not the first time that I've seen forks on backwards on
bikes in a department store; I've seen that issue with units at Target
as well, and once in a while at Wal-Marts previously. Nor is it
restricted to Mongoose units; other brands have been involved. This
was, however, the first time that I had seen this many misassembled
units in one store on a sinlgle trip.

Of course, employee assembly error isn't the only potential issue.
Given the number of times I've seen people fiddle with things on bikes
on the racks at Wal-Mart around here, it's well within the realm of
possibility that a bike could get sold with a QR that had been
installed right by the store employee, and still looked tight but was
actually ready to fall open due to some bozo having messed with it.
That's part of the down side to selling bikes the way Wal-Mart does
it; they really can't guarantee that any bike is still ready to ride
when the customer takes it off the rack if they leave the bikes where
any random luser can fiddle with them. Of course, if they try to use
that as a defense in a suit, a smart lawyer would then ask "If you
know this is a problem, why haven't you done something to make sure
the bikes are secured or to reinspect them before they leave the
store?"
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
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