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Fully middle-aged dad to multiple kids perspective: F-150 V8 plus 20 foot travel trailer. Fixes all the downsides of a camper van at a fraction of the cost: stand up space, bathroom with shower, decent bed, room to hang out, cooking space, refrigerator, etc. Yes, there are disadvantages, and I would love to win the lotto and be one of the cool old dudes in a Revel 4x4. But for significantly less cost than a built out van, you can have more camping comfort and also a pickup that you can drive the rest of the year, including all the shuttling or other non-camping rides you do with family and friends.

I did the "buy on a budget" exercise last year and got the Rocky Mountain Instinct BC alloy. And now they've recalled it. I need some help on knowing how pissed I should be. Part of the bike's appeal was the killer paint - what I call '78 Trans Am - metallic brown with mustard trim. Now they're replacing all the frames with matte gray. No choices, no options, just sorry, eh. I get that it's expensive and complicated from them, but come on, not even an attempt at customer satisfaction? What's you guys' take on that recall and Rocky's response?

Rocky just posted the frame replacement material/color scheme. Here's what I sent them. I’m really disappointed with the replacement colors. I mean color. In a time when bikes from major manufacturers at similar price points are essentially indistinguishable performance-wise, color options become a determining factor. Maybe not the primary factor, but when I’m spending several thousand dollars on something I want it to look good. Rocky Mountain has always had in my opinion, some great colorways. I love my ’19 Instinct BC in what I call the ’78 Trans Am color scheme – beautiful metallic brown, mustard highlights, so cool. Now I get Matte Gray. Blah. Might as well get a Stumpjumper. I’m also irritated that owners of ’20 bikes get a carbon frame, but not ’18 or ’19. I’ve had my bike for barely a year, probably not much longer than some of the ’20 bikes out there. If I can’t have the colorway I chose originally, I’d at least like my blah gray frame in carbon. I get that this recall is a big problem for you guys. Kudos for attempting to make it right. But this is not my problem. I bought the bike I wanted, and now I won’t have it. Neither will a whole bunch of other unhappy customers. Why not have two color options? ’78 TA and blue? Or let the customer choose whether they want their blah gray replacement frame in carbon or alloy. Your customers, present and future, are watching.

I love our LBS, and I would love to buy everything from them. Here's a problem with buying local that I've run into a bunch of times, maybe you've already addressed it. Most of the time the price is the same or maybe slightly higher at the LBS than online. But the delivery time to the shop is ridiculously long. I can get stuff from Amazon in 2 days, the shop has had to wait a couple weeks on some things. I can get stuff from Chain Reaction across the pond faster than that. Seems to me that the LBS are getting screwed by the distributors. I understand the shop may be partly to blame by waiting to put many items together for an order, but my impression has been that their delivery and freight charges are much slower and higher than mine as an individual ordering from an online shop. And this also seems to be a problem across the general outdoor industry.