October 7 + 8, 2014

The "Orange lady" with her orange peeler...I want one of those.

... because up until Thursday, I had waited around for news on the arrival of the box. The USPS tracking still showed "Miami, Florida" as it's last processing point, and frankly, I was tired of waiting around for that damn plastic thing. Actually, at this point I had regret to have ordered it. I needed to get back on the road!

After talking to my wife, I decided to have her call AdventureMoto and to just cancel the order. Even AdventureMoto couldn't figure out, why it took the post office so long to deliver the pannier. The owner, David, agreed to issue a full refund, cost for the box plus shipping. Guess, he started to fell my pain. Very impressed that he was on my side. He handled the refund very quickly and efficient. The money was credited back to my account the very next day. Thanks, David, for the excellent customer service! Hopefully, you get your pannier returned.

That brings me to an interesting point. How can a company, such as Hepko Becker, manufacture panniers for adventure bikes, made out of PLASTIC?? The panniers attach to a steel frame on my bike. The attachment brackets are... plastic. The hinges that connect the lids to the box are ...plastic. An adventure bike is, as the name implies, made for "Adventure". Meaning, those bikes are subjected to off-road conditions, potholes, rocks, speed bumps, constant pounding etc. Have you guys ever tested your product in the field, before throwing it in front of the consumer? I guess...NOT. You should recall your panniers, and stop selling such crap! And cheap, they are not. On top of that, you have the nerve to call them "Xplorer". I don't want to "explore" your plastic buckets on a 13000 + mile trip and get stuck or having to discontinue my journey. And...I wasn't even able to order factory direct. I had to go through a distributor. Luckily, they had one in stock. Pretty fucked up, IMHO!!! Are you sure, you are a German company???

I took matters in to my own hands and did the self-fix method instead. Went to a local hardware store, bought a pack of Epoxy, sat on the curb in front of El Hostal, mixed the two pastes together and "glued" the crack on my right pannier. But, the other side is showing signs of breakage as well. Just a matter of time, Hepko Becker...

Damn, why didn't I think about that sooner. I could've saved myself a lot of time, money and energy. But then again, I didn't want to do it half-assed. So, I ordered the pannier...mistake.