Garbage That GOO!

Lipton Bike in a Box

As regular readers know, back in late May, I won one of the Lipton Tea bikes being given away in various blog contests. The first step was to give my personal info to Liz at Everyday Goddess after being notified of my win. Liz immediately tendered that to the powers that be and shortly, she received an email from the contest representative:

Subject: RE: Can you confirm you received my info.?

Yes, thank you I did receive Cynthia's contact information. We will be sending her the bike soon.

Thanks,
 Tanya

Soon turned out to be June 27th, when a UPS Quantum View tracking email arrived in my inbox! My bike was coming to me all the way cross country from Connecticut.

This message was sent to you at the request of ZANES - TREK CYCLE to notify you that the package information below has been transmitted to UPS. The package(s) may not have actually been placed with UPS for shipment. To verify when and if the shipment is tendered to UPS and its actual transit status, click on the tracking link below or contact ZANES - TREK CYCLE directly.

Important Delivery Information

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scheduled Delivery: 07-July-2008

Monday FINALLY came. WOW! It was a BIG BOX! Luna immediately took possession. She is funny that way. In fact... she resisted being moved from the box. But I had to get into that box myself! Here come the pictures...

All boxes belong to Luna!

Given the size of it, I just started unpacking! I wasn't too convinced that I could move it out of the way of the front door easily otherwise. At around 35 pounds, it wasn't insurmountably heavy exactly, just AWKWARD!

Inside the bike box...

Once I removed Luna from the box and pried up all the staples holding it together, this is what I greeted my wondering eyes when I peered inside. Amazing. They fit the bike in there all right! I found a small box wedged in there somewhere and I thought I best open that first. A label on the outside of the big box said that the necessary tools for assembly were included and I had a hunch they might be in the little box.

Little box full of goodies

The little box contained an allen wrench, pedal wrench, owner's manual, pedals and the front wheel skewer. Plus the assembly check for $75 and several coupons for FREE 1.5L bottles of Lipton White Tea, any flavor.

There was also a sheet of directions for assembly. I did a quick read, decided I ought to get better acquainted with my bike and intrepidly forged ahead. It was either that, or figure out how to get that VERY BIG BOX down to the bike shop and admit to being a total bike assembly wuss.

Bike booty unpacked!

Hmmm... this didn't quite look like a bike yet, and it was up to me to fix that. A big surprise was the included Bell Radar bike helmet, I wasn't expecting that! Kudos to Zane's World Famous Cycles for tossing that in!

Anyway, I set to. I put the seat post into the frame and clamped it down. That was easy! Getting the handlebars on was a little more complicated, but once I puzzled through the dark illustrations, not so bad.

Then I got to mount the front wheel. It looked much more like a bike at this point! I hit a snag connecting the front brakes though. I just couldn't get the cable to seat in the bracket and was afraid to force it. That I left for the bike shop. Pedals went on easily and suddenly, I was done!

And here's the BIKE!

OK, I forgot and left a little packing material on the rear frame. I'll do a better photo later, when it returns from the bike shop with the front brakes connected. Chalk it down to excitement!

Three cheers for Lipton Tea and their bike giveaway!