I am very surprised I have to post a message like this.
Background
Many people know that cycling is a passion of mine, discovering it in my teens in Oregon. I rode all over the state, but then left it for seventeen years, because you know, life happens. You can look through my past history of posts on this community forum and see that I have had struggles with weight and at one point I was 352 pounds. I had to do something! With the help of my physician and a Gastroenterologist I started to lose the weight. I had gastric bypass surgery and with a regime that included a return to cycling I lost most of the weight. I found myself just under 200 pounds. Still heavy but manageable. I rode and finished the Assault on Mount Mitchell in the Blue Ridge Mountains and I was able to dedicate myself to riding. I was riding about 6000 - 8000 miles per year. But the damage I had done from being obese for so many years did not rear it's ugly head until a couple of years later.
Riding with my daughter, on our tandem, with a group of friends in a regular ride, I had a few chest pains. They went away as soon as we pulled over to the side of the road. I chalked it up to being cold, around 38°F and the beginning of a new season. We finished the ride without further incident. The next weekend on the same group ride, in nearly the same spot, with cold weather, the pains returned. Again, we stop and they went away. We continued the ride without any more pain. The third weekend we are out on the same ride, but this time it was in the 50's. About he same location the pains returned, something was wrong. I went home and called the cardiologist who saw me that very same day. After an initial exam I was preparing to do a cardiac stress test and just about to step on the treadmill when a nurse rushes in and tells me to come with her to see the doctor immediately. When I walk into the doctors private office the nurse closes the door and the doctor's first words, I will never forget this, "Why aren't you dead!". Shocked, I ask why, what does he mean? He goes on to explain that I had three coronary incidents and that I had 98% & 95% blockages on the left and right sides. He then goes on to tell me that he has set up an appointment at the hospital and will meet me there in an hour.
I call my wife, who panics at the news, but she pulls it together and takes me to the hospital. Three hours later I have two stents and all the normal blood flow has returned. On the following checkup, when I asked the doctor why he said what he said, he told me that they typically call the area of my heart that was damaged by the incidents 'the Widow Maker' and it typically is results in death, But I didn't, so I asked why he thought I survived. Basically he told me that all the cycling I had done in the previous two years had basically stress tested my heart over and over again, and that heart, the miraculous organ that it is, found new ways to feed itself. He explained that the riding saved my life.
Why I am telling you all this now
I had a recent encounter with someone that wanted a new item modeled. As per our exchange of messages I tell him how I work and that I do not charge for my design time in exchange I keep the digital files and any addition information or parts that I need to complete the task. I use Shapeways, not because of some deal I have with them, but because they have an easy to use storefront. They are also the people with current 3D print technology. I have tried other services but for the most part I have been satisfied with the service I get from them.
Back to this cyclist, he did provide a digital file of the post profile, with that I said I would come up with something. When giving me the file he demanded that the cost only be a certain amount and he would pay no more. When I told him that I do not dictate the pricing his response was essentially to 'Forget it and delete the file!' My response was short and said I do this for the love of cycling and I hoped that translating his message from his native language was the reason his message was so abrupt. I thought that was going to be it, but his response came. He basically called me a ********ter and that I can do whatever I wanted with the file but he knew how much effort I would have to put into the design and I was a liar. I withdrew from the conversation thread without a reply.
Wrapping this up
I have been doing this for seven years now. I will continue to do this, I am not going to let some faceless / nameless ******* on the internet deter me from doing something I love. I do hope that what I have chosen as a hobby helps a lot of other cyclists, just as much as cycling has helped me. I am just one person, but I do the best I can with what little tools I have at my disposal. In those seven years I have only come across three people that have gotten under my skin, early on a person who supplied an aero post profile wanted me to buy the product for him and told me it was his idea so he owned my design, the NA Felt Marketing Director who told me that not a single FELT owner wanted anything I was offering, and now this guy. I shook off those other two and I will shake this off too.
Thank you for this great community and for taking a few minutes to read this message.