Waffles & Steel

Please bookmark the new Waffles & Steel!

2009-12-21T08:41:00.000-08:00

Waffles & Steel has moved to: www.wafflesandsteel.com

Please check it out!

Thanks!

Update: Waffles will be ready soon

2009-12-17T00:07:00.000-08:00

I'm getting closer to launching the new Waffles & Steel. Thanks for bearing with me. It may be ready as soon as Friday (China time).

Work in Progress: Getting ready to move

2009-12-13T21:06:00.000-08:00

All of my blog-writing energy is being directed to blog moving. I've decided to migrate Waffles & Steel to a server that's not blocked in China. It's silly to have a blog with so much China content that can't be read by people inside the country. Please bear with me as I sort this out. I'm definitely more of a writer than a tech guy, but I'll keep grinding away at the problem like it's a long climb. Be back soon. Meanwhile, go out and ride some more ... or do an extra five minutes on the rollers.

Bike Traps: What kind of sick mind thought this one up?

2009-12-10T03:44:00.000-08:00

How does this happen to a manhole? I guess a crack forms, years of corrosion work on it, relentless traffic wears it down more, battalions of Red Guards parade over it, wet seasons come and go, road crews pretend it's not there and partially cover it with asphalt (or bitumen, I love saying that word with a British accent) ... until it looks like this - a craggy, sinister bike trap.

This one couldn't be in a worse place. You come upon it after making a hard right turn between these two overpass pillars. You'll usually have a container truck on your tail or one of those pesky gray micro vans trying to squeeze by you on the left just as you're threading the pillars and trying to steer clear of the trap on the right.

Crash & Punch: The last chapter ... probably

2009-12-09T04:32:00.000-08:00

It seems the crash-and-punch drama is finally over. I know I've said that before, but this time it appears to be true.

The expat met with the police to pay the rest of the money to the "victim." Originally, he was ordered to pay 20,000 RMB (about US$2,930). He paid half of that after the incident. When the expat went to the police station to fork over the rest, he was told that he would only have to pay 4,000 RMB (US$585) more. Really good news.

Part of this sum was compensation to the guy for a month's lost wages. Yes, the guy claimed he would need to take a month off from work to recover from his injuries and the trauma. He's a construction worker who claims his annual salary is 30,000 RMB (US$4,393).

The guy didn't show up at that police station to collect the money. He had his daughter represent him. He probably was afraid he wouldn't be able to repress the laugh he'll be laughing all the way to his bank.

Food: Eating up the road - literally?

2009-12-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

I've written a lot about Chinese roads. I've ridden thousands of kilometers on them. Now I think I might have literally eaten a bit of them.

Somedays, I cook my own lunch in my office. One dish in my regular rotation is corn grits with red beans, green peppers and sweet garlic chili sauce dripped over it. It's a one-pot meal, all cooked up in a little rice cooker. I buy the coarsely ground corn grits - a bit like rough-cut polenta - in the bulk food bin section in a grocery store a couple blocks from my office. It costs less than 50 US cents for a kilo of the stuff. I've never had problems with it ... until today.

The grits cooked up nicely and I stirred in the beans and peppers. It was almost ready when I sampled a spoon full of it. As I was chewing, something went "crunch!" in my mouth. It felt like I was eating tiny fragments of glass. I carefully isolated the parts in my mouth, then spit them out on the palm of my hand. Fortunately, it didn't seem to be glass. The culprit appeared to be tiny black bits of asphault or rock from a road.

Now, why would I think the crunchy stuff might have come from a road? During my forays into rural China, especially the northern parts of the country, I've often seen farmers drying out their corn crop on the side of the road. They'll remove the kernals from the cob, and spread them out on the hot shoulder of the road, letting them bake in the sun for awhile. It's a beautiful scene - a long carpet of brilliant yellow stretching along the road. I've always wondered how they filter out the road dust and car exhaust contamination. Sheep, pigs and cows also use the road, so that's another concern.

But I never thought much more about it because I figured the road corn was most likely the farmer's private stash. Could it ever make its way into the bulk food bin at my local grocery store? Nah.

Today at lunch, I started wondering about it again, though. I was facing one of the most common dilemmas in China: Should I keep eating this stuff? I decided to continue and stop thinking about it. I had already invested too much time, effort and money (about US$1.50!) in the lunch to throw it away and head back out to forage for food. I cautiously chewed each bite, searching for hard bits with every first soft chomp. I found a couple more tiny suspicious pieces, but the rest of the meal seemed OK.

Has ingesting the road given me a better feel for it? Not yet.

Ride Report: Used-car dudes and Mr. Cheng Guan

2009-12-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

I set out on my Saturday ride about two hours later than I usually do. It's good to do this to get a fresh view of things. Chinese roads are filled with a new cast of characters every three hours. From 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., you'll see the peloton of bedraggled migrant workers on their squeaky bikes. You also encounter lots of car washers who sit on the side of major roads with a couple buckets of water and some sponges. They'll scrub down your vehicle for a small fee.

But by 9 a.m., the car washers are gone and their spots are taken over by the used- car dudes. They put up a little sign that says "Qiu che," or "Seeking car." They sit on a stool or stand up while gesturing to drivers to stop and negotiate the sale of their car. On one stretch of road - Guangzhou Da Dao - that I ride on frequently, you'll see used car dudes lined up 10 meters apart for about 3 kilometers.

Funny, I've never seen anyone actually stop to discuss a deal with them. I'm not sure how the business works. Getting them to explain it is difficult because I don't think they're supposed to be working the roads like this. They certainly weren't happy about me snapping photos of them.

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Everyone knows that I can't resist an overloaded bike. This bike was stacked high with plastic dish washing liquid jugs. I guess the guy goes from restaurant to restaurant collecting them. I hope they get refilled.

I was taking a picture of the dish washing liquid bike when my new best friend pulled up.

I met this guy a couple weekends ago. I was hammering down the road when I heard someone huffing and wheezing behind me. He pulled up alongside me and asked why I was wearing a blinking orb on the back of my jersey. He was talking about the clip-on blinky light that I attach to my back jersey pocket. I told him that it makes me more visible in traffic, and he thought that was clever but kind of weird. I think the Chinese think that I shouldn't worry about drivers approaching me from behind because it's their responsibility to avoid me. Why spend money on equipment to help them to do their job?

He also thought my interest in the overloaded bike was strange. When I told him I was riding to the university district about 16 kilometers away, he was blown away that anyone would ride that far. I love these types of guys. Curious, good natured, upbeat. Check out his shoes - the classic People's Liberation Army sneaker, in camo!

He works for the "cheng guan," a government agency in charge of policing commercial activity on roads and sidewalks, among other things. They're the ones who terrorize the Tibetan women who hawk jewelry on the sidewalks and pedestrian overpasses throughout the city. I noted the "cheng guan" patch on his shirt, and said, "Oh, you work for the scariest government agency!" He just rocked back and let out a loud maniacal laugh, "Heewwaaayyaaaaah!"

Bikes: Need to haul 12 water cooler bottles?

2009-12-04T03:42:00.000-08:00

I see guys pedaling these water cooler bikes every day. I keep telling myself that one day, I'm going to ask if I can borrow one for a spin.

The water bike guys are usually in their 30s and 40s - too old for factory jobs. Factory bosses usually only hire workers in their 20s, and job ads usually specify that applicants should be female. Men are too hard to control on the factory floor.

Ahh, my favorite part - pedals made of rebar. I found a shop that sells them and bought a few of them for gag gifts.

This rig was made by Guangzhou's biggest bike builder, the "Wu Yang" or "Five Rams" company. The ram is the city's improbable mascot. Legend has it that five celestial beings descended from heaven on five rams and they gave the locals stems of rice that would keep the area free from famine.

Crash & Punch: A phone call

2009-12-03T02:33:00.000-08:00

A follow up to last week's drama involving the expat who hit a local cyclist:

The expat said that for the first time since the incident, he wasn't in pain when he woke up this morning. He did visit the guy he punched in the hospital. When he walked into the guy's room, the guy was laughing and sitting up in bed smoking. But when the guy saw the expat, he suddenly started feeling unwell and had to lay down.

The guy's daughter called the expat's wife and said that after hearing the expat's side of the story, the family realizes that the scuffle wasn't entirely the expat's fault. She said that at the time, her father didn't know that the expat hit a guy who was going up the hill the wrong way. He only saw the expat smacking the idiot bike rider on the head while trying to leave the crash scene.

Does this mean the expat doesn't have to pay the hefty amount of compensation? Nope.

Concrete Blobs: A rare victory in the war (Part II)

2009-12-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

I was riding along last Saturday when I discovered this newly born concrete blob. This is the first time I've found a fresh one. I couldn't help but whip out my camera and document the find.

It was shaped like a huge comet with a long tail. It also looked a bit like Australia. I was snapping away with my camera when, as expected, a small group of gawkers gathered. It never takes long for that to happen in China. They were three guys who worked in a nearby metal shop, welding together aluminum security doors and gates.

I asked them if they had a shovel and said it would be wonderful if someone could clear away the concrete pile before it dried. As soon as I mentioned labor, two of the guys walked away. I guess it's no fun gawking at a foreigner who's suggesting you should do some unpaid work.

The one guy who stayed told me that street cleaners would take care of the blob. But I told him I doubted that because I see millions of the damn things on Guangzhou's streets everyday. Then the guy said I shouldn't worry because he'll call the city and they'll send someone out to take care of it.

Beware: sweeping generalization coming up. Many Chinese are programmed by their Confucian Communist overlords not to get involved in civic matters. They're supposed to take care of their families, do their jobs well and let the government and Communist Party run everything else. Cleaning the street is something the regime must worry about. A citizen doesn't fuss with it unless ordered to by the state.

But I started working on the guy. I trotted out the old slogan, "Serve the people!" Then I invoked the spirit of Lei Feng, the legendary selfless soldier, a Communist Good Samaritan who liked to clean latrines in his spare time. These things work with taxi drivers when I'm trying to convince them that my broken bike will fit in the back of their cab if I take both wheels off. It worked with this guy, too. He went into his shop and came out with a pathetic-looking shovel head with a broken handle.

As he scooped up a bunch of concrete, he said to me, "Now, what do I do with it?" I noted that a section of the curb was crumbling and he could use the concrete to patch it up. That's what he did and it looked great.

Bike Traps: The concrete blob (Part I)

2009-12-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

The concrete blob. It's not the most dangerous bike trap. But it is by far the most pervasive one in Guangzhou. They are everywhere!

I'm not sure how exactly they get created. I'm guessing there's some leftover cement on the chute on the back of the millions of cement trucks that rumble around Guangzhou everyday. The stuff eventually slides down and plops on the street like a big pile of chunky peanut butter. Or it's dribbled, making a long bumpy line. It often just dries into a mound, or a car or truck will run over it, creating an extra dangerous obstacle with ruts, ridges and dodgy edges.

Concrete blobs usually aren't big enough to knock you off your bike, unless you hit one at high speed when riding with one hand while the other hand is holding a water bottle or fishing a snack out of your back jersey pocket. The biggest danger is that they throw you off your line and cause you to ride into traffic. They can also be hard to see because they often blend in with the road. I've never seen road crews removing them. Once they've been born, they're permanent fixtures, unless some righteous roadie takes a stand. To be continued ...

Folding Fetish: One of the weirdest cycling subcultures

2009-11-30T00:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I'll be on a long solo ride laboring against a strong headwind. I'll see someone up ahead in a proper bike kit, and I'll start thinking, "Ahhh, maybe it'll be someone who can take turns pulling with me." But when I get closer, I realize that ...aaggghhhhhh...it's another one of those folding bike dudes!

There's a big group of them in Guangzhou. I think the folding bike is the second most popular type of rig in the city, after the rusty, grimy dinged-up work bikes ridden by migrants. On some Sundays, many of the folding bike fans get all decked out in Euro team outfits, and they gather in the city's university district. They mostly seem to pose and prance around with their tricked-out, small-wheeled bikes. Some of them even bring their girlfriends with them to snap photos.

I got a kick out of this guy. He's a rebel all right.

I guess when I see these guys in their Euro team kits riding those miniature bikes, I kind of feel the same way a Harley rider probably feels when he sees a guy decked out in leather on a moped. Maybe I'm a bike snob.

The cool thing is that many Chinese - well, not that many actually - now have the leisure time and income to indulge themselves with such hobbies. Life isn't all about posting rip-roaring GDP numbers. It's about finding time to get out and do something fun and interesting. As more and more Chinese can do this, the country will be a much nicer place to live in.

Crash & Punch: Money solves everything

2009-11-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

There was a happy but expensive ending to yesterday's bike crash, fight drama. A deal with police was cut close to midnight, and the expat cyclist had to fork over 20,0000 yuan (US$2,930). It was unclear who got what of this hefty sum. No doubt, the police took a cut. And some of it probably went to pay medical fees for the alleged victim. On the positive side, no one was seriously injured and charges weren't pressed against the expat cyclist. After the money was paid, the police left the hospital and the expat was able to go home this morning after the doctors determined his internal injuries weren't serious.

The expat was able to give me a few more details today. He said he was flying down the descent when the Chinese cyclist riding the wrong way plowed into him. The expat was able to break his fall with his arm and his shoulder hit the ground as he did a roll. After coming out of the natural momentary shock, he saw the other cyclist - who wasn't seriously hurt - and gave the knucklehead a smack on the head. OK, this wasn't the best reaction, but when someone does something stupid and causes a nasty spill, you definitely feel a need to express your anger. If you can't do it with the local language, you reach for the universal language - like an openhanded pop on the head. Again, not the best move but understandable - and certainly forgivable.

As the expat got on his bike and tried to ride away, a bystander grabbed him and wouldn't let him go. When he tried to pull away, the bystander hit his torso. The expat then punched the guy in the face and he went down, apparently hitting his head on the pavement. As they struggled, a large crowd of gawkers surrounded them. "It was like ants on honey," he said. The crowd held the expat there until the police arrived. In China, it doesn't take long for a mob to form, and most of the time, the crowd won't take the foreigner's side.

The expat never had a chance to assess the injuries of the violent bystander. He thinks the guy needed stitches and possibly broke his nose. It's unclear whether the guy had to pay any kind of a fine or was assigned any blame. I seriously doubt he was.

On China's roads, a foreigner has little or no leverage. I once heard (from a third-hand source) of an accident involving an expat who was cycling down a road when a jaywalking pedestrian jumped out in front of him. The pedestrian suffered some serious head injuries and the expat had to pay the guy's medical bills. In many cases, the police are under pressure to nail the foreigner because if they don't, word will get out that they kow towed to the expat, and this could spark a protest or riot, especially in a village.

In an authoritarian society like China's, everything looks orderly and stable on the surface. But a small incident can quickly explode into a big one. People are often walking around with a load of grievances that they feel they are not allowed to vent. But all it takes is a little spark (e.g. a rumor that a rich foreigner ran into an elderly man and got away without paying compensation), and you can have an inferno by the end of the afternoon.

Tips: Never throw a punch in China

2009-11-26T03:02:00.000-08:00

I got a text message today from another expat cyclist in Guangzhou. It said, "I crashed my bike against another cyclist going the wrong way and I slapped his head. A bystander intervened. He hit me and so I punched him. He went down. Now I am in police custody."

I called him and found out the situation was much more serious. He sent the text from a hospital, where he was being treated for possible injuries to internal organs. He wasn't able to talk long, but he said that he was still in police custody at the hospital. The details of the incident are still sketchy.

I'm completely sympathetic. I've been in the same situation many times before, and I struggled to maintain my cool. This rider said he was descending a small mountain when he hit the cyclist who was "salmoning" - one of the national pastimes of cyclists in China. I can't tell you how many times I've been climbing or descending and had to find my way around someone who was riding against traffic. You would think that it was the responsibility of the salmon to find safe passage around the person going the right way. But that's not how it works in China. It's one of the few times a Chinese cyclist will hold his line, i.e. when the line really belongs to you.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. The point I want to make is that it is NEVER a good idea for a foreigner to hit a Chinese person - NO MATTER WHAT THEY HAVE DONE. It's dumb for two reasons:

1. Cyclists look ridiculous in a fistfight. We're wearing clippity cloppety cleated shoes and Spandex that looks cool on the bike but extremely dorky on the road in a fistfight. If you don't believe me, check this out.

2. In China, a Chinese person can rape your women, burn down your home and key the new paint job on your Colnago ... but if you hit him, oh man, you're in big trouble. I know a guy whose crazy Chinese neighbor threw his wife's bike off the top of the apartment complex. He confronted the Chinese guy, things quickly got heated, he punched the Chinese guy and pinned him to the ground. Before he knew it, the Chinese guy called the police and the foreign guy had to write a mea culpa "self criticism" letter and pay a small fine to his lunatic neighbor. The police weren't at all interested in hearing about how the neighbor tossed the guy's wife's bike off the roof. They just focused on the fisticuffs.

I have another friend - a pretty strong bike rider, actually - who was on a training ride when he got doored and hit the ground really hard. As he was picking himself up, he noticed that a Chinese passenger in the car was laughing at him. He went over to the passenger and clocked him. Well, the police showed up at his house later and threatened to expel him from the country if he didn't apologize in writing and pay a fine.

The Chinese take assault very seriously, especially when a foreigner is doing the punching. As soon as you strike out, it doesn't matter what triggered it, you're guilty.

Gear: The news is boring, the bikes are cool

2009-11-25T04:49:00.000-08:00

Chinese newspapers are generally boring. But their bikes are cool.

Most of the papers have a fleet of their own customized delivery bikes. They're painted in the company's colors, and the publication's name is often on the frame's top and down tubes. Matching panniers are a must.

Here's a delivery bike for Guangzhou's most popular paper, the Southern Metropolis Daily:

This bike belongs to an entertainment tabloid. The delivery guy parked it outside a greasy noodle joint at lunchtime.

I love the rain cover on the seat below: a plastic bag. The Chinese rarely do any kind of maintenance on their rigs. They just ride them into the ground, then buy a new one. They let the dirt, rust and grime build up all over the bike. Doesn't matter as long as it still rides.

Bike Traps: An instant endo?

2009-11-23T03:03:00.000-08:00

I came across this wicked little bike trap during a ride over the weekend.

It's a crumbling drain cover reinforced with rebar. The sinister thing is that there's a series of these covers in a long line. So when you're riding along looking at the undamaged covers, you get lulled into complacency, stop paying attention to them, stray a little bit off your line, then "BAM!" you ride over this one and go over your handlebars. OK, this is unlikely because any fool knows that you should never ride over any kind of manhole or grate in China - and probably in most other countries. So many are ill fitted, unstable or just nonexistent.

This bike trap is along a narrow road that goes through a semi-rural area. On the right side of the road, there's a big banana field. But there's also a farmer's market nearby along with a university district and an industrial zone. So there are always trucks, buses and tractors and three-wheel carts that you need to avoid. It's easy to ride into a bike trap like this while doing an evasive maneuver to miss a swerving container truck.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes to fix this thing. The stretch of road has long been a disaster, but about four months ago, road crews patched up some of the roughest parts. I chalked it up to China's US$586 billion stimulus plan. But it didn't take long for the road to become a nightmare again. Maybe I should start riding a cross bike.

Pics: It's the Tool Time Guys and the Yam Man

2009-11-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

I saw a few interesting things on my 97-kilometer ride. I set out about two hours later than I usually do because I wanted to wait for the morning to get warmer, and I wanted to get a nice big hot bowl of oatmeal into me for fuel. I saw a group of interesting workers that I usually don't run into when I get an earlier start. They were about 20 guys who gather under an overpass about five kilometers from my home. They ride these battered black work bikes that are covered in mud, rust and grime. On a rack over the rear tire, they strap on all sorts of power tools.

Most of them have a power drill tied to the side of the rack and there's some sort of drill press tied down on the top of the rack.

I asked them what the tool was for and where do they work, but they spoke in a thick dialect that I couldn't understand (My usual explanation for not understanding folks because my Mandarin isn't fluent enough.).

They seem to be freelancers, hired drills just waiting for a job. For me, they really embody the spirit - maybe desperation is a better word - of the Chinese worker. There they were on a cold Sunday morning, hanging out under an overpass with their tools, hoping to get a little work. Sure, China is reporting sizzling economic growth again, but times are really tough for people like this.

After riding for 70 kilometers in a icey cruel, relentless headwind, I felt like the unforgiving conditions had really nailed me into the ground like a tent peg. I was fighting the bike and struggling just to turn the pedals over. I couldn't get rid of that cold and clammy feeling. Then I smelled something that made me feel all warm and fuzzy. It was the unmistakable scent of Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts. Slightly sweet with some nutty hints. It was coming from the three-wheel bike cart that I was closing in on fast. Ahhh, it was a Yam Man!

These guys are fixtures in every Chinese city when the weather gets cold. They have some kind of metal oven or big clay pot (Tandoori-like) contraption on the back of their bikes full of baked sweet potatoes. I could have spent the rest of day riding behind this guy, basking in the yam-scented heat trail. Only one problem: He was only going 9 kph.

I foolishly didn't buy a yam because about an hour earlier I had eaten half of a mashed-up peanut butter sandwich I stuffed in jersey pocket. I wasn't hungry but I was at the point where I should have taken on board some fuel. A baked sweet potato was exactly what I needed. A hot football of carbs in my stomach. I passed on it and started paying for the price five kilometers down the road when I started to bonk. I rode home the rest of the way on auto pilot set on slow survival mode.

Pics: Turtles and tires!

2009-11-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

I was at the end of a 100-kilometer ride this morning when I passed this guy selling turtles on the side of the road.

Last summer, I frequently saw migrant workers on the roadside near my apartment complex selling soft-shell water turtles. They did it just like this guy: punch a hole through the tailend of the shell, thread a piece of twine through it and either hold the turtles up to passing traffic or dangle them from a stick. I've never seen anyone buy them.

It's really hard to get a picture of these turtle dealers. They're not supposed to be hawking reptiles on the side of the road, so they'll usually turn their back to you as you try to snap a photo. This is the first time one of them let me shoot him. I played the be-nice-to-a-foreign-friend card and he went for it. First he wanted me to pay him, which I wouldn't do because I don't want to encourage people who mistreat animals.

The turtles were looking like they were having a VERY BAD DAY. It was really cold and they were barely moving.

Like all the other turtle peddlers, this guy wouldn't tell me where he got the creatures. The turtlemen usually wear hard hats and dress in work clothes. I assume they're construction workers who stumble upon a nest of turtles and try to make a little extra money.

The Cantonese are famous for being adventurous eaters - dogs, cats, snakes, frogs, civit cats - and they're maniacs when it comes to freshness. They usually like to buy their critters live and supervise the slaughter or do it themselves.

When I first came to China in 1990 as a language student, I went to Guangzhou's Qing Ping Market, well known for its head-spinning variety of creatures in cages. It was there where I saw the cruelest thing I've ever seen. There was a small wild deer-like animal stuffed into a cage. Because the cage was so small, they had to chop off all of the deer's legs at the knee to fit it into the container. It just peered out at me looking terrified, with its bloody stumps sticking out of the cage.

Today, I was able to photograph another character who has eluded me many times. Some migrant workers pedal around the city collecting old tires. I guess they sell it for scrap. I'm fascinated by the way they hang the tires on their bikes. This guy has a car tire and motorcycle tires as well as a bizillion bike tires.

Training: The morning schizoids

2009-11-20T03:26:00.000-08:00

I'm going to stop setting myself up for failure with these morning rides. They're just not going to happen until the cold front moves away.

Last night, I laid out all my riding clothes on the kitchen table so that I could dress in the morning without waking up my wife. I put out my knee warmers, thermal booties, fleece vest, jersey, neck warmer hat thingy, arm warmers ... the whole works.

When the alarm went off at 5:15, I woke up and felt well rested. But I just couldn't get out of bed. Most homes in Guangzhou don't have central heating, so the mornings can be cruelly cold.

I stayed in bed as my mind started making a list of reasons why I should skip the ride. It said, "The wind is going to be brutal and you'll be miserable. You won't be able to ride that fast in the cold. Why practice riding slow? It'll be dark and there might be more of those broken bricks in the road that are so hard to see. When you rode Tuesday, a gust of wind almost blew you off your line and into traffic on the Pazhou Bridge. It could happen again." Then came the most persuasive argument: "The little Japanese girl next door just caught H1N1 and your daughters' schools have been closed to slow the illness from spreading. It's best not to push it now. Stay healthy and do everything possible to avoid sickness. Getting sick sets you farther back than skipping a workout."

So I didn't ride and stayed in bed until 6 a.m. - the point of no return for my morning workout. If I don't get out the door on the bike by 6 a.m., my workout plans are blown to hell. My narrow window of opportunity is between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.

I just watched the seconds tick past 6 a.m. At 6:01 a.m., another voice started whispering in my ear. The first thing it said was: "Loser! It's not that cold out there. After about 10 minutes on the road, you would have felt fine. Embrocation! The tough, unpleasant workouts are the most memorable and meaningful ones. You would have felt so proud of yourself if you would have gone out. You're going to lose precious fitness. In Belgium, this is summer weather!"

What will happen now is that I'll move my workouts to the evening. I'll like it at first and wonder why I even tried to ride in the morning. But then the negatives will start building up. I'll have to work late and will miss a key workout or two. Or I'll just want to relax and unwind during the evening and will resent having ONE MORE THING to do in the evening. The workouts will cut into my precious reading time.

Then I'll shift back to the mornings and it will begin again...

Embrocation: The experiment goes awry

2009-11-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

Following the success of my embrocation experiments on the road, I decided to try out the stuff on one of my roller workouts in the morning chill on my balcony. I squirted out a blob and rubbed it into my legs, and the wonderful warm feeling kicked in right away. I was riding bare legged when I usually have to wear tights. It felt great.

But 10 minutes into the workout, I discovered a problem. When I'm riding on the roads, I don't really smell the embrocation all that much because the wind whips it off my body. But when I'm riding in place on the rollers, the scent rises up from my legs and goes straight up into my nose. For the first few minutes of the workout, the sinus-clearing sensation was enjoyable. But after 10 minutes, I began feeling like I was riding in a cloud of embrocation. I got lightheaded and a bit dizzy. I couldn't focus on my workout. All I was doing was thinking about how overwhelming the smell was. I felt like I had rolls of wintergreen Lifesavers jammed up each nostril.

Note to self: Get unscented embrocation for the rollers.

It turned out to be the roller workout from hell. Apart from the embrocation overdose, there were a few other annoying things. As usual, I was on a tight schedule. I had just enough time to do a one-hour workout before showering, shoveling some oatmeal down my gullet, checking e-mails, cycling to school with my little daughter and then hopping the shuttle bus to work.

When I got on the rollers and started pedaling, I noticed my Trek bike computer wasn't working. I got off the bike and jiggled the sensor on the fork, but that didn't work. I didn't have time to mess with it, and there was no way I was going to spend an hour on the rollers without feedback. So I had to do a bike change and go back into the apartment to get my trusty steel Colossi.

I got on the bike again and tried to zone out while pedaling and listening to my iPod. Then I started to wonder, "Hmmm, since when has 'Kissing the Lipless' become an eight-minute song?" For some reason, my iPod was continuously repeating songs. The Shins were stuck in some kind of weird loop. I had to stop again and try to debug the iPod. I tried an Arcade Fire song and it started repeating, too. Resetting the device didn't work, and I couldn't waste time fussing with it. I went to a Podcast of a "Shout Out Louds" concert, downloaded from All Songs Considered, and that took care of the problem.

Once I passed the 10-minute warm-up mark, I tried to pick up the tempo and do intervals of three minutes hard followed by two minutes of recovery. But for some reason, my legs had no power. I was struggling to spin at a pathetic 30 kph, when I can usually easily ramp it up to 36-40 kph. I tried to shift up to my big ring, but my 8-year-old geriatric Dura Ace front derailleur just couldn't complete the task. It usually works fine on the road but falls short on the rollers. I'd greatly appreciate an explanation from all the mechanical engineers out there.

That's when I decided that some workouts just aren't meant to be and this was one of them. All the delays had eaten into my hectic morning timetable. To complete all the other essential tasks, I had to cut the ride short to 30 minutes.

As always, with lessons learned, I'll try again tomorrow.

Embrocation: Better than melted butter on hot waffles

2009-11-18T04:06:00.000-08:00

I just want to know why everyone has been keeping the marvels of embrocation a secret from me. Oh man, what a revelation. Slathering the stuff on my legs has solved a serious problem I’ve been having keeping them warm and limber on rides.

When I was an unspectacular-but-determined cross country runner in high school, I ran in shorts through most of the winter without any problem. All it took was a five-minute warm-up to get the blood flowing in the legs and they would be fine.

But now (I won't say how many years - or decades - later), I just can’t get rid of the chill. I’ve had to abandon a climbing workout because the legs weren’t warming up, and I was afraid I was going to pull something. I did a 130-kilometer ride over the weekend, and my quads felt like semi-unthawed hamburger meat throughout the workout. At the 100-kilometer mark, I felt an aching pain deep in my quads. It got so bad that I thought I might have to get off the bike and hail a taxi. When I got home, it was painful to walk. I’ve never felt that sensation before. I’m thinking now that my muscles were aching because they weren’t getting enough blood. The sensation went away as soon as my legs warmed up.

The other day I went out for a 30-kilometer morning ride before work. The temp was about 8 degrees Celsius, and I felt like I was riding in a wind tunnel set on “maximum Arctic blast.” Ordinarily, it would feel like ice crystals were forming on my quads and hams – even if I were wearing thick tights or leg warmers.

But before I went out, I rubbed some embrocation (cheap "Cool Heat" from Rite Aid) into my quads and calf muscles. This made a huge difference. My legs felt great. Warm and limber. They stayed that way for the entire ride. I think I’ve solved my problem and the solution was simple. I love it when that happens.

I don’t know why it took me so long to connect the dots with this embrocation thing. I’m embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t sure what the word meant until recently (It's derived from the Greek “embrokhe” or “lotion”). Sure, I’m an English major who has also completed coursework - but never finished the final paper, as my mother frequently points out - for a master’s in another language-related subject. But I just haven’t come across the word “embrocation” until lately. I’ve always called the stuff “liniment” or referred to it using a product name like “Ben Gay” or “Icy Hot” or “Heat.”

I’ve kind of known about the concept of embrocation for awhile. It’s been on the edge of my radar screen. I was well aware that Rule 20 of OREC (The Official Rules of the Euro Cyclist) says: “The Euro Cyclist shall ALWAYS have liniment applied to his legs before appearing in public.”

There's even a mighty fine cycling Web site and magazine that uses the term in its title:

Then there’s the brief scene with the embrocation junkie in my all-time favorite cycling movie “A Sunday in Hell.” The guy is getting ready to head to the starting line of the 1976 Paris-Roubaix and his trainer lifts up his woolen jersey and peels back a grungy gray undershirt and starts rubbing embrocation all over the guy’s chest. I doubt I’ll go that far.

Ride Report: Yao wenge lu!!!!

2009-11-16T16:11:00.000-08:00

He saw me in his rear-view mirror and his leathery moon face lit up. He threw open the door to the cab of his banged-up blue flatbed truck and scrambled down to the ground. "Yao wenge lu! Yao wenge lu!" ("I need to ask for directions!") he yelled in a frantic voice with a thick northern accent.

It was 6:30 a.m. and a freezing blustery wind was blowing off the Pearl River. I was halfway into my training ride on an empty frontage road near Guangzhou's sprawling convention center, which looks like a curled up lasagne noodle made of steel. I'm not sure how long the truck driver and his partner in the passenger seat were parked there waiting for help. He was hauling this massive hulk of steel - some sort of pylon - covered in brown rust. I imagine they had been driving all night.

They were so desperate that they were seeking help from a foreign devil reeking of wintergreen-scented embrocation and wearing red booties, white Belgian kneewarmers and a funky Ommegang Brewery jersey with black, gold and brown diagonal stripes. I must have looked like an extraterrestrial to them or some sort of crazy clown on a bike with ridiculously skinny tires. But it didn't seem to phase them. They didn't even bother to ask if I could speak Chinese. There they were in my face yelling, "Yao wenge lu! Yao wenge lu!"

The funny thing about this part of southern China is that it's harder than hell to get accurate directions from anyone on the street. That's because most of the people you run into are migrants who only know the way from their room in the factory dormitory to the assembly line. The locals who really know the city are the ones zooming past you in shiny new cars.

Like a typical migrant, I couldn't tell the truck driver where to go. His sidekick had a rumpled piece of paper with directions on it, and their destination was supposed to be the intersection of Binjiang Road and Yiyuan Road. "Wo bu qingchu," I said ("Duh, I dunno."). Then, a street sweeper walked by and they pounced on the guy, and he began giving them directions. I was quickly forgotten.

Another funny thing about China is that most people don't seem to use maps. I've hired so many drivers who don't have a single map in their glove compartment and show no interest in consulting the ones I often carry in my bag. They usually say, "Well, we'll drive to the general area, then we'll ask for directions."

It could be that most of the drivers are working-class folks who are semi-literate and aren't comfortable getting information from pieces of paper. They prefer word of mouth. Another theory I have is that China has been changing so rapidly in recent years that most maps are outdated as soon as they're printed. I've seen so many roads appear and disappear or get blocked or rerouted in the past couple years. With so much change, the best strategy is to ask around. Just deal with it when you get there. That's problably the best strategy for life in general in China.

People: James Lilley - spook, ambassador, cyclist - RIP

2009-11-16T04:23:00.000-08:00

James Lilley recently died, and the New York Times published a nice obit. Lilley was the U.S. ambassador to China during the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests. The Times mentions early in the obituary how he got a sense of what was going on during the tumultuous period:

"Mr. Lilley was familiar with the students’ grievances: Only days after arriving in Beijing in 1989, he took to riding his bicycle on the streets to glean firsthand knowledge of what was going on."

Beijing is a radically different city from what it was during the late 80s. Like most major Chinese cities, it has become less bike friendly. I seriously doubt many diplomats now spend much time cycling around the Chinese capital. This will result in a different understanding of what's going on. It's easy to miss a lot while looking out from behind a car window.

Nutrition: It's the booze, man...

2009-11-15T02:58:00.000-08:00

Cycling is a weird subculture, especially the male side of the community. Just look at how we shave our legs and obsess about our weight. I'm guilty of both things. I'm more fixated on my weight than a ninth-grade girl. I've got to be like this because I usually ride a steel frame in a peloton of carbon geeks. I can't afford to be carrying any unnecessary weight.

When surfing the net or flipping through magazines, I've never skipped over an article about diets or weight loss. The other day, the MSN portal, which somehow became my default browser at work, had a story about the best slimming foods to eat (almonds, cinnamon, berries, yams and a few others according to recent dubious studies). Then there was this one on the Bike Radar site.

I usually find that the Bike Radar articles promise a lot but deliver little. Often, the zippy headline leads you into a story that gets bogged down in scientific jargon or just poor writing. But this article was OK, though a bit thin. It confirmed something I've recently learned about myself. I'm like Bradley Wiggins. Cutting alcohol from my diet is essential. I've never been a big drinker. Maybe a beer after work one or two nights during the weekday, and perhaps a glass or two of wine at dinner the rest of the week. On the weekends, I'd drink moderately because I usually need to get up early for a ride.

I never thought the drinking had much of an effect on my weight. But in the past couple months, I've pretty much stopped drinking. The most I'll do is have a Belgian beer as a sundowner on Sunday (A Duvel really knocks me out now!). The rest of the week, I won't imbibe a drop. Oh man, what a difference it has made! I've dropped from 78 to 75 kilos (actually, I think I'm in the 73-74 kilo range). For so long, I was stuck at 78 kilos on my 1.83 meter frame, but knocking out the alcohol really helped me break that barrier. It's all about empty calories, and alcoholic drinks are full of them. A fellow rider with a scientific bent recently gave me a long, technical explanation about how alcohol slows down your metabolism. Maybe, possible, I guess.

Cutting out the alcohol wasn't the only change. I also stopped eating desert, which again wasn't a huge amount of calories in my household (maybe a few cookies, a chunk of chocolate or a small bowl of ice cream) but it adds up. I also stopped eating seconds at dinner (back to Bike Radar article: Lance Armstrong on calories). I used to do this because I'd come home from work ravenously hungry. I'd snarf down the first plate of food in minutes and wander into the kitchen like a bear looking for more. What I do now is take a snack break at 3 or 4 p.m. at work. I'll cut up a couple apples or eat a handful of nuts and that will take the edge off my hunger. So when I get home, I'm less likely to pig out.

The other day, I was digging through my files and found a copy of the medical exam I needed to take to get my visa when I arrived in Guangzhou 2.5 years ago. My weight was 83 kilos! To be fair, that was after a month of home leave in the U.S., where I binged on Tex-Mex food, drank beer every night and didn't exercise much (a daily morning run of 30 minutes). But losing about 10 kilos is absolutely huge for a bike rider, though it seems the hills are really killing me lately.

Pics: My 'White Whale' finally captured on camera

2009-11-14T19:18:00.000-08:00

I was thrilled to get this picture from my friend Sarah, a scientist and a helluva bike rider who spent the summer in Guangzhou doing research. There's a guy in my office neighborhood who stacks containers on his bike like this, but every time I see him, I don't have my camera with me. He's been my "White Whale." So I was so glad to see that Sarah has documented the crazy "Camper Top" or "Tall Rider" phenomenon. Now all I need is a picture of the guy who rides around with a tower of toilet paper rolls.

Douh!: This bike needs some rethinking

2009-11-13T03:30:00.000-08:00

Old Zhang likes to tinker. Sometimes his designs are good. Other times, ... well, they don't seem to work. I'm sure he quickly discovered that bikes with ridiculously long top tubes are cool ..... until you try to ride them!

The funny thing is that I saw a similar frame on the Bikefag blog. Could Old Zhang be a Bikefag fan? Or are great minds thinking alike again?

I do love to see people being whimsical and wacky. It's really something I don't see enough here. I'm probably not looking in the right places. The government is pushing companies to be more creative and innovative. The wise "Marxist" mandarins believe the era of doing labor-intensive OEM processing (taking a bunch of parts designed by and made by foreigners and getting a bunch of migrant workers to snap them together in a sweatshop) is close to being over. It doesn't benefit China much either. Officials love to cite the infamous study about the Barbie doll, which sells for US$10 but the Chinese factory only makes 35 cents from that.

Anyway, it's great to see people tinkering, even though the design isn't completely practical. A few months ago, the local papers had a story about a young self-styled inventor in some village who made a one-man submarine. I love it. Really fantastic. Jia you!!!!!

Dump and Run: Oops, I spilled a few tons of muck on the road

2009-11-13T02:45:00.000-08:00

I'm intrigued by the "Dump and Run" phenomenon on Chinese roads. Someone with a truck piled high with rubble, dirt, smashed up drywall, spintery plywood or a combination of all four, plus some more stuff, sets off on a midnight run to the landfill but decides to pocket the tipping fees and just dump the stuff on the road under the cover of darkness. It just typifies the popular attitude in China (and..ahem...on Wall Street): Screw everyone else! I'm making some extra cash while nobody's looking! This is how melamine ends up in baby formula and lead paint on toys.

Yesterday, the Southern Metropolis Daily, one of the region's most popular newspapers, had a story about how a few tons of dirt - mud, actually - ended up on a Guangzhou street in the middle of the night on Wednesday. The mud covered a one-kilometer stretch of the road, and it took a crew four hours to clean it up.

One of my nightmares is that I'm hammering down a road at 40 kph in the early morning darkness and suddenly I plough into a mud slide like this and do an endo into the muck.

A few weeks ago, I saw a spectacular D&R on a side road in a Guangzhou industrial park near the Pearl River Brewery. This one was mostly made up of chunks of pulverized concrete and took up about two city blocks. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me.

I've posted the below photo (credit: Simon Sandral) on this blog before, but I'm reposting it because this D&R was so brazen. Done on a highway! The amazing thing is that I've never seen these trash piles cause an accident.

Musings: Nighttime Coach v. Morning Coach

2009-11-12T01:00:00.000-08:00

Jerry Seinfeld claims that within everyone there's a "nighttime guy" and a "morning guy." The nighttime guy always screws over the morning guy. The nighttime guy wants to stay up late, have a couple more beers, finish watching the next eight episodes on the "Sopranos" DVD. The nighttime guy always tries to eat into the morning guy's time. The morning guy can't do much about this. He just has to deal with the consequences. It sounds funnier and wittier coming from Seinfeld, of course.

Well, I've got a nighttime coach and a morning coach within me. The nighttime coach is a hard ass, a retired Green Beret drill sergeant. Last night, he told me - no, he ordered me ... barked at me, actually - that I had to jump out of bed at 5:30 this morning, eat a little something, then get on the bike for a hard one-hour ride before work. I was to do this regardless of the weather. Simple orders, just do the ride. Right, sir. I got it.

But the alarm went off, and the morning coach was on duty. He's more like my mother. The first I heard from him was: "Hmmmm, sounds like it's raining outside. Maybe going out isn't a good idea." I went to the balcony and checked the weather. Nothing was coming down but we obviously had showers during the night, and I could see big puddles on the streets. The wimpy morning coach said, "Streets will be slippery. Could be dangerous." Then, the wimpy morning coach said, "How ya feeling? You're looking kind of tired. Maybe you should take the day off. Ride tomorrow instead. You don't want to catch anything." Hmmmm, I said, maybe you're right. Before I knew it, I was back in bed, drifting off to sleep.

An hour later at breakfast, I was hating myself for skipping the workout. I felt fine and would have been finishing the ride just about then if I would have tuned out the morning coach. The morning coach is most effective during the first 10 minutes after the alarm goes off. That's when I'm most vulnerable. If I can just get out of bed and start doing my routine, the morning coach begins to fade away. It's best if I just tell myself that if I do the ride, I'll feel great. The whole day will be better. The real trick is to keep an empty Zen mind for those first 10 minutes of the day. Just be. Don't think. Don't assess. Then take it from there.

Pics: Bikes at work

2009-11-11T04:17:00.000-08:00

It's great to take a brief break in the afternoon to gawk at the Chinese workers and their bikes. This guy was pushing his bike up the steep ramp on the pedestrian bridge over Dong Feng Road.

If you need to transport 20 meters of PVC pipe through the streets of a crowded city, why not just strap it to your bike?

Firewall: Another battle lost but war will rage on

2009-11-10T15:45:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to post a few interesting things the past two days without success because China's Great Firewall seems to be blocking me. I could go ahead and just post the text without photos. But I don't want to do that this time. I WILL think of a way to get around this, so please keep checking in.

Book Review: Byrne makes sense in "Bicycle Diaries"

2009-11-08T03:21:00.000-08:00

David Byrne started using his bike for daily transport in New York in the late 70s and early 80s – long before it was cool. His ride of choice was a simple commuter bike, and he has never joined the Spandex-clad roadies, which he calls “sport cyclists.” Now, Byrne favors collapsible bikes, which he takes with him on his global travels. He has jotted down thoughts inspired by cycling through cities as diverse as Berlin, Manila, Sydney, Pittsburgh, Istanbul, London, Buenos Aires and New York. Those musings are in his new book, “Bicycle Diaries” – a wonderful volume written in simple, conversational, unpretentious prose.

I never knew about Byrne’s passion for cycling, but it didn’t surprise me. Something about his music seemed to fit the bike. When I was in college in the 80s, I used to blast the Talking Heads while riding my rollers in my room. Funny, I recently reconnected with one of my old colleges housemates. He noted my continued love for cycling and recalled my “Psycho Killer” roller sessions.

Byrne says that cycling an hour or two each day keeps him sane. He explains how he got hooked. “I felt more connected to the life on the streets than I would have inside a car or in some form of public transport. … The same exhilaration, as the air and street life whizzed by, happened again in each town. It was, for me, addictive,” he says. I know exactly what he means.

Naturally, Byrne writes a lot about music and art as well as politics, history and even the Stasi in the former East Germany. But for me, he’s at his best when he’s talking about urban planning, transportation and how the modern metropolis affects human beings. He seems to love bicycle-friendly Berlin. But, like me, he wonders if he prefers Berlin’s easy environment – safe bike lanes, respectful motorists – or the more challenging streets of New York, which make you feel more alive and offer more adventure. I have the same constant internal debate about China’s streets. I bitch a lot about the chaos and roughness or the roads, but I also admit it gives my life an interesting texture.

Byrne is happy that cycling is getting easier in New York. He notes that bike traffic increased by 35 percent between 2007 and 2008. Still, he says, the Big Apple can’t be compared with Copenhagen, where one-third of the workforce commutes by bike. I share Byrne’s hope that the ongoing economic downturn will be a great opportunity for people to rethink how they get around, and public transport and bike lanes won’t be scoffed at anymore.

He makes a good point when he says, “A place without sidewalks privileges the automobile, and therefore the richer people in cars have more rights; this is undemocratic.” This made me think of China and how the car is such a good symbol of the social imbalance, the widening gap between the rich and poor. Roads are increasing being reserved for the wealthy and their autos.

Byrne is also right when he notes that “building more roads doesn’t actually relieve congestion – ever. More cars simply appear to fill these new roads and more folks imagine that their errands and commutes might be accomplished more easily on these new expressways.”

Equipment: My new best friend - the sponge

2009-11-06T01:27:00.000-08:00

I hate seat bags. They look dorky and distract from the beauty of the bike. Besides, most of the essential stuff you need can be carried in your jersey pockets. But lately, my pockets have been getting full. The latest addition: a sponge.

It occurred to me this morning that I really need something to wipe off the disgusting layer of mud that builds up on my morning rides and can't be simply washed away with a hose. Today, I had to use my hands to wipe it off my frame. As usual, the water truck that sprays down the roads got going earlier than I did. Also as usual, the truck was just soaking the dirt-encrusted streets without sweeping away the muck. There were two five-kilometer stretches of road that I had to ride on that were covered in what looked like chocolate milk. My shins were splotched with the stuff and my blue shoe covers quickly turned brown.

After my rides, I usually wash off my bike in the parking garage of my apartment complex, where there's a little car washing area with a hose. But the hose doesn't have any kind of a nozel so the water pressure is weak. It simply douses the bike with water, but doesn't really wash away any of the sticky filth. So, I'm going to have to start packing a sponge.

My pockets are already pretty full. I carry a small pump, two tubes, point-and-shoot camera and a zip lock bag with my mobile phone, hand wipes, tire irons, enough cash for a taxi ride home and laminated copies of my passport in case the cops want to stop me to do a routine ID check. But what can you do?

Ride Report: Rolling too soon

2009-11-05T02:47:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to do a solid two-hour ride on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but I can't set out at 5:30 a.m. anymore because it's too dark. My solution was to do a half hour on the rollers before hitting the road for about an hour or so when the sun came up.

I was well aware of the obvious downside: going outside into the cold a bit overheated and sweaty. But I thought that I could minimize this problem by changing my jersey and toweling off before I headed out the door.

It didn't work, though. Although I did my roller workout on the balcony in 12 degree Celsius weather, I was dripping with sweat after 15 minutes. I dried off after the 30-minute workout, changed my clothes and even put on a nylon vest.

But as soon as I started pedaling to my apartment complex's gate, the cold wind started torturing me. It didn't feel like chilly gusts were hitting my skin. The sensation was more like needle-thin icesicles plunging into every pore of my body and lodging themselves into my bones. It was unbearable.

I immediately turned back and got back on the rollers for another half hour. I felt silly as I watched the sun come up on what turned out to be a gorgeous morning. There I was on rollers when I should have been on the road.

Travel: The mountains call - Part II

2009-11-04T03:05:00.000-08:00

Whenever I travel for my job, I try to bring my bike along. I always try to stay in race shape, so I can't afford to be off the bike during trips that can last as long as a month. I also hate working out in hotel gyms, pedaling in a pool of sweat on a squeaky stationary bike facing a wall. I would much rather explore a city by bike, and traveling with one is easy with the latest bike boxes and bags that are relatively light and protect your rig.

In Taipei, I can get in a tough two-hour ride in the mountains before work if I get out the door by 5:30 a.m. It's a fantastic ride that begins in the "Blade Runner"-like urban chaos of Taipei and within a few kilometers takes you into the lush green mountains that provide terrific views of the humming, sprawling city below.

Taiwan is undergoing a cycling renaissance. Bicycles were once the main form of transport for the masses before the leaf-shaped island evolved into a manufacturing juggernaut and the economy boomed. But the people who shifted to motor scooters and then cars are rediscovering the joys of cycling. On the weekends in Yangmingshan, the roads are filled with people pedaling everything from Colnagos and Pinarellos to tricked-out collapsable bikes.

My favorite ride is a 92-kilometer out-and-back route from the Feeling Hotel, over the mountains in Yangmingshan National Park and down to Jin Shan beach on the northeastern Pacific coast. The climbs can be steep, and in one five-kilometer section, I felt like the two greasy fried eggs and toast I had for breakfast were inching their way up my gullet with each pedal stroke.

But the payoff is huge as you speed down long descents into mountain valleys where farmers grow vegetables in small terraced plots on the hills. Elderly ladies set up rickety stands under umbrellas on the side of the road and sell cabbages, eggplants and greens. One itinerant butcher in a rusty red van throws a wooden chopping block on the roadside and hacks up cuts of meat for passers-by.

The park is full of hot sulfur vents that spew steamy clouds into the air that smell like rotten eggs. The tropical rainforest vegetation is loaded with bamboo groves and tall grasses, where locust-like insects make a strange metallic whirling noise that sound like a space ship is about to land.

A switchback-filled descent of about 20 kilometers ends at Jin Shan Beach. When I rode there on a recent Saturday, the beach was full of young Taiwanese surfers enjoying the higher waves being kicked up by a tropical storm.

I stopped at a roadside food wagon, and ordered a second breakfast of coffee and waffles with a generous dollop of whipped cream. I sat down at a small plastic cafe table and watched the people riding the waves.

When I turned around to go home, I could see dark rain clouds hanging over the mountain. Rather than wait out the storm, I decided to push through it.

A hard rain began to fall about 10 minutes into the climb back over the mountain. But as I pedaled higher, I climbed out of the storm and spent the rest of the way uphill in a fantastically refreshing mist that kept me cool. It was much like a dream.

I returned to the hotel absolutely exhausted but with a wonderful buzz from being in the spectacular outdoors. I lugged my bike up the steps of the Feeling Hotel and opened the door with a big smile on my sunburned face. As I stepped into the lobby, I saw the Taiwanese man in the black suit with his date. He was also grinning, also looking tired but happy.

Travel: Bunking in Taiwanese love hotels - Part I

2009-11-03T04:13:00.000-08:00

We were guys staying at the same hotel with our mistresses.

He looked like a Taiwanese gangster, with permed hair, black suit and pointy knockoff Italian loafers. It was 5:30 a.m. and he was renting a room for a few hours with a woman in a leather mini skirt, fishnet stockings and the longest false eyelashes I've ever seen. They had no luggage.

My mistress was my climbing bike, and I was carrying her out of the hotel lobby for a morning workout when I passed the couple as they were checking in.

It must have been a surreal sight for them, a tall Western guy in a red polka-dotted jersey and black biking shorts, lugging a magenta road bike and clip-clopping out the door in cycling shoes.

I was doing what I love to do: taking my bike on a business trip and staying at an inexpensive, no-frills hotel close to some spectacular cycling terrain.

This time, I was bunking at the Feeling Hotel _ one of the numerous "love hotels" in Taiwan's capital, Taipei. They are cheap places often used for lunchtime flings and one-night stands in crowded Taipei, where privacy can be hard to find. The establishments are designed for discretion, often located in alleys or backstreets. Rooms can be rented by the hour, and no questions are asked. A complimentary condom can usually be found in the bedside table.

Best of all, you can roll a bike through the lobby and wedge it in the elevator without anyone hassling you. The staff is used to weirdness.

Although they may sound seedy, establishments like the Feeling Hotel are clean and well-run by professional and friendly staff. They're usually small and only offer bare-bones amenities, but that often means the rooms are inexpensive, about US$50 a night at the Feeling Hotel. This makes them popular with families and business travelers during these hard economic times.

The biggest plus for me was that the Feeling Hotel is at the base of the spectacular mountains of Yangmingshan National Park, just outside of Taipei. The hotel in the suburb of Tienmu _ long popular with expats _ is also surrounded by great restaurants, stores, decent bike shops but few standard hotels.

Musings: Revisiting Armstrong, LeMond and Hinault

2009-10-31T16:27:00.000-07:00

I used to believe Lance. I respected Greg LeMond but thought he turned churlish in recent years. I liked Bernard Hinault because I have a soft spot for crusty, pugnacious, anti-social, extremely talented people who don't really give a damn what others think of them.

Now, my opinions of them are changing.

I'm not so sure about Lance anymore. I don't want to get into a debate about the issue, but I have my doubts now, especially about the first couple of years of the comeback. Still, I won't deny he's an incredible athlete and symbol for the sport.

I'm a big LeMond fan again because I think he's just an all-around likable, good guy. This article influenced my new appreciation of LeMond. It's wonderfully written. The author shares my favorite observation of LeMond. In most of the photos I've seen of him winning a race, he's crossing the line with this wonderful "Jeez, I can't believe I won!" expression of wonderment on his face. The article also points out that the French public loved LeMond because he had a certain panache. He often found himself in some sort of crisis or trouble and managed to dig his way out of it. I wish the article explored why LeMond decided to speak out against Lance. He did it at a great cost. Perhaps LeMond knew something that he couldn't publicly bring up because of libel issues.

One more thing about LeMond. If you haven't yet, check out this clip of LeMond beating Fignon in the Worlds in 1989. Fignon attacks on a hellish climb and Phil Ligget says it appears that the Frenchman is going to win the race. Then, seemingly out of no where, LeMond pops up on the screen and catches Fignon. Ligget pronounces, "That is a fine piece of riding by the American."

Now for the "Badger." Lately, I've been watching the three-disc set of the "Red Zinger/Coors Classic." It has been fascinating for me because I know a bit about Euro racing in the late 70s and 80s, but I've never paid much attention to the race scene in the U.S. during the time. Last night, I was watching the 1986 edition of the race, with Hinault riding in the last stage race of his career. He's on LeMond's team, of course, and they battling it out again. LeMond says something like he spent the Tour fighting with Hinault, and he was hoping to come to the U.S. to just race without all the extra drama.

There's a classic scene in a mountain stage where Hinault is in a three-man breakaway with Davis Phinney and someone else I didn't recognize. I don't think the third guy was on Phinney's team. Anyway, Hinault declines to pull and spends the entire time sucking wheel. In the final few meters, he rockets off Phinney's wheel and wins the sprint. He crosses the line with a huge grin on his face, as if it's the first victory in his career (It is his first win in the US). In the post-race interview, Phinney is obviously angry and agitated. As he wipes his face with a towel about 20 times in five seconds, Phinney says something like, "If you want to win a race like that, you can win like that." When Hinault is asked why he didn't help out in the breakaway, he says something like, "It would have been stupid to do that. I wanted to save my energy for the end."

I'm not an expert on race ethics and honorable cycling behavior. But Hinault was already a legend, and his tactics seemed desperate, far beneath him. For me now, Hinault = Jerk.

Health: To come back or not to come back...

2009-10-31T15:53:00.000-07:00

Usually at this time of day, I'd be 30 km into my weekend morning ride, well warmed up and hammering along. But I've decided to stay off the bike this weekend so that I can completely get over this insidious viral infection from hell.

It's always difficult to determine when to stage a comeback after an illness. Sometimes hopping back on the bike seems to speed up recovery. It blows the bugs out of my system. There are times when you've got a cold and your body feels all stuffed up. The physical exertion seems to loosen up things.

Of course, the risk is that your body really needs rest, and the exercise just wears it down more and prolongs recovery. I think that's what happened in my most recent case. Four days ago, I was feeling somewhat OK in the afternoon and decided to do an easy 30-minute session on the rollers in the evening. Once I got going, I felt terrific. I easily got into 40-43 kph territory and was able to hold it there without much strain. I finished the workout thinking that this bug was just a nagging injury that would let me continue working out.

But the next morning, I felt awful and ended up seeing the doctor. The next day (Friday) was just as bad, and I felt like I was dragging all day. Yesterday, I put my kit on and rode around the neighborhood for 5 km, then headed home because I wasn't feeling great.

My plan is to stage the official comeback on Monday with a 30-minute session on the rollers at steady pace. I'm starting to feel normal again. The past two days, I've been able to wake up at 5:30 a.m. without my body craving a few hours more in the sack.

The biggest upside for my readers is that I'll stop obsessing publicly about my health! Many thanks to everyone for putting up with this!

Firewall: Defeated in today’s battle but the war rages on

2009-10-30T17:21:00.001-07:00

I spent a good chunk of this morning trying to upload an interesting cycling photo. But this time, my siege against China’s Great Firewall was unsuccessful. I lost this battle but the war rages on. I’ve spoken to many expats who agree with me. The ongoing restrictions on the Internet has them seriously rethinking their future in China. It’s got us thinking that maybe it is time to leave. The irony is that Chinese leaders keep urging industries to be more creative and innovative. But how can this really be done in such a restrictive environment?

Must Reads: Lennard Zinn on removing a stuck seatpost

2009-10-29T04:05:00.000-07:00

Check out Velonews' tech guru Lennard Zinn's helpful advice here about removing a stuck seatpost. I had this happen with a steel frame with a carbon seatpost.

Health: Sacrificing the short-term for longterm

2009-10-29T03:48:00.000-07:00

I know people who add extra salt to their daily bucket of KFC and deep-fried mozarrella sticks. They prefer filtering Guangzhou's smoggy air through a cigarette. They unwind after work with a pitcher of beer and a few shots. They never work out. They're like walking trash cans. Yet, they don't seem to get sick as often as I do.

I live on a diet loaded with fruits, vegetables and whole grains. I eat fatty meats only when I have to be polite at Chinese banquets. I only drink on the weekends - perhaps a bottle or two of Belgium beer. I keep a close eye on my weight, and I'm generally where I want to be on the scale, though it would be great to lose one more kilo.

But I'm constantly breaking down my body and battering my immune system on the bike. Long rides in the damp cold and dehydrating heat. Groggy morning workouts when my body would have been happier to stay in bed an extra hour. Breakfasts that are rushed and fail to completely refuel a body that needs to quickly shower, be dressed and be out the door for work.

I think in the short-term, the trash-can people may be healthier (though I always wonder how they really feel day to day). But I guess my consolation will be that in the long run, they'll be the ones who break down, and they'll do it spectacularly.

Health: Struck down by a stomach bug

2009-10-28T05:35:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I was on a ride over the spectacular Nankun Mountain outside of Guangzhou when I told my riding partner that I’ve been extremely healthy this year. I’ve generally been spared by the colds, fevers and stomach bugs that frequently afflict us in China.

The second I said this, I knew I had jinxed myself. Sure enough, a day later, shortly after dinner, my stomach began churning and I developed the slightly queasy feeling that I know so well.

Ever the optimist, I laid out my riding clothes on the kitchen table before going to bed, hoping that I’d be well enough to do my workout the next morning. I set my alarm for 5:15 a.m.

But overnight, I made a couple trips to the bathroom and I never fell into a deep, restful sleep. I woke up feeling fatigued, and I scuttled plans for a ride. I had no appetite and felt sluggish throughout the day at work. Lunch consisted of bananas and crackers. Whenever I ate or drank anything, sharp stomach pains would hit, the churning would start again and I’d have to run to the bathroom.

In the evening, before going to bed, I set out my riding kit again on the kitchen table. But I didn’t bother getting out of bed the next morning because I felt worse than the day before. I spent most of the morning in bed falling in and out of sleep. I dragged myself out the door at noon for an important work appointment. When I got home about 4 p.m., I crashed on the sofa.

This morning, I slept in again but was able to eat some oatmeal and began to feel normal. I hated to miss two training days, but then again I lost a kilo. Cycling sure is a sick subculture. We see an upside in sickness. It’s a great way to lose weight.

My body seems to naturally be about 78 kilos. When I stray from my training diet – start eating seconds at dinner, have desert and drink beer on weekdays – it only seems to take a few days for my weight to tick back up to 78. When I get down to 75, I tend to get sick.

I’ve read about the great pains pros take to stay healthy. To avoid germs, they use their elbows to push elevator buttons. In Daniel Coyle’s book “Tour de Force,” he describes a scene with Sheryl Crow turning heads and igniting a wave of worry by sneezing near Lance Armstrong during the Tour.

But club riders like me have to take even greater care of ourselves. After the morning workout, we can’t retreat to our villa in Gerona for a long nap. We need to go out and earn a living among the sniffling masses everyday.

China is a place that’s especially fraught with bacterial threats. Many people don’t have a habit of covering their mouths when they cough or sneeze. Hand washing is a skill still being learned. Many bathrooms don’t even have soap. I was once in a fancy new hospital in the nearby city of Shenzhen and was amazed to see that restrooms off the main lobby didn’t any kind of hand cleanser.

The part of southern China where I live is one of the world's biggest sources of new flu strains because of a dense population of humans living in close proximity with water fowl and pigs. The first known cases of SARS were reported in Guangzhou. The city was the launching pad for the deadly bug that toured the world in 2003.

Race Report: Finally, the race

2009-10-26T04:29:00.003-07:00

A few ex-pros joined the race and stayed up at the front. They included Sven-Ake Nilsson, who placed 7th in the Tour de France in 1980. Also racing was Bernt Johansson, gold medalist in the road race in the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

The race start with a series of long rolling hills. We had to ride along a 24-kilometer stretch of highway before we got to the lake. The elite bunch shot down the road and quickly opened a big gap on me and the other weekend warriors.

We made an analytical mistake a month earlier when we studied the course on paper and decided the race would be mostly flat with a few undulations. We did most of our training on flat roads and scaled back our climbing workouts.

Fuxian Lake turned out to be breathtakingly beautiful and amazingly pristine for a body of water in a country of 1.3 billion people. In America, such a lake would be crowded with homes, resorts, marinas and bait-tackle-and-beer shops. The tranquility would be spoiled by the roar and whine of jetskis jick-jacking over the water.

But Fuxian Lake was virtually undeveloped. We rode along long stretches of road without seeing any buildings or even boats on the water, which was a clean deep blue. The villagers lived in clusters of red brick homes with tile roofs. They lined the roads screaming the most common Chinese cheer: "Jia you!" (which literally translates as "Add oil!). One group of boys wore nothing but underwear soggy from a recent dip in the lake. A couple guys yelled at me, “Come on!” in English. I’ve never heard a Chinese use this phrase and I wonder who taught them.

I'm reminded on an almost daily basis that China is an authoritarian police state, but I'm always amazed by how many cops and other security forces can be mobilized for an event. The police did seem to come out of the woodwork. More than 1,100 of them were used to shut down all the roads, which were generally in good condition and free of traffic. However, several spots were littered with big pieces of gravel and in one case a brick, which an elite Norwegian rider hit, breaking his wheel and ending his race close to the finish.

There were also many speed bumps. Most of them weren’t painted yellow or marked with signs. I hit several of them that were positioned at the bottom of hills. I was lucky to be able to stay on the bike.

Aid stations were set up all along the course and were staffed by enthusiastic volunteers who handed out bottled water, Snickers bars and bananas. Powerbar was one of the race sponsors, and I thought the aid station tables would be piled high with them. But Powerbar wasn’t handing out freebies. They were selling them before the race at prices that were a bit higher than I pay in Hong Kong. I still pledge my allegiance to the Clif bar.

I spent most of the race with three guys I occasionally ride with in Guangzhou. Our abilities were roughly the same so it worked out well as we rolled along at 32-34 kph against a blustery headwind whistling off the lake.

About 120 kilometers into the race, we caught up with a strong Chinese rider from Beijing. The guy was really amazing. He would do a long pull, then go to the back of the paceline for a few minutes. Then he would sprint back to the front and do another long pull. He finally rode away when we stopped to pee. But about 10 kilometers down the road, we spotted his bike parked next to the lake and saw him bobbing in the water, taking a dip in the lake. He got back on the bike and went back on duty at the front of our paceline.

I snarfed down a Snickers bar and a banana at the 150 kilometer mark, and the food hit my stomach like a rock. My back was aching and the nerve endings on my feet felt like they were dipped in gasoline and set aflame. One of the riders in our group developed foot problems and told us to go on without him. The two other riders picked up the tempo on a long hill and I cracked and tumbled out the back door.

I began feeling nauseous in the last five kilometers of the race, and my main concerns shifted away from my fatigue to coping with the potential embarrassment of puking in front of the crowd at the finishing line. But as I came around the final turn and heard the crowd, I began to sprint and pretend. I barely made the cut in the top 50, about an hour behind the winning rider _ Darren Benson, an Australian riding for Trek.

A band playing rockabilly tunes was jamming at the finish line. After my friends finished, we rode back to the hotel, cleaned up and walked to McDonald’s for a quick meal. Most of us didn’t bother to put suntan lotion on and suffered some bad burns. I was one of them and displayed some of the ultimate signs of bike geekdom: sunburn markets down the side of my head where my helmet straps were.

Our travel package included a post-race banquet in the hotel. The food wasn’t near as good as the night before. Throughout the meal, local Communist Party hacks and government flunkies gave loud, long-winded speeches. We were all given a thermos as a gift.

The top of the hotel had a bar and we spent part of the evening enjoying free drinks purchased by the friendly guys at Nordic ways. Everyone I rode with enjoyed the race and planned to return next year.

Photo Note

2009-10-26T04:29:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble uploading photos. I think this happens occasionally because I need to use a VPN in the U.S. to access Blogspot, which is blocked in China. As usual, I'll keep trying to upload photos so revisit this blog post in a few days.

Race Report: More surprises in Yuxi

2009-10-22T05:01:00.001-07:00

Part II:

Nordic Ways sold us a seamless travel package for 2,250 yuan (US$330) for each rider, including two nights in a hotel, breakfast, dinner and shuttle bus transport to and from the hotel. We just had to pay for our own airfare to Yunnan's provincial capital of Kunming, about an hour's drive from Yuxi.

We arrived at the airport in the early afternoon, and a tour bus was waiting for us. We spent about an hour waiting some other riders who never arrived. The cargo compartment beneath the bus didn’t have enough room for all our bike boxes, so we had to load them on the bus and pile them up in the back of the vehicle. It would have been an ugly scene if the driver had to slam on the brakes. There would have been an avalanche of bike cases burying or beheading all the riders in the rear half of the bus. But safety never comes first in China.

Two friends who arrived in Kunming on an evening flight were held up for a couple hours while the bus waited for another cyclist whose flight from Hong Kong was delayed. The riders decided to make good use of the time, unpack their bikes from their travel cases and start the arduous task of rebuilding the machines in the parking lot. They had to constantly fend of an elderly woman who was scavenging for recyclable materials and kept trying to take things out of their boxes.

Before I travel in China, I usually research my destination. I at least crack open my Lonely Planet travel guide to see what kind of outdated information it has about my destination. But this time, I didn't bother to because I felt like I had a good mental picture of Yuxi: a sleepy town on a lake with a couple of resorts. Besides, Lonely Planet didn't even bother to profile the town, as I learned after I got home.

I was surprised when Yuxi turned out to be a bustling city of 2 million people with fastfood joints like McDonald's and KFC. The city even had a Wal Mart store. Cities like Yuxi have become the hot new markets for global retailers. Most of them have a sturdy foot hold in major markets like Beijing and Shanghai. The expansion is going on in the second- and third-tier cities.

The cyclists were put up in the Red Pagoda Hotel, owned by a famous tobacco company of the same name. The staff were friendly but the rooms smelled like wet ashtrays and the carpet had cigarette burns. The view from my fifth floor room included huge metal water storage tanks and a dirty swimming pool drained of its water.

We got right to the most-dreaded task: unpacking and building up the bikes. I live in fear that I’m going to discover that something is missing or broken when I open my box. Fortunately, everything was OK and fitting together without problems.

Once the bikes were ready, we set out to recon the first few kilometers of the race course. We were dismayed that most of the start was uphill – long hills. Something we weren’t ready for.

The night before the race, we were loaded on buses and taken to a restaurant for some of the best banquet food I've ever had in China. Ten of us gathered around a round table that was quickly crowded with 14 dishes: slice beef, peppery chicken, fish over spicy noodles, peanuts with dried shrimp, stir-fried mushrooms, eggplant smothered in chili sauce. It was all washed down with soda and the local beer – a watery lager.

After dinner, we were bused to the opening ceremony in the town square, where local Communist Party and city officials gave longwinded speeches over public address systems that left our ears ringing. The event wrapped up with a series of dance routines from Yunnan's colorful ethnic minority groups. One performance seemed to be a seduction dance with men trying to put donut-shaped cushions over the heads of lovely women with pointy beehive hairdos. The symbolism wasn't lost on us.

The next morning, about 120 cyclists lined up for the 175 kilometer race around Fuxian Lake, and about 110 others raced in a shorter 78.8 kilometer competition. The organizers had said they would round up about 1,000 locals to join the race. They also said their would be no effort to segregate the serious cyclists from the masses. Whoever got to the starting area first got to keep the position. This worried us.

But the newby masses never showed up, and we rode off safely without any pileups. But just after the gun went off, one of the strongest riders in our group noticed his front tubular was leaking, and he had to stop for six minutes to fix the flat. When he tried to rejoin the race, a policeman misdirected him and he ended up riding around the city aimlessly asking people for directions before he got another flat and abandoned the race.

Next: Finally, the race

Race Report: The Vattern....what?

2009-10-21T04:42:00.000-07:00

Summer was quiet in Guangzhou racewise. The Chinese think it’s too hot and humid to organize anything. But the expat riders here were getting bored and needed a challenge.

The challenge finally arrived. It was the Vatternrunden-China _ a 175-kilometer road race on Sept. 5 organized by Swedes and held in the city of Yuxi in Yunnan, a lush and mountainous southwestern province that borders Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.

Yuxi – which means "Jade Stream" in Mandarin - seemed like an improbable place to hold a race. The city is famous for its cigarette industry. And it apparently feels no guilt or shame about pushing a deadly product. Before the race, a beautiful woman in a glittery blue gown kicked off the event by telling the crowd with a big smile, "Yuxi is the home of tobacco!"

But the area also has Fuxian Lake - the second deepest in China - and that's what attracted the Swedish race organizers.

The race name - Vatternrundan China - was borrowed from the world's largest recreational cycling event: the 300-kilometer ride around Lake Vattern in Sweden. About 20,000 people are expected to participate in the next one in June.

The famous "Vatternrundan" brand name has only been used for the ride in Sweden and the inaugural race in China this year. The China event was put on by Nordic Ways, a Swedish company that also organizes running, mountain bike, trekking and nordic skiing events across China.

The group of expats I occassionally ride with found out about the Vatternrundan about five weeks before the ride. That’s light years before we're informed about most races. Usually we get a week’s notice. Events are routinely poorly publicized or sorted out at the last minute.

We had little time to ramp up our training for such a long race. Most of the 20 or so regulars in the group are middle-aged guys struggling to juggle cycling with the demands of careers, families and erratic travel schedules. On weekdays, I woke up at 4:45 a.m. to get in a two-hour ride before work. I stuck to the schedule even when the fringes of a tropical storm were soaking Guangzhou. The rain filled up the numerous potholes in the roads, making them look like harmless puddles. I rode into one during a dark morning ride, badly dinging my front wheel and cracking a weld on the custom-made steel frame I planned to ride in the race.

On the weekends, I did 160-kilometer rides that kept me on the saddle for five hours in the August temperatures that often climbed into the high 90s F. On one ride, the temperature hit 107 degrees F. We didn’t have much information about the race. But somehow we decided the course would be mostly flat, so we spent most of our time hammering on the flats.

I thought I was ready for the race. I was wrong.

Next: More surprises in Yuxi

Musings: A dark, cold downpour

2009-10-19T18:27:00.000-07:00

I went riding this morning in the chilly, wet darkness. It was wonderful. The weather in Guangzhou has been spectacular in the past two weeks. The hot, sticky summer is finally over. Until about mid December, we'll have a second spring - sunny, dry weather with temperatures at 21 degrees Celsius (70 degrees F) in the early morning and climbing to 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees F) by noon. But I was getting sick of it. Lately, I've been hoping for some rain.

Well, I got it this morning. I forgot to look outside before I got into the elevator and pushed my bike out the front door at 6 a.m. A steady rain was falling. There was a perfect combination of demotivating forces working on me. It was dark, wet and a bit chilly. It was like stepping into a cold shower shortly after getting out of bed.

I didn't want to bother going back to the apartment to get my rain gear. I got on the bike and did a circle in my apartment complex and started thinking about canceling the ride and doing a run on the gym's treadmill. I was just about to hop off the bike when I started thinking how dissatisfying such a workout would be. I wouldn't be pleased with myself. I'd feel defeated by the weather, and I don't want to be that kind of cyclist. I thought: Hell, it rains like this everyday in Belgium, and it's usually at least 10 degrees colder. Plus, afterwards, I never regret doing these types of life-affirming rides. They're a way to renew your vows with the sport. And you always come back with some kind of story or memory.

I love how the migrant workers just throw on a plastic rain poncho when it's pouring and just pedal to work. They're tough, hearty people, a real inspiration.

Today, when I was just two kilometers into the ride, I had to cross the Pearl River on the Guangzhou Bridge. It was still dark and I thought I saw a cyclist up ahead of me, halfway over the bridge. But as I got closer, I saw that it was a broken-down scooter that someone had left on the bridge. It took up about one-third of the right lane. The abandoned gray or dirty white vehicle didn't have reflectors or any other illuminating devices. I see this all the time. Someone just walks away from a vehicle and doesn't bother to move it to a safe place. It amazes me that these things don't cause more accidents. My theory is that the vehicles are probably stolen or the drivers - who probably don't have licenses - are too drunk to bother with them.

A plea: Can anyone recommend a good rain jacket? I've got a decent Pearl Izumi windbreaker but it doesn't repel rain. I'm looking for something that is waterproof and can fold up somewhat flat and compact and can be placed in a jersey pocket without creating too big of a bulge. Any suggestions?

Musings: Smiles and tuk tuks

2009-10-19T04:21:00.000-07:00

I was on a morning ride in a dingy industrial zone when I saw a three-wheel motorcycle cart up ahead. In Thailand, they call these vehicles tuk tuks. I'm not sure what the Chinese call them. There aren't many of them in Guangzhou, but a few cruise around industrial parks, offering cheap transport to factory workers making quick runs to the convenience store or to a friend's dormitory.

When I pulled up to this one, I noticed it was hauling three women in their early 20s. They might have been migrant workers or students at a nearby university. They were cute and cheerful, though it was only about 6:30 a.m. Were they going home after a wild night on the town or were they getting an early stary on a special girls day of shopping? It was hard to say.

They quickly took an interest in me, a goofy foreigner in a helmet and covered in skintight Lycra. I decided to pass them and had no problem doing it at 33 kph. As I rode by, they yelled the popular Chinese cheer: "Jia you! Jia you!"

When I opened up a 10-meter gap, the ladies started urging the driver to catch me, and he sped up and was on my wheel again. He passed me, flashing a big mischievous smile as he putt-putt-putt-putted by me. I ramped up my speed to 36 kph and cruised by them again. The girls smiled, cheered and then began yelling at their driver to catch me.

He caught me again, and I ramped it up to 38 kph and held it for about 20 meters before I had to turn off and ride to a place where I planned to meet up with other riders. I regret not pushing on with the three-wheeler. It was great fun racing them, and the smiles on the women's faces were wonderful.

I bitch a lot about China, so I want to make an effort now to try to say something positive. Chinese are generally quick to smile. Friendly gestures toward me are common on the road. This is especially true in the countryside and mountains outside of Guangzhou. People are usually eager to chat or joke when we stop for water or a Coke. Passengers in cars will often lean out the window and cheer for us in the middle of a long climb.

Chinese roads are rough and dangerous. I have a good friend who has become fed up with them and has pretty much stopped riding. There are days when I feel the same. But the roads do make me feel alive. The challenge. The difficulty. The emotions. The rough texture they add to my life. It can all be invigorating. I often wonder whether I'll miss it when I eventually leave.

Must Reads: PezCycling on Frank Vandenbroucke

2009-10-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already, check out this obituary for Frank Vandenbroucke. It's beautifully written by Edmond Hood, who did a fantastic job finding great anecdotes that really flesh out the troubled Belgian star. It's a classic example of the show-don't-tell school of journalism. The story is also illustrated with terrific photos. (Will anyone ever be able to top the design of the old Mapei team's kit?) The other cycling news sites that I follow offered perfunctory coverage, picking up AFP stories (lazy and rarely a good idea) or just mining their archives and rewriting the material. Kudos to Edmond and PezCycling for making an extra effort.

Musings: Need for anger management trumps fitness

2009-10-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

By now, it's probably obvious to readers of this blog that I have a love-hate relationship with China. So far, I've written more about the hate side. But there is love, and I'll get into it later. On most days, I rarely feel an even balance of the two emotions. That's especially true when I'm riding. This morning, the imbalance was on the hate side. It was so bad that I decided to shorten the ride, which should have been two hours but ended up being one. The roads seemed more dodgier than usual, and I felt like I was using up too many lucky charms.

The ride got off to a bad start. Although it was sunny and warm, my shoes, socks and shorts were already soaked five minutes into the ride. That's because a road-cleaning truck (the one that doesn't have a sweeper so it just creates a thin layer of slippery mud on the pavement) had sprayed the roads before a 100-meter-long tunnel that I ride through. Guangzhou has developed a tunnel fetish since I moved here two years ago. Two tunnels have been built along one of the routes I frequently ride along the Pearl River.

Bikes aren't allowed in the tunnels. Although they were completed months ago, the city still hasn't constructed a proper bike path or lane above the ground. During rush hour, a little grouchy policeman (the tunnel troll) guards the mouth of the tunnel and blocks cyclists from entering. But he's not there at 6 a.m. when I shoot through it at 50 kph.

I think if you build and operate a tunnel, the project demands that you accept a certain amount of responsibility and expense. For safety's sake, the tunnel must be properly illuminated. Few things are scarier for a cyclist than bombing through a dark tunnel with trucks and cars roaring up to you from behind. This often happens to me because the tunnel's lights are often switched off, or they're left off on the right lane. Saving money at the expense of safety.

This morning, I cleared the tunnel and just as I got out of it, a gray micro van zipped in front of me from a side road on the right and turned into the one-way tunnel. I was able to swerve out of the way, but if I arrived at the spot a split second earlier, wham! It was luck that saved me from pure idiocy. Such things are way too common on Chinese roads. This really makes me angry. I've been noticing in recent weeks that gray micro vans (about one-third smaller than a mini van) are driven by certified boneheads. Just being aware of a source of danger is extremely helpful and gives you a huge advantage. Now, when I see a gray van, I go on high alert.

About 20 minutes after the near miss, I turned onto another one-way road and was almost hit by a taxi driving against traffic. I pedaled down the road to another tunnel and was halfway into it when I heard a bus bearing down on me from behind. As he got close, he began leaning on his horn, creating a deafening noise that echoed through the tunnel. I was riding close to the tunnel wall, but his honking really pissed me off, so I shoulder checked, then moved to the center of my lane and slowed down in front of him. He continued to blast his horn and pulled up to my back wheel before moving a bit into the left lane and overtaking me, missing my shoulder by about one meter. I looked through the passenger door and saw him smiling.

The tunnel had two lanes and he could have easily moved into the left lane and passed safely without beeping. This is the third time this has happened in that tunnel. I used to think that the Chinese honk like this because they foolishly think it's a safe thing to do. But I can't accept that anymore. For me, it's obvious that I'm a cyclist who's aware of traffic coming from behind because I wear a red blinky light clipped to my back jersey pocket. I got to thinking today that the bus driver was just being a bully. I think the bully gene is very common in the general Chinese genetic makeup. Mao was a classic bully and destroyed most of his comrades who helped him found the People's Republic of China. Think of how mobs of Red Guards terrorized people during the Cultural Revolution. Almost daily, you can see how people lord their power over people whenever they can. You see it in restaurants when diners treat waitstaff like they're slaves. You see it on the roads when someone in a big metal vehicle feels like he can harass someone riding on two skinny wheels.

Since I finished the ride early and had some extra time, I decided to finish a project that has been dragging on for weeks: the building up of my custom Colossi frame. I cracked it in riding into a pot hole and had to get the top tube and bottom tube replaced. After I ate breakfast and showered, I collected all my bike parts: frameset, fork, Dura Ace gruppo, wheels, handlebars, etc. I walked out of the apartment with my hands full and flagged a taxi. When we got to the bike shop, the driver - as usual - didn't bother to help me gather together all the pieces. I was able to manage on my own, though, and I walked into the store with all the stuff.

There were three guys gathered around the front counter eating breakfast: various types of greasy dumplings and stuffed steamed bread - spongy, starchy stuff with no nutritional value. I smiled and said in a cheerful voice: "Good morning! How you doing?" Did any of them jump up and offer to take a wheel or something else off my hands? Nah. One guy who was blocking my way in the narrow walkway to the back of the shop was considerate enough to step out of my way after I paused a second to give him time to move. The back of the shop was as chaotic and messy as usual, with boxes and half-repaired bikes all over the place. I put my things down on a box and waited for help. I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. After a few minutes, I walked toward the counter and asked the guys who were still munching away, "Excuse me, I really hate to bother you, but can I get a little service here?"

Finally, one of them walked over, and I told him I wanted someone to build up the bike and he said that wouldn't be a problem. I told him all the parts were there, and he didn't bother to do any kind of inventory. I asked him where we should put the stuff, and he said to leave it just where it was. I saw an empty space on a workbench and moved the pile there. I knew I wasn't dealing with the shop's best and brightest, and I was hoping the A team would come in later and sort out my rig. I know the shop's manager well, and sent him an e-mail when I got home. He promptly replied, saying my bike would be in good hands.

Service is a big problem in China. I once had a long chat with the regional head of Starbucks in China, and he complained about how hard it was to find decent frontline workers for the coffee shops. He shared the popular view that Chinese kids don't understand service because they are the product of the one-child birth policy, which restricts most families to having only one child. The kids turn out to be little emperors and empresses, who grew up being waited on. They really don't know how to serve. They don't know how to do things on their own. I grew up with three siblings and often had to fend for myself or pitch in to keep the house running.

I hope my next posting will be about what a great job they did on my bike. When I find something I love about this country, I do like to talk about it.

Musings: China, the land of the speed bump

2009-10-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

Speed bumps are everywhere in Guangzhou. They aren’t used to deter speeding. They're used to punish speeders. I say this because rarely are there signs posted warning drivers to slow down because there are speed bumps ahead. The logic seems to be: If you're not speeding, you have nothing to worry about. If you're going too fast, you'll pay for it. Bam! I guess ambulance drivers are expected to remember where all the bumps are in the city.

The bumps are usually made of unpainted cement or asphalt so they are camouflaged, blending in perfectly with the road so that it's hard to see them. Near my home, officials have opted for a low-budget approach by just laying a thick pipe across the road. They anchored it with roughly cut spikes of rebar hammered into the road _ perfect for slicing open a bike tire.

Book Review: Doping in "A Dog in a Hat"

2009-10-14T04:56:00.000-07:00

Like many cycling fans, I’m tired of reading about doping. That’s partly why the first half of my review of “A Dog in a Hat” was drug free. But Joe Parkin’s book has so many insights and anecdotes about how pervasive doping was in cycling during his day that I thought it was worthwhile to break out the interesting bits for this part of the review.

Parkin says he tried to resist the pressure to dope, though he describes at least one occasion when he took a little something.

He says to prepare for a kermis race, he usually just had three delicious tarts from the local bakery, half a Coke, lukewarm tea in his bottle “and a couple of Animine (caffeine) tablets in the pockets just in case.”

One of the strangest things he saw during his pro career happened before his first kermis. It’s illegal for racers to change into their team kit in or around their cars. So riders have to find a homeowner in the neighborhood who will let them use their garage, kitchen or living room for a locker room. Parkin was allowed into one home, where a third-year Dutch pro was already set up in the kitchen. About an hour before the race, the Dutchman took out a syringe and began injecting a clear liquid into his arm. Parkin says, “Ten seconds later, he started giggling like a 4 year old and pointed to the hair on the arm he injected … He was apparently hoping we’d enjoy the sight of hair standing on end as much as he did. Five minutes later, he did it again, and then again and again after that. After each injection, he was equally amazed.”

Parkin says that for some kermis racers, the competition was just an excuse to take amphetamines. When they were jacked on speed, they weren’t necessarily able to ride faster. But he says they had no inhibitions; they were always ready to go, attacking again and again. They also tended to speak English more.

Just like there’s a “Blue Code of Silence” in the police force, Parkin says there was a “Lycra Code of Silence.” As an American, he already stuck out a lot and he didn’t want to attract more attention by flying the clean-bike-racer flag. He also said many of his teammates, managers, friends and fans would consider not taking drugs as a refusal to give 100 percent to the team. It might get him left off the roster for races.

In one race, Parkin was struggling with stomach problems when his team car pulled up and he was handed a small plastic bottle with a cork. He was instructed to drink half of it and save the rest for later if he needed it. He says it tasted like a cocktail of Coke, a syrupy sugar drink called Champ and something chalky. Within minutes of drinking it, he was at the front of the group, climbing with ease. He says goose bumps started forming on his legs along with sweat with a baby oil-like sheen. He stayed at the front, setting a tempo that was torturing riders who have won classics and Tour de France stages. “I was inflicting excruciating pain on every inch of my body, but I didn’t care. It was amazing,” he says. But he didn’t go with the last attack, and when it was clear he wouldn’t win the race, he decided to stay off the podium so that he could avoid doping controls. Only the top three riders and two random picks would get tested. He says a doctor once told him that a well-trained rider can perform at 85 percent of his potential. But a well-trained athlete on amphetamines can perform at 105 percent.

Near the end of his Euro career, Parkin’s team doctor approached him with a new drug called erythropoietin, the now famous EPO. The physician thought the drug would help Parkin with the anemia that plagued him throughout his career. The big problem was that the drug cost nearly US$1,000 per month, and Parkin couldn’t afford it. He says his poverty probably saved his life. Doctors had yet to figure out how to safely administer EPO and riders from Holland and Belgium were dying left and right.

Snapshot: Cargo bikes

2009-10-14T04:44:00.000-07:00

I'm always amazed by how much can be loaded up on a bike. This guy was pushing his bike up a pedestrian bridge ramp that was so steep it had one switchback. Whenever I need get out of the office for a break, I like hanging out on this bridge over Dongfeng Road, watching the guys push their cargo up the ramp.

Book Review: Thumbs up for "A Dog in a Hat"

2009-10-12T02:19:00.001-07:00

Joe Parkin sums up his professional career in Belgium this way: He could ride hard when called upon, but at the end of the day, he had more desire than natural ability. The American journeyman never had a win while riding on mostly second-tier teams in 1987-91. But he left Europe with loads of fascinating, colorful anecdotes about the sport’s personalities, customs and its holy land – Belgium. These descriptions and insights make his book “A Dog in a Hat” (VeloPress, US$21.95) well worth reading.

Parkin won a few races as an amateur in Minnesota and California before he decided to skip college and try to turn pro in Belgium. He was taken in by a bike mechanic, who rented him a room and served as his coach in the town of Ursel. Pro teams got interested in him after a few good results, including a third place in the amateur version of the Het Volk Classic.

He says he achieved a high degree of fluency in Flemish, and he sprinkles phrases from the language throughout the book. One of them is “een hond met een hoed op” or “a dog in a hat,” from which the book gets its title. The phrase means something that looks out of place, like an American racing with the pros in Belgium in the late 1980s.

One of my favorite anecdotes comes from Parkin’s description of his first pro classic, the 310-kilometer Paris-Brussels. Parkin said he was still in the peloton with Sean Kelly as the riders were sizing each other up for the final push with 20 kilometers left. But at the 10- kilometer mark, he got dropped and eventually got swept up by the bus just kilometers away from the finish. The winner – or the “man with the hammer” – was Wim Arras. Parkin ends the chapter with a great statement about how cruel life can be – how the sport and world move on no matter how fast you were on the bike. “Four years later, he (Arras) would be turning wrenches on my bike,” he says.

Parkin can turn a nice phrase when he’s inspired. In a chapter about kermis racing, he says, “If the grand tours are like classical music, kermis racing is punk rock, Belgian style.” He notes that the races are all about the same length, between 150-180 kilometers, and involve circuit courses of about 10 kilometers. He says he figured out why the circuits are this length after watching a race from a café. “The time it takes for the pros to cover 10 kilometers is almost exactly the time it takes to order, receive and drink a beer.” The drinkers can hear the race coming, drain their beer and step outside to watch the riders speed by.

In 1989, he signed up with the ADR team, which also featured Greg LeMond, who pulled off his amazing Tour de France victory that same year. But LeMond rode on the A team, while Parkin was relegated to the B team – a bunch of misfits he describes as ADR’s “redheaded stepchildren.”

Another of my favorite anecdotes involves the Belgian great Eddy Planckaert, who also rode for ADR. Parkin says he once arrived at Eddy’s farmhouse about 9 a.m. for a ride and had to wake him up. It was January and Eddy’s last ride was sometime in November. His bike was still caked with months-old mud. But as soon as Eddy started riding, he began complaining about the speed wasn’t fast enough. “A few minutes after we started, he attacked …. Less than a minute after the attack, Eddy was back with us, cursing his bike, his legs, the food he had just eaten, the cold, everything.” He complained they were riding too fast so early in the season and that he wouldn’t train with them again. Parkin insists they were only going 25 kph.

Parkin ends his European career with the IOC-Tulip team. He he constantly battled anemia and low testosterone levels. He recalls that after one tough climbing stage in the Tour de Suisse, he was famished and searched through his jersey pockets for leftover snacks – “squished little sandwiches and pastries in foil wrap” - when he returned to his hotel room. Still hungry, he began digging around in the trash can looking for food that his roommates had discarded. He passed out while still wearing his race kit and later woke to the sound of the team doctor trying to wake him up. The physician said, “This is not good,” before leaving the room. He returned shortly to give Parkin a big injection of Intralipid, which was mostly fat.

After going back to America for good, he rode for U.S. pro teams, including the Coors Light squad. When his road racing career ended in 1994, he recorded some solid results as a mountain biker. Unfortunately, the book doesn't provide many details about how Parkin settled into a civilian life and how he earns a living now. It's also a shame that Parkin didn't stay in touch with many of the people he knew in Belgium, so the book provides no updates about them.

Next: Parkin's low down on Euro doping.

Musings: I fought the law and the law...

2009-10-10T15:40:00.000-07:00

I was nearly finished with my 150 kilometer ride and was hammering down a four-lane thoroughfare when I saw the police van on a side road to my right. It wasn't really a van. It's hard to describe. It was a weird, creepy vehicle with a large container in the back that is used for transporting people swept up at mass arrests at protests or factory riots.

I could tell the vehicle was preparing to turn into my path. The question was whether it would stop for traffic before merging onto the busy road. As usual, it didn't. It pulled in front of me and cut me off, causing me to grab a handful of brakes and swerve to miss its back bumper. I yelled out, "Wei! Wei! Wei!" (meaning "Hey, hey, hey" in Mandarin). The two police in the cab saw me out of the corner of their eyes, but they did what Chinese drivers usually do when they blatantly mistreat me on the road: Ignore me, pretend that I'm not really there.

The close encounter gave me an adrenaline rush and reawakened my contempt for the Chinese police, who for me symbolize one of the worst parts of the authoritarian regime. I sprinted to catch up to the vehicle and was almost able to pull up to the passenger side. I yelled, "Fucking assholes!" But they didn't acknowledge me before speeding away.

One of the great things about living in a foreign land is that the police usually don't understand your English expletives. However, they're often savvy enough to realize that you're disrespecting them, so I rarely confront them in this way. If they wanted to, they could haul me down to the police station because I didn't have my passport with me. It's the law that foreigners must carry their passports at all times. I never do when I'm riding because it can easily get wet or mangled. I've photocopied and laminated the important pages and keep them in a plastic ziplock bag in my back jersey pocket. But technically, this isn't good enough.

It only took me a minute to feel stupid about the incident. It's never wise to indulge in bouts of road rage on Chinese roads. While I was yelling at the police, I was unable to watch the road, and I rode over a big mound of concrete and almost fell off the bike. Lumpy, concrete blobs are common on the streets. I'm not sure how they get there. Maybe concrete trucks spill excess material and no one bothers to clean it up. They're extremely dangerous and you must be constantly watchful for them.

Venting in traffic is also bad form because a foreigner - especially a white man - rarely gains sympathy from the locals by yelling and screaming in public. It never looks good. As soon as you lose your cool, you've lost the battle. I think half the time, the Chinese don't even understand why you are mad. Last weekend, I was cruising down a road about 38 kph when a small sedan cut me off. The driver saw me coming, but, as usual, he didn't think he had to stop for me. I road up alongside the vehicle, slammed my palm on the car's roof a couple times and called the driver a "zhu tou," or a "pig head." The guy gave me a bewildered look, stopped his car and apparently had a brief conversation with his passenger about what the hell just happened. Why was the weird foreigner in Lycra yelling at him?

On my better days, I yell to the drivers, "Zhongguo pengyou! Xiao xin yidian!" or "Chinese friend, be careful!" Drivers usually acknowledge me when I do this and I don't come away looking like an uptight foreign jerk. I'm not sure if I'm able to convey the right message to the driver, but it certainly leaves me feeling better.

Musings: Pot holes, mud and the ultimate obstacle - the trash heap

2009-10-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

Guangzhou's roads are constantly covered with dirt, gravel and other debris because of a construction frenzy ahead of the Asia Games, which the city will host next year.

Water trucks cruise the streets before rush hour each morning, spraying the roads to control the dust. However, the trucks don't have a sweeping mechanism, so they don't remove the debris from the roads.

They just create a slippery thin layer of gritty, sticky, cake battery mud that's perfect for downing bikes and coating expensive bike components with sandy grime.

New potholes seem to appear almost daily, and it's essential to mark them on your mental map. I discovered a new one recently after a hard rain. The muddy water filled up the hole, making it look like a harmless puddle. I hit it at a high speed, cracking my custom-made bike frame and breaking a front wheel. It turned out to be the most expensive ride of my life.

The most hazardous road obstacles are created by the midnight mystery dumpers. They load up their trucks with construction waste _ chunks of cement, broken bricks, dry wall scraps, splintered plywood _ and routinely dump it on major roads in the middle of the night. This helps them shave their costs by avoiding landfill fees. It's the same corner-cutting attitude that puts lead paint on toys and melamine in milk powder for babies. On a couple of occasions, I've almost run into the mounds of trash during groggy-headed and dark early morning rides.

Musings: The Chinese driver's best friend - the horn

2009-10-07T01:20:00.000-07:00

Honking at cyclists is another popular pastime for drivers. In America, horn toots usually convey a driver's anger or annoyance. Motorists might think you're taking up too much space or riding like an idiot so they'll honk at you. If they respect your right to be on the road with them, they'll give you some room and pass by quietly.

But in China, a honk usually just means, "I'm about to pass you so don't do a blind U-turn into my path." It's a good example of a fundamental difference in how Americans and Chinese approach driving.

Americans and Europeans think in terms of "lanes." Or "flight paths" for planes. Or "lines" for bikes. We've grown up in fast-moving vehicles that require plenty of space to operate. Drivers own the lane space in front of them, and others who want to enter the lane must first check to see if there's enough space. In the same way, a bike rider owns his line and is expected to hold it.
The Chinese don't seem to think in terms of lanes. They drive as if they're surrounded by a space bubble or a force field that's about five feet thick. If they decide to turn or merge, it's up to other drivers to notice them and stay out of their space bubble. Chinese motorists don't do much shoulder checking. They ride their bikes the same way. If they want to join a pace line, they won’t start in the back. They’ll just try to merge their way into the middle of it. You’ve got to make room for them.

I can't count how many times I've had to swerve or yell at drivers, pedestrians and cyclists who were blindly merging into my lane like Mr. Magoo. I recently T-boned a migrant worker who tried to zip across an intersection without checking for ongoing traffic. Neither of us was seriously injured, but I badly bruised my hip and wrist as I hit the road hard and bounced for a few feet.

Chinese drivers cope with this unpredictability by honking at anything that might turn into their path. Few people seem to get annoyed by the cacophony of car horns. It bugs the hell out of me. I'll never get used to it.

Sometimes, drivers seem to just be beeping to say hello to the weird cycling foreigner in spandex. Once while I was barreling through a tunnel, a cement truck rumbled up on my back wheel and the driver started tooting his horn at me. The sound was deafening as it echoed off the tunnel's walls. As I cleared the tunnel, the truck pulled up alongside of me. Just as I was about ask the driver what the hell his problem was, I saw him and another guy bouncing around in the cab, laughing and yelling the common Chinese cheer at me: "Jia you!" or "Add oil!" At sporting events, the Chinese don’t yell “Go!” or “Come on!,” they scream, “Add oil!”

Musings: Gotta new car, now ya need a license

2009-10-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

Many of the people behind the wheels of the shiny new vehicles on China’s roads just got their licenses after finishing a crash course in driving. They're adults, often in their middle ages, but they drive much like I did when I was a sophomore in high school.

Some are courteous and sympathetic to cyclists because it wasn't too long ago since they were pedaling to work. But many drivers - especially the nouveau riche in Audis and BMWs - show an obvious contempt for bike riders.

China has a very clear caste system, and those on bikes are usually regarded to be at the bottom of it - the untouchables doing the crap blue-collar jobs. They’re the losers who haven’t figured out a way to capitalize on the economic boom of the past 30 years. Most are among the bedraggled masses of millions from the countryside who come to the city to work. They pedal their rusty, squeaky bikes to sweatshops, where they churn out the latest plastic trinkets for Wal Mart shelves. They’re digging the foundations and welding the steel beams for the gleaming skyscrapers featured in the articles in glossy business magazines about how China’s economy will be bigger than America’s in a week or two.

The nouveau riche won't yield the right away to cyclists. Cutting off bikers seems to be a skill they're constantly trying to perfect. Usually they do it without even acknowledging you. In rare cases, they will.

Once I was on a training ride with a friend. It was 6:30 a.m. and we were hammering down an empty three-lane thoroughfare at 40 kph when a driver began honking at us. He was about 100 meters behind us and approaching fast. He raced up beside us in his new black Volkswagen Passat, and we exchanged obscenities for a few seconds. Then the driver swerved in front of us and nearly knocked us down before roaring away.

I got a good look at the guy. He was beefy with a crew cut – a hair style popular with the police, military and the mob. In China, he could have been all three.

Musings: Bikes no longer welcome on China's roads

2009-10-06T04:01:00.000-07:00

When I was studying in China in the early 1990s, I’d often unwind after a long day of classes by hoping on my rusty black Yongjiu bike (a Chinese knockoff of a Raliegh from the WWII era) and cruise around the city. I never worried about traffic because bikes ruled the road. The city’s streets were designed for bikes with wide lanes demarcated by barriers made of iron bars.

The scene of seemingly millions of people pedaling down China's streets has become an iconic image for the nation. But it's an outdated one. So much has changed since my student days 20 years ago.

The changes are most obvious in big cities like Guangzhou. Most residents - especially those in the swelling middle class - have long given up commuting by bike. The city has a clean, new and speedy subway system. Buses are also cheap and convenient. And cars are more affordable for the swelling middle class. Autos rule the roads now.

Two years ago, city officials announced with great pride that the number of cars on Guangzhou's roads has hit the 1 million mark. When the country held a “No Car Day,” Guangzhou was one of the few major cities that decided not to participate. This year, it joined the campaign, but it was a half-hearted effort. A few roads were blocked off by police, but when they left after rush hour, the cars took over again.

Guangzhou wants its future to be tied to the automobile. The city aspires to be the Detroit of China and has factories that make Honda and Nissan cars. Last year, 180,000 new vehicles hit the city's roads, the government said. That's nearly 500 a day.

There seems to be a quiet campaign to push cyclists off the roads. One of the best examples of this is a bike lane near my home that's marked with a thick white line, a sign and a symbol of a bike painted on the pavement. But the line has recently been bisected by short white lines that chop the lane up into parking spaces for cars. The lane is for bikers as long as motorists aren't using it.

On some roads, police with whistles and flags order cyclists to pull off the road and ride on the sidewalk. I usually ignore them.

The Chinese view the car to be a symbol of modernity – evidence the country has made it to the big time. They scoff at foreigners who say China is making the same mistake as other countries, namely America, who fell in love with the car. I discussed the subject with a Chinese friend who had a new mini van. He said, “When we rode bikes, foreigners laughed at us for being so poor and backward. Now that we can afford cars, they say we’re being wasteful polluters.”

I argued that bike-friendly cities like Amsterdam or Copenhagen are truly modern and civilized. But this seems so silly to most Chinese.

Musings: I once thought cycling in NYC was scary

2009-10-05T04:05:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me a Youtube link for a video called "Insane Cycling - New York City." I clicked on it and got ready to cringe as I watched bicycle messengers darting through traffic and doing kamikaze sprints through the streets of the Big Apple. I lived in New York 10 years ago and didn’t dare ride there, partly because I was barely breaking even paying rent on an Upper West Side shoebox and couldn’t afford a decent bike at the time. But mostly because the streets seemed to scary.

As I started watching the video clip, I realized my heart rate wasn’t rising. I wasn't perspiring. I wasn’t wincing. Instead of a thrill, I was experiencing disappointment. I thought I would get Mad Max, but I ended up with Sesame Street.

The disappointment started to fade and be replaced by envy. New York seemed like a wonderful place to ride. Sure, there was a lot of traffic. But pedestrians used the crosswalks. Buses lumbered along like gentle whales. Taxis used their turn signals. The streets looked so clean. Where was the insanity?

To be sure, there was some insanity. But it was more in the choice of equipment by the cyclists. Most of them were riding fixies. I didn’t check closely, but it seems that few or none had brakes. This qualifies for insane. I’d never ride such a rig in any city.

But I’d like to see them race their fixies in the streets that I ride daily in Guangzhou, once known as Canton – a sprawling, gritty city of 10 million people in southern China.