u/Yknut

I’m looking for suggestions on how to score and review an item that I can’t actually test until winter.

For some background, I was pleasantly surprised to find the exact shear pins I use in my snowblower on Vine. I keep a decent stock on hand because I go through them like water once the snow starts falling.

I’ve been less than impressed with the John Deere shear pins I’ve been using. They sometimes break even when there’s nothing jammed in the blower auger, so I was excited to find an alternative that might actually hold up better. The problem is, I won’t know whether they do until months from now.

I really don’t want to leave the item sitting on my waiting-to-review list all that time, so I was thinking of writing a review based on my initial impressions. I can cover the build quality, fit, etc., and mention that they’re missing one feature that the standard pins have. Then I could give them 3 stars as a neutral starting point and update the review once I have actual data on how they perform this winter.

Does that seem reasonable, or is there a better way to handle something like this?

I hate having anything sit in my waiting-to-review list for any significant length of time.

Thanks!

My son and his family recently moved to Vermont, and I was really looking forward to exploring the area on my road bike.

Their house is just off a state route. It's not particularly busy when I ride, but traffic moves along at a pretty good clip. Fortunately, the road is fairly wide and there's a generous amount of space beyond the white line—long stretches are almost the width of a breakdown lane.

I ride as far to the right as possible and use a Garmin Varia radar along with a small bar-end mirror so I can keep tabs on approaching traffic.

So here's the story.

I'm cruising along in the breakdown lane when my Varia alerts me that a car is approaching from behind. I glance down at the display to see how close it is, then check my mirror—but I don't see anything. "Huh," I think, "it must be closer than I realized."

A quick look over my shoulder. The car isn't behind me at all—it's completely crossed over the double yellow lines and is passing me by driving on the left-hand side of the road.

I certainly appreciated the consideration, but it felt a little crazy seeing an entire vehicle on the wrong side of the road when I was already riding far right in what was essentially a breakdown lane. The only explanation I could come up with is that the driver must have had a bad experience passing a cyclist at some point and decided, "Never again."

If this is Vermont cycling etiquette, I could get used to it.

(edited w/ChatGPT)