Back
in China things are going smoothly as they can. My passport has been submitted for my visa change. A coworker was supposed to pick it up
and mail it to me, but now she has to go to Shanghai the day it will be ready
so I need to find someone else to send it to me to make sure I can make my
flight to Kunming.
I returned to the bike shop to get a new
bicycle rack and had to argue for a while with the shopkeeper before he would
exchange for a new one. It went
something like this:
“Look
at the rack, you can see its off-center and the mount is warped, its going to
break soon, the weight limit says 25kg, the most I have had on there is a
backpack.”
“Are
you sure you didn’t have a person riding on there?” very common in China.
“No
I don’t do that and you said before that it wouldn’t support one anyway.”
“How
do I know? I can warranty the
bike, but the rack, maybe you did something.”
“Maybe
you sold me a piece of shit and now you don’t want to replace it.”
“I
can’t know what happened.”
“So
anything you sell, once it leaves your shop, you don’t have to worry about
it? If it breaks you just blame
the customer and screw them over?”
This
went back and forth for a couple minutes while I become increasingly
incensed. Finally he relents and
tells the assistant to replace it.
Now I have a nice new rack that he said could support a person if I
wanted.
After
all that I loaded up the bike and went for a test ride with most of the gear I
am going to be taking to make sure my storage methods are as good as I
thought. A few changes needed. But
I think everything is going to work out.
Also
had my first fall because of the clip-in pedals. I was very worried about the traffic in China because of all
the sudden stops and stupid shit that people do on the roads, having your feet
locked to the bike did not seem to be the best idea. But I told myself to just unclip well before any
intersection and it will be ok.
And it was, but... After an
hour or two I decided to stop for lunch and cruised up to a roadside noodle
stand. As I glided to a stop in
the bike parking area in front, I came to realize that I was clipped in. My bike slowed, I started to lean and
as the shopkeeper watched to his amusement, I tipped over to my right about as slowly
and gracefully as one can.
Fortunately my head missed the scooter to my right by about a foot. But more important this showed me that
my baggage storage system was quite good because when I picked up the bike
everything was still in place.
Now that I have had my first fall, I am
hoping that I have that out of the way.
I ended up doing 76km yesterday and I feel pretty good. I am going to shoot for an unloaded
70-80km today and see how the legs feel tomorrow.
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