leicaman
Maximum Pace
- Sep 20, 2012
- 2,878
- 2,698
I have been very excited for the past few weeks. Since reading a review of the Canyon Ultimate CF SLX last year, I had always wanted one, so on the 9th of Feb I ordered one online from Germany. Canyon are a web based bike company only. You can't get buy them from a bike shop. I received an email the next day confirming my order. I had originally wanted the SLX7.0 but they were out of stock, and with a due time of late May, I wasn't prepared to wait so long. I therefore decided to go with the 8.0, along with its full DA9000 groupo, as it was in stock.
On the 13th Feb I received an email saying that my bike had been handed over to UPS. There was a link in the email that directed me to the UPS online tracking service. The email advised that it sometimes took 24 hours for the tracking number to work. Impatiently I tried within 12 hours and it didn't work. I tried again after 24 hours and it still didn't work. I tried countless times over the next 4 or 5 days before deciding to call Canyon. A quick call to Germany via Skype (cost about 10 yen) and it was suddenly became apparent why my tracking number wasn't working. They had sent the bike via DHL. I tried the DHL website with the same tracking number and was told that my bike was in Japanese customs.
Last week I received a letter from customs asking me for more details about the bike. I ticked the box which said it was a present then faxed the letter back. Kawasaki post office then called me on Monday this week to find out more about the package. It seemed they wanted to know who the sender was. The bike had obviously come from Canyon in German so they didn't understand why they would be sending me a present for my birthday. After explaining the situation to the post office worker (in my best broken Japanese), he called customs, then called me back. He told me they were going to release the bike that day so it should be with me the following day or the day after that. The next morning the postman arrived with a huge box. I paid the duty to the postman (about 3.8%) and I am now a very happy chappy.
I got some DA pedals this morning as I couldn't bring myself to buy Ultegras and put them on with full DA (even though I would never be able to tell the difference)
On the 13th Feb I received an email saying that my bike had been handed over to UPS. There was a link in the email that directed me to the UPS online tracking service. The email advised that it sometimes took 24 hours for the tracking number to work. Impatiently I tried within 12 hours and it didn't work. I tried again after 24 hours and it still didn't work. I tried countless times over the next 4 or 5 days before deciding to call Canyon. A quick call to Germany via Skype (cost about 10 yen) and it was suddenly became apparent why my tracking number wasn't working. They had sent the bike via DHL. I tried the DHL website with the same tracking number and was told that my bike was in Japanese customs.
Last week I received a letter from customs asking me for more details about the bike. I ticked the box which said it was a present then faxed the letter back. Kawasaki post office then called me on Monday this week to find out more about the package. It seemed they wanted to know who the sender was. The bike had obviously come from Canyon in German so they didn't understand why they would be sending me a present for my birthday. After explaining the situation to the post office worker (in my best broken Japanese), he called customs, then called me back. He told me they were going to release the bike that day so it should be with me the following day or the day after that. The next morning the postman arrived with a huge box. I paid the duty to the postman (about 3.8%) and I am now a very happy chappy.
I got some DA pedals this morning as I couldn't bring myself to buy Ultegras and put them on with full DA (even though I would never be able to tell the difference)