At least I think this will be the last blog entry. The bikes arrived
last week. LAN Cargo realized that they were the ones that lost the
paperwork, and not some freight forwarder. I think they actually found
the original paperwork and never mentioned it, because it was not
copies I saw when I picked up my bike, but what looked like the originals
that we had filled out in Santiago. The red and white striped paper
was the giveaway.
Anyway, Dick was the one that made ever ything happen while I was
blissfully snowboarding at Kirkwood. There was a series of storms
that came through and though some were not as big as predicted, a
day snowboarding is always better than a day working.
There were still a few minor delays and misunderstanding regarding
the timing of the shipments, but ultimately the bikes showed up in
South San Francisco around 1PM last Thursday afternoon, a little later
than expected that day. As soon as we got the call we drove across
the bay and to the warehouse where the bikes were being held. Officially
they had not yet cleared customs, so part of the process was getting
the shipper to fill out the paperwork, and then take the paperwork
over to the US Customs and Border Protection (or whatever) office
at the airport, at which point they could choose to inspect the bikes,
which I assumed they would.
Filling out the paperwork turned out to be yet another small nightmare
which caused more delay. The warehouse people said the wrong port
number and flight numbers were on the paperwork, and that this would
cause customs to refuse the paperwork. They had to call someone at
LAN Cargo in Los Angeles to correct the numbers and fax the paperwork
back to SSF. After an hour wait, Dick called the loser in Los Angeles
who had not faxed any corrected paperwork, and had no intention of
doing a damn thing until he got yelled at, which is what happened.
The warehouse girl had to talk him through it. Nothing would have
happened, ever, if Dick had not called him. A little while later the
paperwork came through, more paperwork was filed, and we were sent
over to the Customs office to have them sign off on the new pieces
of paperwork.
We went over to the airport and found the well hidden office, and
handed them our pile of paperwork and they handed us a two-sided sheet
each to fill out. They also told us that we were half an hour too
late to file a personal customs claim, but since they felt sorry for
us for having to spend so many hours at the warehouse they would make
a one time personal exception and process us today. This was good
since I was supposed to drive myself and possibly several other people
to South Lake Tahoe that evening. The sheet was somewhat confusing
but I did my best. Then they told us that our paperwork didn't match
what was in their computer, and we would have to go back to the warehouse
to have it corrected. One of the things that didn't match was the
flight nummber, after waiting all that time to have it changed, they
wanted to see the original one on there! Apparently the new port number
was correct, however. So back we went to the warehouse and had the
paperwork corrected. And then we went back to customs. There was more
errors. Fortunately, they suddenly were able to correct stuff on the
form for us (unlike the previous trip over there) and got it to a
state where they felt comfortable signing off on it. And they didn't
even bother to inspect the bikes, of all the borders to be slack I
thought this would be the least likely. In the end only Chile mildly
inspected the bikes.
We drove the signed off customs paper back to the warehouse eager
to get our bikes, which had been in view all afternoon, still neatly
shrink-wrapped. The girl at the warehouse we had been talking too
was gone, and someone else had to deal with us. She said there was
a paper missing that customs should have given us. This is all we
have, we informed her. Good thing this was all in English or it would
have been even more confusing!! We waved our signed off Customs forms
and argued that if we had the Customs paperwork, then we should be
able to have our bikes back that were sitting there 20' away. Not
sure what happened, other than I guess they agreed, and some more
paperwork was filled out, cash was collected for some unkown "import"
fee or another, and another piece of paper was handed to us to give
to the warehouse manager, and then a forklift moved our bikes down
to the bottom of one of the loading docks so we could unpack them.
Shrink wrap was shredded, tie downs were untied, tires pumped up and
at least one battery reconnected, gasoline poured, and then a phone
call made to CC Rider to pick up my bike and bring it to BMW of SF.
That grinding noise, ya know. Since CC Rider couldn't pick my bike
up right away I had to leave it on a curb in South San Francisco for
a couple hours, a somewhat scary thing given the reputation of the
area. With the key under it, no less. Of course it had no gas and
the battery wasn't hooked up, so good luck thieves. But imagine going
through all that effort to get it back only to have it stolen the
same day!
A couple hours later I received a call from CC Rider that they found
the bike, and the next morning a call from BMW of SF saying "we
have your bike, WTF?" and I reminded them that I had called a
couple weeks earlier saying the bike would be coming in, but that
it had simply taken a couple weeks longer than expected. Apparently
the shop is not busy, because on Saturday morning I received another
call from them saying that the source of the grinding noise was worn
out sprockets, not bearings in the drive shaft or something icky like
that. I was a little surprised, I had spun the wheel and observed
that the binding was occurring in a different place each time, and
therefore not the chain, and it looked like it wasn't going onto the
spockets particularly well, but I couldn't picture it making that
much of a grinding noise, particularly since I had oiled the chain
in an attempt to make the grinding noise go away, which hadn't worked.
Well, they are the experts (assuming replacing the sprockets and chain
eliminates the noise!) and I am psyched that it was nothing more serious.
They told me the bike should be ready today, but I probably won't
be able to pick it up until about Thursday.
Dick has by now continued on his journey, I won't divulge his email
address on such a public page but if you know it you can pester him
personally to create his own blog page. I left more or less on schedule
Thursday evening and drove to South Lake Tahoe. Mik was down from
Canada, eh, and wanted to ski with the old crew. Friday was not that
special, but better than I expected. It snowed like crazy on Saturday
with strong winds and fairly warm temps so only Chairs 5 and 11 were
open at Kirkwood. Sunday dawned clear and cold, and we tore up the
wind-packed powder all day. Mik did the infamous Heart Chute, but
only Dan saw him go through it. Chris and I were watching people drop
Once is Enough and missed Mik's run by mere moments.
Since the NOAA forecast was calling for significant snow for Monday
night through Tuesday night, I found a ride home for Dan and Mik with
Adam and Shana. Chris decided to hang at the cabin a few more days.
However, the storm broke up in the middle, almost missing Kirkwood
completely. A foot and a half of new snow was forecast to fall by
this morning, and they got a whopping inch and a half. Isn't this
great, I'm getting back into the English measurement system! The forecast
still calls for 14" of snow above 7000' in the greater Lake Tahoe
region tonight, so we are going to stay up here and hope for the best.
If it doesn't happen then I'll just head home earlier tomorrow than
planned. And wonder of wonders, I have some work lined up for Thursday
morning. First day of work in over 5 months, OUCH! Hope I can make
it through the day without going insane!
Spench OUT!
