I agree. But I do not think the stickers damaged anything. From the description I read, destructive measures were used to remove the sticker(s) in question. A sticker should never be powerful enough to remove chrome along with it. I don’t believe this. This would either mean there was a serious defect in the plating, or that the sticker was removed with some sort of gouging instrument.
Sticker removal:
Stickers on chrome are, for the most part, easy to remove. The main ingredient is a good adhesive dissolver. I have had great results with lacquer thinner. Similar substances work as well, including nail polish remover. Let the chemicals do the work on the adhesive, and then peel (or carefully scrape) the sticker away while applying more.
I have removed countless stickers from unicycles (and cars) over the years. I keep a set of unicycle-related stickers on all my cars, and have to make “updates” to them annually, as the California sun bakes most of them eventually. Though some stickers last longer than others, very few hold up more than a few years in the sun. My car lives outside.
The hardest stickers to remove were the head tube stickers on the old Miyatas. They seemed to have a glittery background embedded into the adhesive. But after riding the unicycle a while, your foot would destroy the sticker and it would look better removed.
Stickers on painted surfaces are another story. Harder to remove, because you can’t use such destructive chemicals. I don’t like car dealer stickers. If I bought a car and it came with a dealer sticker on the paint, I would bring it back and ask them to remove it. But that’s a car of course, something I didn’t order from many states away.
I’m sorry for the people who were surprised by the Unicycle.com branding on stuff they ordered. I know that, for some peoples’ tastes, it is excessive. If you have complained here on the newsgroup but not to Unicycle.com, you are just complaining and not asking for change. Don’t forget to contact them with your feedback.
From Checkernuts:
I get this all the time. Cars from car dealers. Computers. Most of what I buy in the supermarket (Kroger, or Kirkland, didn’t make it!) Every bike I ever bought from a bike shop.
But Unicycle.com are not a bike shop. They are one of the few places people can order from a selection of unicycles. The main impediment to the growth of unicycling before the “Unicycle.com era” was lack of availability, and lack of choice for buyers. As well as lack of information. Unicycle.com has changed this.
Huh? Of course you always retain the right to not buy it. The problem here was the expectation of a product that came delivered looking slightly different. This has been a constant in the cycling industry, but is not necessarily a good thing. Because the products and components make minor changes so often, it’s not possible to keep up with new product photos every time. Perhaps the site needs a disclaimer, if there isn’t one there already, that states that the product you receive may differ in some details from the photo.
But you bought your unicycle from Unicycle.com. They are proud of this, and want the world to know. I like having the Unicycle.com stickers on my unicycles. People ask where it came from, and the answer is right there. Nothing too hard to remember; when they get home they can type it into their browser and they’re connected.
That’s why I always keep unicycling stickers on my car. To tell people unicycling is cool. And also, with stickers like “unicycle.com,” so people know there’s a place to go to find out more about getting their own.
