Spiffy new strap!
When the worst of the two thunderstorms at Massanutten this year, I was a few yards past the view on Byrd Knob and hurrying as fast as I possibly could to descend in the hail and rain.
I immediately untied my jacket from around my waist and struggled to get it on in the deluge, while holding my water bottle with my teeth (sorry Leonard!). The exercise was as effective as trying to don a crumpled piece of plastic wrap while blind. I couldn’t see where I was going and my arms couldn’t find the armholes while I slipped between slick boulders.
I almost had it on when it got stuck on the Black Diamond Spot headlamp wrapped around my wrist. In frustration, I took the arm back out of the sleeve and pulled the headlamp off, all while negotiating the boulders, muddy descent, and oncoming runners.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that while juggling jacket, bottle, and headlamp in mud, rain, and oncoming traffic, I lost the headlamp strap.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if this wasn’t a brand-new, never-used replacement for a headlamp that was stolen at Promise Land a couple of weeks before, which was itself a replacement for one that ‘went missing’ along with two sets of drop bags at the Pinhoti 100 last fall.
Argh.
So I e-mailed Black Diamond on their website last Sunday evening (5 days ago) about my plight – “where can I find a replacement strap?” Monday evening (4 days ago), there’s an e-mail from a nice guy named Jeffrey, “We don’t have replacement straps available for sale, but if you respond with your address I will put one in the mail.”
Really???
Tonight, Thursday, the package is waiting in my mailbox. Unbelievable. No muss, no fuss.
So now, as if Black Diamond’s Spot isn’t the absolute sweet spot between super-bright and lightweight-portable, the company has the kind of customer service you dream about. That’s what keeps me coming back, Spot after Spot. Kudos!!!
