check out this "nimbus"

[ned]

hi everybody

i was just checking ebay for unicycle's when i found this "nimbus" (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7156539632#description) wich obviously is a mission it even says its got a kh saddle

:rolleyes: sheesh

[kington99]

In fact it loks like almost every line of the description is wrong, i particularly like "cornered crown making tricks like one-footed riding and stand up tricks easier" which is both ambiguous and incorrect.

Dave

[phil]

The description is taken word for word from here (http://www.unicycle.uk.com/shop/shopdisplayproduct.asp?catalogid=477) on unicycle.uk.com. I recognised the mispelling of "eyeletts"... :)

Phil

[yoopers]

Originally posted by phil
The description is taken word for word from here (http://www.unicycle.uk.com/shop/shopdisplayproduct.asp?catalogid=477) on unicycle.uk.com. I recognised the mispelling of "eyeletts"... :)

Phil

It's 4:30 a.m. and I can't sleep so I'm cranky. I sent the seller a comment through the Ebay login. This sort of thing gets my dander up (I should try a different shampoo I suppose). Here's what I sent:

****************

I usually don't do this sort of thing, and I'll try to be as friendly as I can, but you are engaging in gross false advertising with this ad. Is it intentional? I hope not for your sake. As a member of the unicycling community, I can say that this really hurts our efforts to present unicycling as an up and coming and genuine sport to the world and we don't appreciate what's happening here. I suggest that you either revise your description immediately before you get in serious trouble for your false claims (it's copied word for word from a company's existing ad and most every line does NOT describe what you're selling) or pull the auction all together. If you'd like help in understanding exactly what you have on your hands, log on to unicyclist.com and enter the forums. We'd be glad to help. Just don't follow through with your current discription. It's not right.

Bruce

[ned]

Originally posted by kington99
In fact it loks like almost every line of the description is wrong, i particularly like "cornered crown making tricks like one-footed riding and stand up tricks easier" which is both ambiguous and incorrect.

Dave

i quite like the 6203 40mm Sealed bearings

[Krashin'Kenny]

Bruce, you beat me to it. I'd planned on doing the same thing, but my comments would not have been so nice;)

[UNIquelyCanadian]

That's terrible!

I hope others on this forum write to the seller to try to get him to accurately describe his unicycle.

The unicycle only has 36 spokes and no sign of the KH seat!

[UniBrier]

Someone in Liverpool needs to win this auction, pick it up to save shipping charges, then give NEGATIVE feeback. That'll teach 'im.

Don't everybody bid it up though.

[Gilby]

Originally posted by UniBrier
Someone in Liverpool needs to win this auction, pick it up to save shipping charges, then give NEGATIVE feeback. That'll teach 'im.

Really? Maybe teach him to create a new account each time he wants to mislabel what he's selling. Then again, looks like he already has that trick learned.

[forrestunifreak]

Thats hilarious,I like the BMX pedals haha.

[yoopers]

Got a response from the seller. Here it is and my response back to him following:

> Bruce"
>
> hi, I would appreciate you informing me as to what
> is wrong in my description exactly as as far as I am
> aware it is true. Thanks for your help.
> Thank you,
> jennsellerjenn


Sure. Be glad to help.

First, you copied your discription word for word from this site: http://www.unicycle.uk.com/shop/shopdisplayproduct.asp?catalogid=477
Roger Davies is a great friend and supplier to many, many of us in the unicycling community. You are stealing advertisement posted on his website.

Secondly, here's the advertisement info you used. I'll go through it line by line and show you where you are misleading your customers.

20" Nimbus II Unicycle
>The unicycle you show is a cheap uni with a hard seat, lollipop bearing holders, a low-grade marking tire, and a low-quality seat post clamp. I can't quite make out the brand name on the fork but it is definitely not a Nimbus frame. Take a good look at the unicycle in the link I listed above.

Frame/Fork: 20" chromed Nimbus II frame with cornered crown making tricks like one-footed riding and stand up tricks easier.
>The unicycle you show has a rounded crown (the portion at the top of the forks on which the seatpost sits) and is NOT good in any way for one-foot or stand-up skills.

Hub: New, extra strong, UDC wide-flange CrMO hub
>Can't tell much about the hub but with the low overall quality of your unicycle, I seriously doubt that it is as you say. I can tell that it is NOT a wide-flange hub though.

Bearings: 6203 40mm Sealed bearings
>Again, can't see the bearings but same comment as the one about the hub applies.

Cranks: 114mm lightweight Aluminium alloy freestyle cranks.
>The appear to be standard steel cranks (is that rust on the crank surface? Hmmm...aluminum doesn't rust), they appear to be 140s not 114mm.

Pedals: Large platform, plastic bmx style pedals, 9/16inch threads.
>BMX? They are standard Wellgo pedals common on low to mid-range unicycles.

Rim: Lightweight, box-section, aluminium rim with spoke eyeletts.
>I'll give you this one. The rim you have appears to be aluminum and is a box style.

Saddle: Kris Holm Saddle, well padded saddle for more comfort with front handle and rear protective bumper.
>One of the worst offenses here. Check out this link to see a real KH saddle: http://www.unicycle.uk.com/shop/shopdisplayproduct.asp?catalogid=174 The saddle on your unicycle says Chafe City to us.

Seatpost: 400mm long, 25.4mm diameter knurled anti‑twist seat post with red paint.
>I see you added a bit of your own discription. "Red paint?"

Tyre: Large volume 20x1.95" non-marking bmx freestyle tyre, with Schrader valve inner tube.
>Okay, give you one more here. Sometimes the words freestyle tire are interchangably used with street tire. This is not however the desired tire for serious freestylers and would not be allowed in most gymnasiums due to it's high carbon content and it's affinity for marking floors.

Spokes: 48 Stainless steel 14G
>Can't tell.

Seat Post Clamp: Black Aluminium quick-release clamp.
>It is a semi-quick release meaning it doesn't require the use of tools to release. But it is probably steel and the tack-welded type of clamp found on low end unicycles.

But, thirdly, your most serious offense is in the following statement taken from your auction listing:
"I LEARNT TO UNICYCLE ON THIS BIKE RESULTING IN THE ODD SCRATCH..."
Let me just say, my good man, that a "BIKE" is a two-wheeled machine. This machine has but one wheel, thus aptly identified as a UNIcycle. Where I'm from (the unicycling community), 'dems fightin' words.

Again, I highly suggest that you either revise your discription to fit what you're trying to sell or pull your auction listing all together.

Please let me know if I can be of any more assistance. Just to let you know, I have also sent a copy of this email to Ebay security.

Bruce

[THE dave]

Originally posted by yoopers


Frame/Fork: 20" chromed Nimbus II frame with cornered crown making tricks like one-footed riding and stand up tricks easier.
>The unicycle you show has a rounded crown (the portion at the top of the forks on which the seatpost sits) and is NOT good in any way for one-foot or stand-up skills.




its red, not chome... RED!

[yoopers]

Originally posted by THE dave
its red, not chome... RED!
You're right. I forgot that part. :)

Edit: I sent the comment to the seller in a followup email.

[scar_head187]

atta boy bruce. i particularly like the " 'dems fightin' words " part
way to go

[Gilby]

It's a good thing that "protecting123" has bid on this item (with an outrageous bid, i hope?), as who knows who might otherwise fall victum of this auction. ;)

[yoopers]

Originally posted by Gilby
It's a good thing that "protecting123" has bid on this item (with an outrageous bid, i hope?), as who knows who might otherwise fall victum of this auction. ;)
What's regrettable is that now that he/she has a bid, they will be unable to change the discription.

[jsm]

"Current bid: £5,000,001.00":eek:

That's absurd.

[yoopers]

Originally posted by jsm
"Current bid: £5,000,001.00":eek:

That's absurd.
It's most likely someone from here making a statement with an outlandish bid. It sure would be fun to run the seller's price up higher. But I wouldn't want to jeopardize my Ebay credit rating, and its more complicated to establish a new user name on Ebay (involves credit cards) than it is here.

B

[Gilby]

Originally posted by jsm
"Current bid: £5,000,001.00":eek:

That's absurd.

$9,239,001.3338 USD.

And i still have a bunch of £ (quids), but not nearly that much.

[yoopers]

dudedude is beating out protecting by 1 pound. C'mon protecting, you gonna take that? Dig deeper into the wallet, man!

[UniBrier]

Originally posted by Gilby
$9,239,001.3338 USD. Wow, I was just kidding in my first post.

Now I'm thinking of listing on e-bay some of the cottered "Nimbus" unicycles in my garage.

[rogeratunicycledotcom]

Firstly, thanks everyone for sticking up for the Nimbus II, it is reassuing and very nice of you. We have almost given up fighting against the fraudulent descriptions on Ebay, we see them in some way almost every day. There is so much fraud and miss selling going on that it is difficult to react to all of it. This is especially when ebay does nothing! As a retailer we have a special log in to report fraud and copyright infringements. But our experience of Ebay is that they react 10 days (or more) after the sale is closed and say "yes you were right, but nothing we can do now". This is even though they claim to have a 100% reaction time of less than 24 hours.

Bruce, I can add to your comments on a few things... I do know exactly which factory this unicycle comes from and its full spec.

Hub: New, extra strong, UDC wide-flange CrMO hub
>Can't tell much about the hub but with the low overall quality of your unicycle, I seriously doubt that it is as you say. I can tell that it is NOT a wide-flange hub though.

Definitely not CrMO hub. Just to give you some indication of what it costs to put that hub in to the specification. At the factory it would add 30% to the manufacturing cost of the ebay item alone!

Bearings: 6203 40mm Sealed bearings
>Again, can't see the bearings but same comment as the one about the hub applies.

Yes it does have.

Cranks: 114mm lightweight Aluminium alloy freestyle cranks.
>The appear to be standard steel cranks (is that rust on the crank surface? Hmmm...aluminium doesn't rust), they appear to be 140s not 114mm.

127mm cranks steel

Pedals: Large platform, plastic bmx style pedals, 9/16inch threads.
>BMX? They are standard Wellgo pedals common on low to mid-range unicycles.

They are similar to the ones we use on our low end unicycles, but these are not even Wellgo.

Rim: Lightweight, box-section, aluminium rim with spoke eyeletts.
>I'll give you this one. The rim you have appears to be aluminium and is a box style.

This is actually a single skin steel chomed rim - the light is deceptive. Same as fitted on the dodger. Just for the record the rim on the Nimbus range is actually very special. There are very few unicycles that have a double skin box section rim as standard, in fact I can only think of one which is the Koxx freestyle, but that does not have eyelets. Most aluminium rim unicycles out there are single skin rims.

Seatpost: 400mm long, 25.4mm diameter knurled anti‑twist seat post with red paint.
>I see you added a bit of your own description. "Red paint?"

300mm, 22.0mm dia non knurled.

Tyre: Large volume 20x1.95" non-marking bmx freestyle tyre, with Schrader valve inner tube.
>Okay, give you one more here. Sometimes the words freestyle tire are interchangably used with street tire. This is not however the desired tire for serious freestylers and would not be allowed in most gymnasiums due to it's high carbon content and it's affinity for marking floors.

Actually it is a low quality 1.75 tyre.

Spokes: 48 Stainless steel 14G
>Can't tell.

36 rustless 14g spokes.

Just to finish I thought I would tell you of an on-going joke in the office about Ebay. A few months ago on British TV there was a marketing guy from Ebay on the news. His parting comment was something like "Ebay is safe because the whole process is totally transparent". :-D

Roger

[rogeratunicycledotcom]

Originally posted by rogeratunicycledotcom
Most aluminium rim unicycles out there are single skin rims.

I should really clarify that I am meaning mass produced 20" freestyle unicycles here.

Roger

["nimbus"]

Just to let you guys know, Im the seller of this unicycle.

I am shocked with the way you have reacted over my honest mistake!!

I genuinly belived this to be a nimbus 2. When two of your board users emailed me explaining that it wasnt my reply was along the lines of:

"Please let me know the real specification and I will HAPPILY oblidge and change the description. Im not after ripping anyone off"

I was informed that it WAS a nimbus before I put it on ebay, I didnt put this descripion falsley on purpose.

Rather than replying I find that two of your board users put in FAKE bids, so that NOBODY ELSE CAN BID!!!!! This has ruined the entire auction, when I could have just got the correct details and somebody could have had a nice gift for someone.

I was happy to sort things out, and I am extreemly offended that you have acted this way rather than helping to sort the matter honestly.

Jenny

["nimbus"]

Oh, and I have also edited the description. Unfortunatly it wont let me edit the title now...thanks to your guys putting in false bids....clever! :rolleyes:

[UniTyler]

I would feel sorry for whoever got that hunk of poo as a gift. :p

["nimbus"]

There's no need to be like that. I havnt done any malice.

If you dont want to buy it dont, Im not forcing it upon anyone!

I was happy to change any details which were misleading so theres no need for you to be bitter like that.

Jenny

[UniTyler]

Here's what he wrote instead. Note the "good quality" part! :p

[yoopers]

Jenny,

I'm sorry you were offended. Perhaps the outrageous bidding wasn't necessary as it caused you to acquire listing charges for something that is now not going to sell. But on the other hand, we're a pretty tight community around here and your actions greatly offended us, especially by using a good friend of the unicycling community's advertisment to describe a unicycle that clearly did not fit the discription, something that anyone with some degree of intelligence should have easily recognized.

Secondly, how were we to know that you were not (and maybe still are) some con artist trying to take advantage of an uninformed public at the expense of true unicyclists.

As I alluded to in my email to you, we struggle almost daily to find our place as unicyclists in the world. Our sport is very unique and special but the world doesn't seem to recognize that. Your actions in your Ebay listing were just one more of many instances that poke us in the eye and take away the momentum we've tried hard to establish.

On the good side, I'm glad you're here. Thanks for logging on to unicyclist.com. I was hoping you'd show up and now I encourage you to hang around awhile and learn from some of the greatest riders and greatest people on the planet. We're a good group but you just happened to cross our paths during one of our tantrum's against those who would put us down.

As far as your auction, Roger posted earlier that he knows your unicycle and maybe he would be willing to share some of his info with you. Give him a shout at roger at unicycle dot com.

Hope you stick with us.
Bruce

["nimbus"]

Ofcourse Im going to put "good quality unicycle"

There is nothing wrong with it, it IS great to learn on (I did so myself). And it is in good nic as you can clearly see.

You should have given me chance to change the description (since I said I happily would) before putting in fake bids in attempt to ruin my auction.

Im sure someone will be HAPPY to recieve this unicycle ( I know I would have when I first started) so just because its not up to YOUR standard, theres no need to ruin it for everybody else.

As you can see I have added to the description, unfortunatly because of a couple of guys from here I cannot change what I have written, only add.

Many thanks to yoopers for not jumping to conclusions, and understanding my situation and concern.

[rogeratunicycledotcom]

Jenny,

You should be able to remove the duff bids without too much of a problem. I am not sure of the process, but they are obviously false so I believe Ebay will remove them. From my experience their reaction time may not be fast, hopefully fast enough though.

One tip though... if you have to relist (and that should not cost you). Wait a couple of weeks, you should get a better price then there are a couple of shops dumping at the moment.

As for it being a bad unicycle, it is not. It is imported by a reputable shop that I do know. It is a bit dated in it's design and it is equivient to the Dodger unicycle, but with out our impovments. It is basically the same as a raleigh unicycle.

Roger

[UniTyler]

But saying it is a "good quality" unicycle is a really big overstatement. Someone might like it, but chances are they would upgrade the day they learned. Even my old Torker CX is better than that and it's what I learned on. I upgraded it ASAP as most people do. This is a pic of me riding my current uni that is actually a Nimbus, but it's a Nimbus X, the Nimbus II's stronger, nicer brother. It has a CrMo hub like the Nimbus II and is very similar other than the frame, tire, and color:

[UniTyler]

A closeup:

[phil]

Originally posted by tylercox
Someone might like it, but chances are they would upgrade the day they learned. Even my old Torker CX is better than that and it's what I learned on. I upgraded it ASAP as most people do.
Why did you do that? Other than a more comfortable seat I can't think of any compelling reason to upgrade straight away unless you are into trials and bought an under-specced unicycle. If all you are doing is learning on one, maybe riding around the neighbourhood or practising the odd skill or two then there is no reason why this unicycle won't do exactly what you want it to.

The first unicycle experience of lots of people (myself included) is with some cheap, locally acquired cycle having done little or no research beforehand. It will last for many years unless you start pushing it beyond its limits by jumping and dropping.

This unicycle may not be as aesthetically pleasing* as a new Torker, Nimbus or whatnot, but for someone curious about unicycling or a gift it will be just as good and probably an awful lot cheaper.

Phil

edit: * although this one has the advantage of not being chrome. Finding a chrome bike is next to impossible, so why are practically all unicycles chrome? </rant>

[yoopers]

Well, I see that Jenny has added some discriptive commentary at the end of her auction but it's still largely a false ad in my eyes. I feel sorry for the person who unknowingly buys the unicycle thinking it is a Nimbus. I also see that she got the duff bids removed and is back to her starting price.

We gave it a good try, I suppose. Jenny, if you're still around, the added discription at the end is appreciated but it's still identified as a Nimbus. Your ad really needs to be corrected further.

Bruce

Edit: The link to her ad is in the first post of this thread.

[GILD]

Originally posted by "nimbus"
Ofcourse Im going to put "good quality unicycle" there is no need
i've seen ads on ebay that actually and accurately describes the condition of the product without trying to soften it up

u learnt to ride on this uni and u're now selling it
are u still riding and upgrading to a better uni?

[yoopers]

Our friend Jenny sold her unicycle yesterday for 23.01 pounds (Approximately US $42.10). It was purchased by someone with a zero feedback rating. I sure hope they knew what they were buying.

B

[amanda.gallacher]

poor guy.:(

amanda;)

[s7ev0]

Originally posted by yoopers
Our friend Jenny sold her unicycle yesterday for 23.01 pounds (Approximately US $42.10). It was purchased by someone with a zero feedback rating. I sure hope they knew what they were buying.

B

Most other stock unis on ebay go for around £30 - £40 (mine was £30) so I guess this was a cheap price for a cheap uni. Ebay isn't foolproof, but then of course as we all know "you get what you pay for"...