A sad day

I was driving to Périgueux this afternoon when my phone rang and this time I stopped and answered it. And lucky I did because who should it be but a driver from Kuehne and Nagel who had turned up at my house to pick up my bike and ship it back to the supplier in Poland.

I told him that he was several days too early as I’d been told he wouldn’t be turning up until Friday 14 June and the parcel wasn’t ready to be shipped. He said OK, if it wasn’t ready it wasn’t ready, and we left it there. But it made me realise that things are moving and couldn’t be put off any longer.

I haven’t heard back from the DREAL and if they run true to form I won’t for a considerable period of time. After sending them all the information that I’d researched that indicated quite clearly to me that my bike did meet all of the regulatory requirements to allow it to be registered for use on public roads in France, I’d sent a follow-up email saying that if they wanted to say that it didn’t, I’d like to receive specific reasons for their decision. This, of course, would put them on the hook because if they’re making it up I’d have grounds for taking the issue further.

But the likelihood is that they’ll just hang things out for as long as they can and that would give rise to problems for me. For a start, the shipping company are bound to be back on Friday and will expect the bike to be in a form that’s ready to ship. If it’s not, that could well give the supplier grounds to cancel the agreement we’ve made and I’d then stand little or no chance of getting my money back if I still can’t get the bike registered later on.

So I’ve had to make the decision to get the bike packed up whether the DREAL comes back to me or not with a positive decision, which I doubt they will as French bureaucrats can have brass necks when they want to and can get away with it too. So this evening I’m well on the way with the packing process and will finish it off tomorrow.

As the parcel will weigh 39 kg when it’s completed it’ll have to be pretty strong. I’ve started by making a cardboard tub in which to place the bike and its components and accessories and when they’re all in I’ll build a full carton from stronger cardboard all around it. Hopefully that should do it, but I won’t know for sure until tomorrow.