My mouth fills with the faint taste of blood from lungs ruptured by the unrelenting killer gradient of War God Hill. My quads burn as if hydrofluoric acid is being massaged deep into the muscle tissue. But over the sound of me gasping loudly for oxygen, I can hear people talking. It’s Mike and Brendan a few meters ahead of me _ a gap that’s gradually growing. They’re having a casual chat as they climb, while I can barely stop breathing long enough to utter the desperate plea: “Help…me…please…”
Riding with fantastic athletes like these guys involves a constant reality check, a severe ego battering. I’m reminded that I’m not near as strong as I often think I am when I’m riding alone. I know cyclists who don’t like to be in such a situation. They prefer being the alpha male who hammers the rest of the group into the ground like a tent peg. Others would rather line up with people who are exactly at their level. I prefer getting my legs pulled off – as long as the other riders are cool about it, which Brendan and Mike always are.
It goes back to one of my key life principles. I found it in a New Yorker magazine article about aid workers in some of the poorest parts of Africa. A French doctor in Chad said, “Don’t take yourself seriously, but do what you do seriously.” It’s brilliant. When I’m on the bike, I try to check my ego and just focus on riding in a way that makes me stronger. I don’t care if I lose the sprint or get dropped on the hill climb as long as I put forth my best serious effort. I don’t ride to bolster my ego. I ride to get better. If improving means I’ve got to get knocked around, then that’s fine. Usually, if you do what you do seriously, everything else is sorted. I figure it’s my actions, how I do things, that best define who I am.
I’ve been living by this principle for a long time but just never knew how to articulate it until I saw the New Yorker article. I remember when I started studying Mandarin more than 20 years ago in Taiwan, the school put me in a class with five Americans. After a week, I asked to be transferred to a class with only Japanese and Koreans. I got my butt kicked almost everyday because the Japanese and Koreans could already read between 1,000 to 3,000 characters that they used in their own written language. Often, they wouldn’t understand a word, so the teacher would write the character on the blackboard, then they would nod their heads and say, “Ahhhh, OK!” I would still be sitting there staring at the blackboard like a stupid dog. I didn’t let myself get too discouraged, though. I always tried to find a way to salvage my pride and bruised ego by working harder. I just tried to do what I do seriously, and it eventually paid off big time.
One of my many obsessions is: service, the good kind. Few things are better than being served well.
I recently had the great pleasure to be the recipient of some fantastic service. It happened when I made an online purchase from Wrench Science. I’ve seen their ads before, checked out their Web site but never bought anything from them – until now. In a future post, I’ll tell you what I bought. All that I’ll say now is that it was a sizable purchase.
Wrench Science offered a good price, but they sealed the deal by providing a 10 percent discount during the Tour of California. But when I made my purchase, it seems that I missed the deadline. Several factors were to blame: the time zone difference and tech problems on my end, mostly. I sent them an e-mail asking if they could cut me some slack and give me the discount. They wrote back and said, “Yes.” They added that they hoped this would make me a loyal customer. It will. I promise. I should add that I never mentioned my blog nor did I use it in any way as leaverage in the deal.
It was a great move on the part of Wrench Science. When I go shopping again, I’ll definitely turn to them before I seek out the usual suspects, like Competitive Cyclist or Colorado Cyclist.
Joe Parkin’s new book, “Come & Gone,” reminded me of how we used to pack ice coolers with beer for college parties. We’d put the micro brews and Euro beers on the top layer. At the bottom, we’d put the cheap beer – stuff people wouldn’t mind drinking because they were too drunk to care near the party’s end. Parkin’s first book, “A Dog in a Hat,” about the six years he spent breaking into the pro ranks in Belgium, is the Chimay. His latest book is a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. It’s OK if you enjoyed the Parkin party so much that you’re happy to hang around for the second half to explore the bottom of the cooler. But it’s not something you’ll want to savor or think about too long. Like the title, the book often seems tired and flat.
Parkin returned to the U.S. in 1991, and the first few chapters of “Come & Gone” describe his culture shock as he tried to readjust to American life. He settled in Minneapolis and tried to resume his career as a road racer. I enjoyed his descriptions of how he tried to train through the frigid Minnesota winters. He struggled to get a contract with a good team and got stuck on a few second-tier squads before eventually getting picked up by the Coors Light powerhouse.
He’s definitely an oddball. The book features a Coors Light team photo of Parkin with a full-blown mullet. Wasn’t that hairstyle laughably out of style by the 90s? On a long roadtrip in the South, he buys an albino ferret at a mall and brings his new pet aboard the team bus.
Parkin left the road scene to race as a pro in the mountain biking circuit, which was booming in the 90s. He had a few good results as he bounced from team to team. But he misses the podium in most races because of frustrating mechanicals, bad legs or bone-headed mistakes. In one race, he seems certain to get a top place but he blows up in the end because he forgot to hydrate – an amazingly stupid mistake for a such a veteran pro.
I generally enjoyed Parkin’s book, but it wasn’t nearly half as interesting as “Dog in a Hat.”
Don’t even think about bargaining with the Troll. True, you’re a customer and he’s a businessman. But that doesn’t mean he has to be nice to you. He doesn’t have to act like you’re welcome in his shop. In fact, he’d be happy if you just left. Just get the hell out. Piss off.
I started calling him the “Troll” after the first time I visited his Hong Kong shop, which I call “The Troll’s Den.” Its real name is “The Wing’s” and its improbable location is on 222 Fa Yuen Street (or Flower Street) in the gritty Mongkok area of Kowloon. It strikes me as a weird place for a bike shop because the street is more of a lady’s market, lined with street stalls selling costume jewelry, bras, underwear, blouses and other frilly things. Wing’s is easy to miss. The shop’s entrance is obscured by the stalls and you can only see the sign on the second-floor shop.
Imagine a bike shop that never had a clearance sale. That’s the Troll’s Den. Ancient inventory just gets plowed under and mixed in with the new stuff in the cluttered, cramped little store. Wings seems to be stuck in a time warp – the 80s and 90s. A display case features a Colnago frame with the long-defunct Mapei team’s colors and design. I challenge anyone to find a pair of bright red and yellow Polti socks. The Troll has them. He’s got a water bottle from Greg Lemond’s old “Z” team! Mixed in with all this is the latest from Look, Pinarello and Campy. Digging through his merchandise, you can’t help but have flashbacks of Museeuw, Virenque, Pantani – an era when riders were doped out of their minds but truly fantastic and forgivable all the same.
I found his shop two years ago when I needed a new pair of Sidi shoes. The Troll is apparently a Sidi distributor and has an amazing selection. I picked up two pairs of Ergo 2 Lites for me and a friend. The total sale was about US$1,000. I asked the Troll if he would give me a discount. He just snarled at me. Then he said he’d charge me 10 percent more if I didn’t pay cash and used a credit card.
The troll also has an incredible collection of cycling caps. On my second visit to the store, I found an awesome Basso cap. My first serious bike was a Basso, and I was overwhelmed with nostalgia and just had to buy it. But there was a brown stain on the bill, as if it took incoming fire from a flock of geese. I showed the stain to the Troll and asked if he would knock a little off the price. He grumbled something like: “No, it’s cheap enough already!”
When you walk into the store, the Troll never greets you. He never asks if you need help. He just waits to take your money. He sits at his desk behind a counter that he’s barely able to peek over. He usually wears polyester slacks and a white undershirt. I’d love to know his story. How did he get into the bike business? I’m just too damn afraid to ask. This week, when I visited, he was eating a lunch of fried noodles, string beans and soup that had a cube of pink Spam-like meat in it. I went to the shop to get a replacement buckle for my Sidi shoes. One of the ratcheting buckles stopped grabbing the shoe’s top strap.
I took the shoe out of my backpack and approached the Troll in the proper way: very slowly, with my head slightly bowed, my eyes averting contact with his eyes. Just as I started to talk, he stuck a long string bean in his mouth and glared at me. I said, “I’m sorry but I’m wondering if I can ask you a question. You see, my buckle isn’t working right. Is there a way to fix it?” You’d think that because I paid US$500 for the shoes, the Troll would have at least taken a look or asked if the shoe was still under warranty and worthy of a free fix. But nah. He got up, started rummaging around inside a messy display case, then threw down a plastic bag that had two replacement buckles. “They’re HK$120,” he said. You might think that he would offer to replace the buckle for me. But nah. He walked back around his desk and continued with his lunch, loudly slurping the soup. I took out one of the buckles and compared it to the one on my shoe. It looked the same. “Ok, thanks. I’d just like to have a look around,” I said, leaving the buckles on his counter.
A sweet woman who I think might be his daughter arrived with her darling toddler. She was in the store when I bought the Basso hat, and she seemed sympathetic to my request for a discount. This time, she gave me a warm greeting and plunked her child in the play pen next to the Troll. As the cute child chirped and squeaked, I looked at the Troll’s face out of the corner of my eye, waiting for him to smile at the child or show some sign of having emotions other than contempt and disdain. He just scowled at the kid.
One theory I had was that the Troll just doesn’t like foreigners. There’s a bike shop in Guangzhou that doesn’t seem to want to deal with expats. We always get a chilly reception there. But when I visited the Troll this week, there was a young Hong Kong guy in the shop in a dress shirt and tie. It seemed like he snuck away from the office to try on a pair of blue-trimmed Sidi Genius 6.6 Carbon Lites. Of course, the Troll didn’t bother to get up to help the guy. I watched as the customer approached the Troll to ask a question. He used the same manner: bowed head, eye contact averted, an I’m-not-worthy-and-please-don’t-hit-me-or-verbally-abuse-me tone of voice. The Troll grunted out a short sentence and the customer quietly walked back to the Sidi section.
The scene reminded me of the hilarious “Soup Nazi” episode in “Seinfeld.” A chef opens a take-out soup joint that serves amazing soup that the Seinfeld crew become instantly addicted to. But the chef is a short-tempered little man who just wants customers to buy his soup and get the hell out of his shop. If you ask a question or make a special request, the chef yells, “No soup for you!” I’m sure the Troll would love the show. I can hear him now: “No bike gear for you! Get out!”
Many apologies. Please note that we’ve made an important correction in our previous post. We provided the wrong link for Anthony Paglino’s fine blog: www.ride2freedom.org. We tacked on a “com” at the end, instead of an “org.”
Sometimes some thoughtful soul will try to warn us about a bike trap. The effort is usually feeble but it’s appreciated. Here’s a great example provided by Anthony Paglino from Beijing. (Check out his site: www.ride2freedom.org). The photo shows a battered trash bin being used as a makeshift man hole cover. I guess at night, on this unlit road, the trash bin becomes a different kind of hazard. You slam into it, then drop down the sewer hole. Could that be the real intention? Wait a minute. Is this actually some sort of booby trap?
Waffles & Steel occasionally gets pictures and anecdotes from readers in other parts of China that help confirm that Guangzhou isn’t the only wild and wacky place to ride in the country. We love to get this material and will find a way to post it, with permission from the source, of course.
Here’s something from a reader in Beijing who commutes by bike daily. The note inspired a discussion with Waffles & Steel:
Reader: It’s barely Spring in Beijing and already have had two incidents happen to remind me to be careful when pedaling around town. Maybe a week ago, one of those three-wheel cabs nearly flattened me on the way to work as I was going straight and he was trying to make a sudden right turn across traffic. We exchanged pleasantries in Chinese, then I gave his windshield a New York smack with the palm of my hand and rode off. A few moments later, the guy caught up with me going pretty fast and tried to sideswipe me down from behind. He came damn close to nailing me and then kept going away still very fast. Lesson learned. No more New York smacks. Haha. On Monday, I was pedaling home from dinner with friends when a car strayed over into the bike path to make a right turn and clipped my handlebar with its side mirror. The car, which did not stop, wasn’t going that fast but the nudge threw me off balance and almost knocked me over. Luckily, I hit both brakes hard and somehow managed to stay upright but snapped a brake cable in the process.
W&S: (About the smack downs) Yeah, they’re really sensitive about that kind of stuff. I did that to the hood of a car once, and the car completely stopped and the driver seemed ready to get out.
Reader: And yes on the smack downs. Smacks instantly piss the Chinese off because they are quite protective of their vehicles. Am sure if you were not a “lao wei” (a foreigner), that the guy would have popped out of his car and confronted you. Just remember, though, you can only play the “lao wei” card so far. Haha. The rundown attempt surprised me but I saw him out of the corner of my eye just in time to move over.
Why, why, why? Why would something like this be in a road that gets tons of bike traffic? Why would they use this kind of tic-tac-toe design? What’s underneath it? What the hell is it? These questions always go through my small brain as I pedal by this thing on my Sunday ride.
Notice how the tic-tac-toe thing protrudes just above the road surface. All kinds of bad things can happen to you if you try to run over this during a lapse of attention. It’s in the worst spot, too. It’s positioned on the run-up to the Liede Bridge. You have cars and trucks picking up speed for the bridge ascent. Then there’s a side street on the right that feeds buses and trucks to the road. Then there’s a steady stream of motorcycles and three-wheel bike carts riding against traffic and trying to collide with you head on. With all this going you, you have to be careful to avoid the tic-tac-toe trap.
In most Western countries with functioning legal systems, officials would think twice about installing one of these things because a cyclist could easily slap a lawsuit against the city. The Chinalogical view of this would be: If you think it’s so dangerous, just stay away from it! Don’t be such a Drama King! Jeez oh peez.
Maybe I’ve been watching too much “Dexter” lately. I might have given the serial dumper too much credit. Oh, he’s definitely a serial dumper. And he’s certainly ballsy. But I don’t think he’s as cheeky as I’ve made him out to be. Specifically, I don’t think he’s been rigging up the caution tape around the piles he’s been leaving lately in some of the most scenic new parts of Guangzhou. A correction or clarification is in order for Waffles & Steel.
I say this because on Wednesday morning we discovered another dump-and-run pile in the same general spot – close to the TV Tower, the city’s newest landmark. We found it just as two guys in an official white city government pick-up truck were leaving the scene. Caution tape had already been neatly strung up around the pile of debris, stuffed into heavy duty burlappy white nylon bags. It seems like the guys in the pickup were on dawn patrol, searching for fresh piles and calling them in to clean-up crews.
The dawn patrol guys were getting into their truck when I whipped out my camera to shoot a photo of the mound. They saw me do this and quickly got out of the truck. It looked like they were getting ready to stop me from shooting. That’s when I realized that the last time I uploaded photos to my computer, I forgot to stick the memory card back into my camera. I put the camera back into my jersey pocket and said to the men, “Who’s doing this? I’m seeing these piles almost everyday.” One of them grumbled back, “Some really bad person is doing it. Yes, it’s happening almost everyday.”
It’s interesting how efficient and vigilant they’ve become. When the Asia Games start in the fall, Guangzhou simply can’t tolerate dump and runs.
We warmly welcome you to our civilized city of Guangzhou!!!
On today’s morning ride, we encountered the best dump-and-run ever! Regular readers of Waffles & Steel already know that I’m obsessed with these things. Background: It’s common in Guangzhou for trucks hauling construction debris to dump their loads in the street overnight. Most of them do it to avoid tipping fees or to save fuel and time. But I’m pretty sure that I’ve discovered the work of a serial dumper who’s trying to make a statement. The culprit has been dumping his load near Guangzhou’s newest icon – the TV tower, touted to be the world’s tallest. It looks like a giant rolled-up newspaper that’s scrunched in the middle and standing up on one end. This is the second time I’ve seen a dump-and-run pile left so close to the TV tower. Also nearby is the half-built stadium that will serve as the venue for the Asian Games’ opening ceremony. By picking this spot to dump, the culprit is basically giving the big finger to the Communist Party mandarins who run Guangzhou. It’s extremely brazen.
Be careful, I just dumped a massive pile of crap on the road. Have a nice day!
Initially, I thought the dumper favored this spot because it was convenient. It’s a frontage road along the Pearl River, and there are no CCTV cameras in the area. But something in today’s pile tells me something more is going on. Check out how the dumper carefully rigged up the warning tape around the pile. It was as if he were saying: “Careful, be sure to avoid this huge pile of debris I left on the road near the spectacular TV tower. Hah! Boo-yah!”
A calling card?
It even looks like they took a break for a game of cards. Before Guangzhou really started to rev up for the Asian Games, these piles would stay on the streets for two or three days. Now it seems that crews waste no time cleaning them up. A street sweeper was already working on it when I stopped to shoot it. He said it would take three people to get rid of it.
King of the mountain!
This was the first of two piles that we had to ride around this morning. It was mostly bags of dirt and other fill, dumped in the fast lane a few kilometers from my home. I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again. For me, the dump-and-runs are a perfect example of a popular attitude in China: “Screw everyone else! I’ll do what I can get away with!” Sure, this is a common attitude with the human race in general. But it’s way too common in China.
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