Tag: Bikes

Great Bicycle Rides in Shanghai

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One of the few challenges that we encounter living in the mega-convenient city of Shanghai is where to go for a nice bicycle ride. Over the past three years, my standards for great bike rides have dropped dramatically. I used to consider a great bike ride to involve open country and absolutely zero cars. Now, if I have a protected bike lane that I am sharing with a thousand scooters, next to a road with heavy traffic, I call it a good day. However, I can still appreciate a great ride when I find one, and I have found a few in the past couple of months.

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The Raleigh is ready.

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Yangshuo, China

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There are many benefits of teaching internationally at our school. One of them is without a doubt our annual China trips. Every grade level (except for senior IB students, whom everyone seems to want to make as miserable as possible) takes a trip in May to some part of China. I had the fortune of chaperoning the 7th grade trip to Yangshuo, China. I was supposed to go with the 8th graders to the tropical location of Hainan, but after learning that Yangshuo was the ‘outdoorsy’ trip, I realized that this was my place. We flew out of Shanghai at 7:00 AM on Monday, May 5. The plane was being flown by the father of one of our students. We took over the entire plane. I was surprised at how rowdy the students were during the flight. Flying was so common for them that they could not have been less concerned. I, on the other hand, was concerned enough for everyone. We arrived in Yangshuo and were met by our guides from Insight Adventures. Insight is a company that runs trips like this for schools all over China. Our guide’s name was Kevin, and he was awesome. Kevin was born in Southwestern China, but moved to Yangshuo for this job. After dropping our luggage off at our hotel, we immediately set off to the park for some group building games with Kevin. As you can see, Yangshuo is a beautiful place. 10155162_835426102823_7255289784085972443_n10364154_837978961873_560489963021357307_n Continue reading →

The Bicycle Project

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*Warning: This post is about my bicycle, and some viewers may find it incredibly boring.*

Many months ago, while sitting at the Shanghai Brewery, Angela and I were discussing our life goals. I decided that one of mine, as silly as it sounds, was to build a bicycle from scratch. So I started. Now, many months later, I have actually made some progress.

I had purchased several parts, but I did not realize that building a bicycle would require so many unique tools that most people did not own. I bought a few that I knew I would use later in life, but I needed to do several things to prepare my fork and was not willing to purchase the right tools. So I decided to find a bike shop. I found Factory Five. Factory Five specializes in fixed gear bicycles, but it was soon apparent that these guys were experts for all things bicycle. I brought in my fork and had the crown race installed, the steerer tube cut down to size and the expansion nut installed. I also bought two tires and two inner tubes. All of that cost me 190 RMB, or around $30. I could not believe it. What a steal!

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A Bicycle Adventure in Vietnam

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Angela and I had a wild, but incredible trip to Vietnam over our Chinese New Year holiday. We did not have school on Thursday or Friday, but we decided to not fly out until Friday. That allowed us to have one day off, and to bring in the year of the Horse with a celebratory drinking outing on Thursday night. We had a buffet of Indian food, and some beers at the local Shanghai Brewery. On Friday, we were to depart for Vietnam. Friday morning, I threw up the entirety of the Indian buffet that I had eaten the previous night. At first I was concerned that maybe I had one too many beers in honor of the new year, but soon realized that I had some sort of 24-hour flu. I am also a little skeptical that maybe the Indian buffet was partly to blame. Either way, I did not have a pleasant trip to Vietnam. I spent the morning throwing up in various bathrooms in the Pudong International Airport, while Angela took care of checking our baggage and leading me to where we needed to be. I did manage to stop being nauseous right before we actually boarded our plane, which was a relief. I had the chills and aches, but we made it to Hanoi, Vietnam without incident. We were to stay in Hanoi for the weekend before departing for our Spice Roads bicycle trip on Monday.

On Saturday, I was feeling much better. Angela and I decided to wander around the Oldtown quarter of Hanoi. The traffic was not as bad as it normally was, because the Vietnamese people were in the midst of celebrating Tet. The first thing that we did in Hanoi was to get scammed into paying for the photo I took below of Angela.

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Bicycle Update

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I thought I would take a moment to update all of you bicycle enthusiasts on how my project was going. I was ready to install my bottom bracket along with my crankset, but I discovered that I did not have any grease. I looked around many local shops, including Trek and Cannondale and realized that grease is not something you can buy just anywhere. I went to a local sporting goods store with lots of bike parts, and tried to explain to them that I needed some thicker grease than the liquid chain grease they gave me. The man there assured me that I could use WD-40 instead of grease. I told him politely that I already had that, and left. Finally on a whim, I checked the Giant store. They did not have any, but the repair guys speak a little bit of English. He ended up putting a little dollop of grease into a little baggy for me for free. I sure appreciated that! Once I had the grease and some wonderful instructions from my Uncle Dave, installing the bottom bracket was no problem. For those interested, I managed to install the circlips without sending them flying or poking my own eye out.

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In case any of my mechanically inclined relatives are concerned, I did realize that the brackets probably needed to be pressed in a tiny bit further in order to properly install the crankset, so I did that after these pictures were taken.

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I installed the crankset without incident, but discovered that I need a larger allen wrench than I own to tighten the non-drive side pedal. I did manage to get the pedal arm started by using some techniques that I’d rather not admit, but will have to find a larger allen wrench before I can finish installing the crankset. I was a little bummed, but happy that I at least have something to show for myself, minimal as it may be.

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On a side note, Angela and I ran to the local grocery store recently and had to pass on the fresh chicken.

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All for now.

A vacation from the pollution jungle.

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This past weekend was a wonderful weekend. Angela mentioned that we had a great Thanksgiving dinner with our friends John and Catherine on Thursday. Friday we had a day of professional development that was quite enjoyable. We began the day with some interesting presentations from teachers who work at the Pudong campus (the other side of the river). I have befriended the music staff already from the Pudong campus as they play in a community jazz band with me. They were also in attendance, so I had the opportunity to talk with them. I attended a great session on the effects of moving to a new country, the depression that can follow a few months abroad, and some good techniques to deal with it. This session was intended to help students, but our friend Catherine (the guidance counselor) also aimed it towards new teachers. I went totally for my own benefit, and it was a nice session. I will add that Angela gave a session on technology that received raving reviews from her lower school faculty. At the end of our day, we had a happy hour on the field of the school. That’s right folks, beers wine and games. It was awesome.

Later that night I traveled to a town called Moganshan. Moganshan is a town in the mountains, about 3-3.5 hours away from Shanghai. Angela had plans to attend a Thanksgiving party, as did I, but she encouraged me to take the trip. Our friend Catherine organized it, and her husband John went, along with five other teachers. I was tired on Friday night, and not sure I would be up for the weekend away, but it was well worth it. We arrived around 11pm in the town of Moganshan, which is still a little rustic for being a semi-affluent seeming place. There was not a soul in sight. Luckily Catherine knew right where to go, and we soon found our accommodations for the night. We stayed in a hostel-like dormitory with communal bathrooms. A very rustic place, but very cozy as well. I read my book for a while before falling asleep. The next morning I awoke to this:

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The first major bummer.

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Sorry for the delay of postings! It has been a hard week, but it is looking up in a big way. Last week around Thursday I came down with a little stomach bug and fever. I felt worse and worse and had a pretty sick weekend! I always feel homesick when I am sick, so the weekend was a little rough. On Sunday, I decided to ride my bicycle to our Fantasy Football draft in the French Concession. I was still feeling pretty sick, but still had a nice time completing the draft. However, when I came out of the bar, my bicycle had been stolen! We were in a popular area, around 1 in the afternoon and the bike was directly out in front of the building. I was really surprised, and also sad. It was a nice giant bike, and a little expensive. I learned my lesson, so behold the upgrade:

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This cost me $60. This one won’t hurt so bad when it is stolen. Now I am greatly looking forward to a weekend of not being sick!

Potpourri

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Angela here and sorry I’ve been MIA!  Not much new happening here but things are going great!  I’ve been waking up very early to go swimming at school.  It’s nice to drag myself out of bed and jump, bike to school, and jump in cold water….no really it’s fun!  Tonight Jason and I are meeting up with a friend of his from high school!  It’s crazy how small the world is.  This week, I told myself I’d be better about cooking at home which turns out has been a failure!  Monday and Wednesday we had plans!  Tuesday we had leftovers—Wait I ate the leftovers, Jason had PB&J!  That leaves me tomorrow.  It’s so different cooking here.  Going to the grocery store is a chore and then after all that work you have to cook….but thankfully I can have my groceries delivered! That’s right!    I haven’t gotten to that point yet but I’m thinking it will be worth it!

Below are a few pictures from my phone!  China win:  having convenient Gum packets!  China fail:  Said gum comes in a green package (I think mint)  turns out it’s flower-ish!  Oh well!