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I know Douze can be too relaxed at times! We did contact Roman (owner) back in early 2019 when the world seemed very different about upgrading the front-end, but the pricing and availability today is completely different. I did email twice, then spoke to humans a couple of times a week for 6 weeks with the final conversation ending something like this:
"We have a bit of any issue with Douze as we just had a shipment arrive and the import tax is apparently worth more than the goods themselves due to customs thinking they've come straight from Taiwan as opposed to France. Until we get that resolved we're not in a position to look at getting other Douze products in."
Although in earlier conversations he was talking about tagging our potential order along with another customers which is due to ship in January 2022. Is all I want is costs and approx delivery time based on numerous items from their site.
I did speak to these guys https://urbanebikes.com/collections/douze on the phone who seemed helpful, but it was the guys first week so he knew very little. Might try and pop there in person next week as it's only 3miles away and I have some holiday to use up. Failing that I have a French colleague who could so some ringing around across the Channel!
thebrenthamtaffy-
Rep
Or go to France/Belgium and ride one back ;) Been done quite a few times for various cargo bikes before Brexit happened, now there is even more reason to do so. Custom's becomes another issue, or maybe they won't notice haha.
Interesting they have gone to Brose now, probably with Bosch + Shimano availability being so dire, for the price of £6.3k, I would say in 2021 that is a good buy, maybe a little painful but Douze gives IMO the best neutral handling (not too sharp, not too doddery), cable steering system that works and is reliable (R+M had some kind of a problem recently though they are keeping the actual details hush hush), big old box, good seats, step through, whole bike splits in half and is realistic to do by the end user given some basic tools, good riding position , moderate weight (same as Bullitt tbh) and well put together.As I say, wish I could get some!
BrickMan
No would just say Douze themselves are pretty relaxed, been trying to get an account with them for 2.5 years, suspect they enjoy too much wine whilst at work :p
But seriously, just ask London Green again, many of us shops occasionally get completely swamped with emails (once got 410-420 legit emails from actual humans in 1 day). Though last summer and this was averaging in the 80-150 per day region. Even blanket responses cannot keep it under control and you spend all your evenings + nights of the week week just responding as usefully as you can, so folk 100% fall through the cracks and its not intentional.