Just thought I would throw out a big thanks to the folks at HED, specifically Vince for some good customer service in a situation that they had no fault in creating.
Long Boring Story…
I have a HED Vantage 8 aerobar setup on my tri bike that I somehow managed to snap off a bolt in one of the clip-on clamp pieces that clamp onto the base bar. This caused one of the two clamp pieces for the left clip to be unuseable. I figured the only way to fix this would be to purchase a set of the HED Clip-Lite aerobars and then mount them on the Vantage 8 basebar: note, I did not even think to contact HED for the singular piece that was no longer useable…
So I go about scouring the internet and find the specific version of the Clip-Lites I need, the version with the 26.0 mm clamp at Tri-Sports. It says it is back ordered, but I can wait as the season was essentially over. I place the order and then find out from Tri-Sports it is not back ordered, but discontinued. I take another gander through the internet thinking some place may have a few sets tucked away in the back somewhere and find Splash Multi Sport has them on their website. I promptly order up a set and wait for the package. When it arrives, it is the version with the 31.8 mm clamp. So I call up Splash Multi Sport and they say they will send out the correct clamp parts right away. Enter Vince… At this point it is actually Vince from HED that gets involved. We end up chatting over the phone and email and he explains that the parts actually are discontinued (the 26.0 mm version should no longer be on any websites, just the 31.8 mm clamp; interestingly I noticed that Tri-Sports website no longer has the 26.0 mm version listed…) and what he can do for me is to take apart a set that were mounted up for some wind tunnel testing and send them out to me. He could have said no longer available, but instead searched for a way to help me out, even when the error was not from his company. Glad I purchased the HED aerobars and will consider HED parts whenever they are an option for me.
The parts arrived the other day and I am now set to re-install my aerobars.