August 4th

August 4, 2023

Starbucks

I've got to pop back to the bank today, which means riding into town again. The clerk phoned me once I got home yesterday to say he needed my signature on a document. This didn't really surprise me, as it's par for the course in relation to the protracted process of getting my UK bank account funds transferred here, along with having my pension payments paid into my Taiwanese account. When I say protracted, we're talking over a year of letter writing, form filling, emails, phone calls and visits to a notary. With my UK account having been closed and totally disappearing into the ether back in early January, it's a just as well I still work, otherwise I'd have had to sell a kidney by now.

Today's plan is to ride beside the river in town once the bank thing is done and head to a Starbucks for a coffee, so I wear cycling clothes and wheel my yellow bike out the door mid-morning. The weather is OK after the typhoon. It's windy still, but the overcast sky doesn't look like it'll bring any serious rain. Mind you, I thought that yesterday and got absolutely soaked coming back from the bank.

After a minute or so, I get on a wide section of the 114, which narrows just ahead as it makes its way through the center of town, and I've just ridden past Carrefour when my seat drops dramatically and something metal hits the tarmac. The front end of my Brooks seat has come clean off.

I certainly didn't see this coming. Sure, the leather is a bit distressed, but it looked like it'd last another year or two.

This isn't the first Brooks that's failed me. Both metal rails broke on one while touring Burma, and the front adjustment bolt snapped on another while riding in Spain. This time it's the leather that's gone belly up.

Thankfully I'm just a few minute's from home, so I turn around and head back. I've an unused brooks Swift that I can put on. It's pretty narrow, but looks nice. We'll see what my posterior thinks of it soon enough.

Debbie got the Swift from a coworker and it's been stood on a shelf for years and feels hard. And I mean hard. When I tap it with my knuckle, it sounds like a piece of old oak. I've a bit of Proofhide left in a small tin and smear some around the rivets, then use a mini-tool to swap it over for the broken one. It doesn't take long and I head back out.

The twentysomething bank clerk looks relieved to see me. Maybe his boss had a go at him for not getting it right yesterday. After signing the document, I make my way to the river a few minutes' away, then follow a bike path, riding upstream and into a stiff wind.

The gusts keeps me cool. Not cool as in jacket weather - it just means my sweat doesn't linger on the surface of my skin so much.

The bicycle path starts as wooden boards and goes to poured concrete, then block paving before eventually getting to a series of lanes. During all this, the it leaves the town, where houses back onto to the route. These are mostly shabby-looking places, but they're worth a ton due to their prime location. Rice fields soon appear and the new shoots have recently been planted. The lane finally veers through a neighborhood likely built in the 1990s. It's all quite nondescript and photo opportunities are scarce.

It's nice to be in a chilled AC environment and I get a table in Starbucks by the long window. There's a novel in my saddlebag, but I forget all about it.

There's a Uniqlo nearby and I pop in and look around for a few minutes before retracing my tracks back along the bicycle path. The Brooks Swift is making its presence felt and it's good that this isn't an epic ride. Maybe I'll use it on my commuter bike and transfer the sprung Brooks Conquest over.

Today's ride: 24 km (15 miles)
Total: 3,188 km (1,980 miles)

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