Here’s your mission: You need to deliver a big chunk of meat across Guangzhou in morning rush hour traffic. How will you do it? By meat bike, of course! Follow this guy’s example and just drape the meat over your top tube. Don’t bother wrapping it in plastic so the meat isn’t tainted by car exhaust, dust and other pollutants. You’re not the one who will be eating it!
I was walking to work, climbing the stairs up a pedestrian overpass when I looked down and saw this meat bike going down the road. I stopped for a couple seconds, debating whether it was worth pursuing. I wasn’t in the mood to chase after this guy, but I knew I’d regret it later if I passed on the opportunity. I thought about how it has been about six months since the last time I saw a meat bike.
So I ran down the stairs and started weaving through people on the sidewalk as I fished for my camera at the bottom of my tote bag. Luckily, the meat bike started riding on the sidewalk, and I was able to sprint ahead of him to get into shooting position. People were looking at me like I was crazy, and when I started snapping pictures of the meat bike, I’m sure they were most certain that I was insane. The basket in the back contained a set of ribs or what might have been soup bones. I’m guessing this guy was delivering the meat to a restaurant. It’s one reason why I pretty much stick to vegetables when I eat out.
China’s biggest bike show used to cater to foreign buyers. Now, it’s more for the domestic market. As China’s middle class swells, more and more people can afford pricey equipment from Colnago, Campagnolo, Ridley, Cervelo and the other big brands (see this). They were all there when the three-day show kicked off Tuesday. I didn’t see many other foreigners while I roamed around on the first day.
I spend a fair amount of time at trade shows, and I’ve developed a few opinions about what works for exhibitors. Here are a few observations and awards from Waffles & Steel:
Most Depressing Booth: SRAM. This is surprising because the American company has been doing some exciting things and has been wildly successful breaking into the roadie market. The top three riders at last year’s Tour de France were all riding bikes with SRAM components. So what was the deal in Shanghai? The booth was modern and generally well done. But the guys working there were real zeros. I was really interested in SRAM’s new Apex gruppo and was hoping to get some information about it. The booth’s front counter had a messy pile of brochures, and as I began sifting through it, the guy sitting there didn’t even lift his head or acknowledge me in any other way. Aside from the zoned-out staffers, the booth was depressing because it had a big fish aquarium that was only one-quarter full of water. The bottom of the tank was full of blinky lights, and the few fish in the tank looked like they were blinded by the flashing lights and getting ready to die. It seemed cruel.
Coolest Steel Frame: Colnago. I don’t know why I find the orange and blue color combination so irresistible. The lugs on this rig are gorgeous.
Best Effort: Bianchi. Ahhh, leave it to the Italians to use models at their booth. Few others did. Wait a minute, doesn’t a Swedish conglomerate own Bianchi now? And are these ladies professional models? I had my doubts. I strongly suspect they were girls from the front office who were “asked” to pose with the bikes. They didn’t seem to understand how to work the cameras. They also didn’t seem comfortable in a bike kit. I don’t think the concept of “fitness modeling” is popular in China yet.
Best small booth: Cervelo. The company’s space was just a third of the size of Bianchi’s but it was well used. No models, though. Canadians…
Best schwag: Carnac. They were giving out free posters to people who asked. Sylvain Chavanel is one of my favorites because he rides so aggressively and animates almost every race. Cycle Sport magazine summed him up best in its 2010 season preview issue: “Sylvain Chavanel suffers from some kind of cycling hyperactivity, which causes him to attack all the time.” I also think this poster is hilarious. Oh yeah, “Sylvain Chavanel chooses Carnac” … because you’re paying him a bunch of money! I also like how they thought it was necessary to circle his shoes, just so you wouldn’t miss the fact that he’s really wearing Carnac. I used to wear Carnacs when they had simple, classic designs, like the Legend Ligne Pro. Every year, I look at the Carnac collection and hope they’ve gone back to their former style, but I keep getting disappointed.
Most Questionable Brand Name: SARS. This is a Taiwanese company that makes seats, frames and other parts. I saw their sign over their booth with the scary skull figure and said to myself, “No, it couldn’t be.” I asked the gal in the booth if the brand was named after the mysterious illness that killed more than 700 people worldwide, sickened thousands of others and caused global panic and severe economic damage in 2003. She said with a smile, “That’s right! We thought SARS would be a brand name that would be easy to remember!” It certainly caught my attention, but don’t you want to do more with a brand name? Don’t you also want to create a positive feeling? I’m not a branding expert so I’m just asking here. Wouldn’t a brand called “Leukemia” or “AIDS” also be easy to remember? I said to another visitor in the booth, “You gotta be careful when using this brand. You can get sick.” One of the SARS employees overheard me and quickly said, “No, no, no…that’s not true!”
The Most Improbable Backdrop: BMC. Shouldn’t there be an image of Big George behind this rig? Oh, all these white guys look the same anyway.
Best Model Name: Erotic. I guess it is made of rubber.
Coolest People: Shanghai Senior Citizens Bike Club. These guys – all in matching red warm-up suits – rode to the expo in a long convoy of bikes. One guy was on a mountain bike with clip-on aero bars. I like how they kept their helmets on as they roamed around the massive expo center. They spent a lot of time at one booth that had an elaborate bike computer system with several readouts. It looked like a control panel on a Cessna plane. It really captivated them.
The two big red characters on this sign say, “Xue Che.” It’s a phrase in the Chinese language that makes me more worried than most anything else about the future of cycling on this country’s roads. The most literal translation for “xue che” would be: “study car.” It often cracks me up when I think about it. A more fluid translation would be: “learn to drive.”
Driver’s education is a huge business in China now. The “xue che” signs are everywhere in Guangzhou: on billboards, newstands, storefronts. It makes sense for a place where a fleet of new cars hits the roads each day. During the past decade, the number of cars in the city has increased an eye-popping 30 percent each year, and now Guangzhou has 1.3 million of them.
Nationwide, car sales have been booming, and it has fueled a debate among China watchers. Some think something fishy is going on. They point to the figure that says last year, China’s car stock jumped by 24 percent. But gasoline sales remained flat. They suspect there was a conspiracy involving government and state companies that are snapping up cars under instruction from the state, which is trying to stoke economic growth amid the global downturn. There is unconfirmed talk of huge parking garages where hundreds of new cars are stored. But others insist the cars are being bought by real people, who are either driving less because of high fuel costs or are buying cars that don’t guzzle as much gas.
The popularity of the driver’s education classes seems to bolster the latter theory. But I also understand that many of these student drivers just want to get a license so that they can say on their resume that they can drive. That’s apparently a big plus for employers.
Last Sunday, I was riding home after climbing in the mountains in Longdong, on the outskirts of Guangzhou. There’s a 10-kilometer strip of road that I have have to ride that I call, “Study Car Alley.” The thoroughfare has five lanes and a wide, well-marked bike lane. But the bike lane is always clogged with driver’s ed cars, mostly banged-up VW Jettas with the characters “jiao lian” or “instructor” painted on the rear window or back end.
The cars are usually full with three students, and they practice driving at 5 mph for a couple hundred meters on the far right lane before they slowly pull into the bike lane, where they stop while the instructor gives them a talk or they switch drivers. This is a huge problem for me because I need to constantly swerve into the car lanes to pass them. Often, the student drivers will just creep along in the bike lane until they can work up the nerve to merge into the car lane. Last Sunday morning, I started counting the driver’s ed cars. I thought I’d tally 20 or so. But in 20 minutes, I counted 42! Each one had three students inside, so that’s 126 people learning to drive on just one 10-kilometer strip of road!
I can remember how unnerving it can be learning how to drive with other vehicles whizzing by you left and right while an instructor barks at you. So I try to be as patient and compassionate as possible. But at other times, they really piss me off. Making matters worse, I encounter them at the end of my climbing sufferfests when I’m tired and running dangerously low on blood sugar. A couple weeks ago, I pulled up to the driver’s side of a car that was tooling along in the bike lane and calmly asked the driver, “Why are you driving in the bike lane? Don’t you understand this is dangerous?” Then I glanced at the instructor, who – like his student – just kept looking straight ahead. I doubt that most of these driving instructors are really qualified to teach. The New Yorker magazine had a great story by the brilliant Peter Hessler about the whole racket a year or two ago. The story has a few great anecdotes about the crazy tips the instructors give their students. Once I was riding behind a driver’s ed car and the instructor rolled down the window and tossed an empty liter bottle of mineral water into the street. See kids, you can litter and drive at the same time! It’s an important skill to learn in China.
I’ve been sitting at the keyboard debating whether I’m a bike snob. On the one hand, I think if someone enjoys riding a bike – any kind of bike – that’s great. I’m happy for them. But on the other hand, I don’t really care to be near anyone riding one of those folding bikes, which are becoming outrageously popular in China. Wait, I should clarify something. If someone is commuting on one of those things or running errands or just tooling around like David Byrne does, that’s fine. I appreciate the utility of the machines. But I’m troubled by people – mostly men in their 20s and 30s in China – who ride them for sport (like here). And I don’t like how they try to adopt our roadie attire. They should learn from the fixie crowd and develop their own style.
A few months ago, a couple of foldies (Is that what we call them?) popped out of a side road and started tailing me. One of them stayed just a centimeter off my rear wheel, pedaling those donut wheels at an annoyingly high cadence. They didn’t seem to understand the common etiquette. If you’re going to suck a stranger’s wheel, you should at least introduce yourself, say hello. It was a bit unnerving because I had doubts about their riding skills and was just waiting for a wheel-touch accident. I finally dropped the two dweebs on a series of hills. In my mind, what they were doing was kind of like a guy in a VW Beetle – a cute and clever vehicle – tailing a guy in a Porsche. It’s just something you don’t do. It’s dorky and irritating. It’s like stepping onto a tennis court with a raquetball raquet. That’s OK if it’s your thing, but don’t try to volley with me.
On Sunday, I was riding home on a stretch of road with heavy, chaotic traffic (a Mad Max situation). It’s usually a spot where I just ride to survive. The objective is just to get through it safely. I passed two guys on folding bikes (They always seem to ride in pairs. Hmmmm), and they started racing me. It was a real dilemma for me because I would really hate to see two foldies get the best of me. But then again, I’d really hate to crash my bike and injure myself competing with geeks. It was a classic pride vs. commonsense conflict. One of the guys was riding like an idiot, weaving recklessly between cars and taking other risks. He eventually shot through a hole in the traffic and opened up a hug gap. I was tempted to chase, but I decided to just let them go.
Am I a bike snob? I’m still not sure. I’m certainly a grump. And I have strong opinions. Maybe I’m best described as a cycling segregationist. I’m not sure if that’s worse.
Waffles & Steel was building up a solid base of loyal readers inside China just before the authorities began blocking the site a few months ago. About 30 percent of the traffic to the site came from within China. I imagine most of those readers were savvy enough to figure out how to access Waffles & Steel via proxies and other forms of encryption. But those visits aren’t registered, so I have no idea what’s really going on. I’d like to ask my China-based readers to send me a brief note at wafflesandsteel@gmail.com (or become a fan of Waffles & Steel on Facebook) if they’re still reading the site. Many thanks in advance!
I’ve spent 13 years of my life in so-called Greater China (Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan). Without a doubt, my favorite place to ride is Taiwan. It’s got everything: fantastic mountains, terrific food, friendly people, beautiful nature, decent weather and great bike shops. Earlier this month, I was planning a four-day trip to the island. A day before my departure, I caught a bad stomach bug. The five-day forecast also included heavy rain. I debated a bit about whether I should bring my bike as I had planned. In the end, I decided that even if I had to pull over to puke every kilometer in torrential rain, I was still going to ride. I just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to ride through Taiwanese mountains again. It did rain and I suffered a bit with the gastrointestinal issues, but as usual Taiwan really rewarded me and I’m glad I did it.
I did my usual thing and stayed at a small motel in the Tienmu neighborhood in the capital of Taipei. Tienmu is at the base of Yangmingshan National Park, so after a five-minute spin from the hotel door, the road starts climbing out of the Blader Runneresque urban densepack and into the lush subtropical forest that covers the Yangming Mountain range. The first 10-kilometer climb gets you into the park, where you’ll find a Starbucks coffee shop. I can’t think of many other climbs in China that deliver you to a Starbucks. Many folks won’t think this is a good thing, but I’m not one of them. I’ve done enough of the rough and remote thing.
The night before, I bought three big chunks of banana bread for my ride, so I decided to stop at Sbucks to enjoy some with a cup of joe. But I forgot that Starbucks opens at 8 a.m. in Taiwan and it was 7:30, so I decided to just have my snack on the patio. A young woman inside the cafe saw me and came to the door. She said, “Sorry, we’re not open yet, but can I get you a glass a water? How about a chair, too?” In Guangzhou, I would have been told to scram until the store opens.
She called herself "Winnie" and she was wonderful. She apologized for not being able to open the store earlier and offered me a glass of water and a chair. She was amazed that I planned to ride 80 km in the rain.
Yangmingshan is full of natural sulphur pits. The steam rises rises from the hills in several areas, and the rotten-egg stench of sulphur fills the air.
The rice crop is just getting started. In a month, this will be a brilliant green carpet of rice plants.
My favorite climb goes up and over Yangming Mountain and down to Jin Shan Beach. There were a few dedicated surfers waiting for waves when I stopped to watch them.
This food truck sells some awesome waffles with whip cream on the coastal road that passes Jin Shan Beach. It’s at the mid point of my ride, and I was really looking forward to stopping to have a second breakfast. I was crushed to see that he wasn’t open.
Waiting for waves at Jin Shan Beach.
Like in mainland China, convenience stores in Taiwan sell chicken parts. But they also have chocolate-covered Belgian waffles. Boo yah!
Stopping at a flower farm on the climb back over Yangming Mountain.
This guy marveled at how high my seat was and said to his friend, "Look at the long legs on this guy!"
One of my all-time favorite switchbacks at the base of Yangming National Park.
Oh momma, do we have a great bike trap today. I’ve been riding past this one for months. But it wasn’t until last Sunday that I could document it with my camera. It’s on the outskirts of Guangzhou, near the Longdong area where I do my climbing workouts. About a kilometer before the bike trap, I noticed that road crews had patched up a few other hazardous spots. I started to worry that maybe I had arrived too late to shoot this doozy of a trap. Maybe it got fixed. But nope. For some Chinalogical reason, they decided not to touch it.
From the wide shot above, it doesn’t look like much. You need to get up close to truly appreciate all of its wickedness. I call it a a dog’s breakfast bike trap because it has a little bit of everything. Yup, something for everybody! It’s got that nice rectangular swimming pool shape, just like the bike trap that cracked my steel frame last year when I rode into it during a tropical storm.
On one side, there’s a series of thick metal cables sticking out, just perfect for snagging, jabbing or splitting a tire. I don’t know why they’re there. And I don’t understand why they would be allowed to be like this for so long. I first noticed this bike trap a year ago!
The rest of the bike trap is filled up with rocks, broken tiles, bricks and some kind of cermaic pipe – a nice lumpy surface that can knock you off your balance. I guess instead of properly covering the thing, they decided to just fill it up with construction debris. Recall the phrase that I mentioned in an earlier post that could serve as China’s unofficial national slogan. It’s “Cha bu duo, jiu haole!” Maybe the best translation would be, “Not great but good enough!”
The guy in black street clothes is some local official or Communist Party hack. Of course, he had to stand in the middle of EVERY photo. The race can never be just about the athletes. There's always some flunky who wants to seize every possible opportunity to make long speeches and dominate every photo opp.
The biggest thing missing in my cycling experience in China is the opportunity to race regularly. I’d love to do it more. It would really inspire and focus my training. But finding the right races is difficult for a rider like me for a bunch of reasons:
1) Most races are short criteriums that favor the sprinters. I can’t sprint worth a damn, so it’s no fun for me.
2) Races usually involve an A and B group. The A group is for the elite racers, guys who are 20 years younger than I am and can blow off my doors on the first lap. The B group is full of inexperienced riders who threaten my life. The crashes are often really spectacular, though.
3) There’s no team for foreign cyclists like me, short on talent but long on enthusiasm and dedication. Guangzhou has a group for expat riders, and they’re all great guys and fine athletes. But the club is mostly for triathletes and social riders – weekend warriors who are usually happy to just ride loops around the university district. They’ll do an occasional race, but it’s usually just a fitness challenge of some sort, and the training isn’t well structured or entirely serious.
4) There’s little advance notice about races. News of an event is usually passed on by word of mouth. Quite often, there will only be a week’s notice about a race. So it’s hard to plan your race schedule. You basically need to be ready to go at any time. This can be difficult for riders who have to give notice to their employers (or spouses!) that they might be out of pocket while away at a race.
5) Somewhat related to the point above, finding information about races is difficult. You would think that the people who organize races in the region would compile a master e-mail list of cyclists who competed in past events and might like to join another competition. But it just doesn’t happen. My friend Brendan has compiled an impressively long list of Web sites and chat forums that he routinely trolls, looking for notices about races. Searching for races really shouldn’t require such a deepsea fishing expedition.
6) The racing season is a little odd in my opinion. Many of the local cyclists race mountain bikes in the spring (especially in April), while also competing in a few road events from March through May. Then it gets quiet during the long, hot summer when there’s hardly anything. The racing starts again in September and continues through December. Some big road races are in October and November.
I would love to race against cyclists my own age. But that will rarely happen in China because most 40+ people don’t ride competitively. It’s extremely rare. After the Bei Feng Mountain race a few weekends ago, a group of local riders came up to me and asked me how old I was. When I said “46,” they all looked amazed and let out a collective, “Waaaaaaaaaah!”
It’s the rainy season in Guangzhou and that means mudslides. Lots of them. On Sunday, I rode out to Maofeng Mountain, about 35 kilometers from my home. There’s a guard post on the road that goes into the hills, and it had a sign warning drivers the road was closed because of landslides, or landslips, as the British call them. A metal barrier was also pulled across the road.
Most mountain roads have guard posts, and dealing with the trolls who work inside them is an important skill for cyclists in China. I was determined to do some climbing on Sunday, so I opted for the classic “dumb foreigner” act and rode past the guard without stopping. I didn’t even look to see if anyone was at the post. Usually one of three things will happen. 1) The guard will notice you’re a foreigner and ignore you because he doesn’t want the hassle of dealing with you. 2) The guard will jump out of his booth and start screaming at you in Cantonese but won’t chase you because he’s too lazy or must stay at his post. 3) The guard will scream at you and when you don’t stop, he’ll hop on a motorcycle and chase you down.
I got chased down once by a guard on a scooter at Nankun Mountain. I was about a kilometer up the road riding like I stole something when he caught up to me. The conversation went like this:
Him: You can’t ride here!
Me: Why?
Him: You can’t ride here!
Me: Oh. Why?
Him: Because you can’t ride here!
Me: OK. But why?
We went back and forth like this about five more times. Finally, I asked if the road was being blocked because of the threat of landslides, and he nodded his head “yes.” I guess it was a secret that he was instructed not to reveal. Also, people in authority positions often don’t feel any obligation to explain themselves in China.
A couple months ago, I got to Niutou Mountain and discovered that the road was closed because of the threat of landslides. But the guard at the foot of the mountain let me through. He said, “I know that if I block you, it will break your heart so you can go. But be extremely careful!” It’s the two faces of China. One is blindly obedient, a slave to rules, serving without question. The other is mellow and laid back with the attitude that rules don’t need to be followed all the time.
On Sunday at Maofeng Mountain, after I passed my fifth mudslide, I started getting the willies. I was riding alone, and I started wondering how long I’d be trapped under a thick layer of mud before someone would find me. Actually, I was more worried about a boulder slamming into me and knocking me out. I eventually cut the ride short. As they say in China, “An quan di yi!” (Safety first!).
Powerbars…GU gel…EPO…they’re all good when you’re trying to get over that last climb or laying down a blistering attack in the final kilometers. But when riders on the Waffles & Steel team need an extra boost, they reach for the Big Ring.
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