acoggan said:
Let's see: a deragatory post about a product that they couldn't possibly have tried (since it was only released in the last hour or so), from someone who just joined the forum today. Can you say "obvious troll"?
Thank you Andrew. I respect your work and followed what you have said on here and on many other forums for quite a long time. What you (and others) have written persuaded me to buy a powertap sl. At the same time I bought your and Hunter's book and read it with interest. That book, and lots of other people's comments about Cycling Peaks, persuaded me to buy the software. So I did. I paid good money for it about two weeks ago.
I liked the way that the website (or it might have been the forum) said that I would get free upgrades. I liked the way that the website said that Forerunner support was coming soon. I liked both of these things and I can honestly say that these two comments heavily influenced my decision to buy the software.
I went looking for the Cycling Peaks forum this evening and noticed the new software on it. The forum was down, the pricing page was down but I could download the software so I did. I sent an e-mail to support asking about the upgrade and letting them know that the forum was down. I got two very prompt e-mails back, one from Hunter and one from Dirk Friel. Both said that I would have to pay the for the upgrade.
Out of interest, I did try the new software. After some initial problems downloading from my forerunner, I did import some run data and look at the graphs that it produced.
Having read what the Cycling Peaks website (or its forum) said about upgrades I was disappointed that I would have to pay for an upgrade so soon (just over two weeks) after buying the software. I have obviously communicated this to Hunter. I am sure he is very busy trying to get the forum, etc up and running and so I am sure that he has not yet got round to replying again.
As I was upset about this, I posted a short factual message here. If you think that is "deragatory" then I am sorry about that. In fact, I could see that it was a bit sharp a few seconds after pressing the submit button. I then went back to edit my reply but the auto log-in wasn't enabled so I had to go through the hassle of logging back in. By that time there was already a reply quoting my message so the genie was already out of the bottle.
If you ignore the fact that I paid full price for the software two weeks ago and the references on the Cycling Peaks site to the free upgrades, I would say that getting a 50% discount to the full price is not a bad deal. Unfortunately, I am not able to ignore both of these things.
I don't know what the business ethics of this sort of thing is in the US. I am sure that there is something in the licence agreement that tells me that everything I have read about on the website is completely irrelevant to life, the universe and everything. I do know that in the UK this sort of thing (saying one thing in marketing material and then ignoring it once you have got the money) is not allowed and this is enforced by Trading Standards. I realise that I cannot practically do anything to get this situation sorted as I doubt if the UK Trading Standards people will take too active an interest in this sort of thing.
I hope to be able to continue to use the software that I have bought. I also hope to continue to be able to read about your insights. If my short comment at a time when I was upset about what I perceive to be a blatently unfair position means that I am a troll then so be it. I am sure that there are lots of people on here who have written messages that they wouldn't have minded changing after they had press the submit button.
Anyway, have a good evening.
