Tuesday (T-3)

September 24, 2019

Fiddly Bits

The Factory surprised me with the option to have laser engraved custom graphics added free of charge. Then they put them in not quite the right place.

Tuesday morning, I found myself circling around the old airport / new central business district trying to find a tucked away in a corner bike shop owned by one of the many people from the days when Hainan only had one bike club and all the cyclists were part of the same group.

In previous years I still would've gone to the Giant bikes that started everything for me but, after my experience prior to the last tour with them scratching up the paint job on my frame, I'm completely unwilling to trust another expensive piece of gear to them.

I feel it says something about the Giant that they currently have multiple never ridden steel big wheels with Brooks Saddles as advertising pieces.

The guy I thought I was going to see wasn't there but there were two mechanics hanging around who, like many of the consummate professionals I've encountered over the years, valued their time not at all when faced with an interesting problem. So I didn't just get new cables to go along with my raised up handlebars, and I didn't just get the pedal extender added to my rightfoot pedal; I had my crankset taken apart and the internals greased (which the Factory hadn't done), I had a variety of tests done to try to find a better way to mount my handlebar bag, and I got gifted a wrench to use in the event that my non quick release rear wheel needs a tire change.

They charged me CNY 50. I gave them 100. I also gave the one mechanic the TravelAgents which had been on my previous tour bike and which had been in the packet of stuff that absolutely were supposed to be installed on this tour bike. Now this bike doesn't actually need the extra cable pull the way that one did but, since I had them, the TravelAgents would have given me finer control and they had been in the original spec requests. However, the cable routing on the final design (which I admittedly signed off on because I couldn't visualize the final product to that degree and I thought they were following my instructions) makes no allowance for them.

I'd been planning on spending the afternoon with my new assistant Tyra giving her a supervisory crash course in how to use some of the software on the laptop I'm giving her while I mostly worked on waterproofing my route maps but, instead, I got a call from the Public Security Bureau asking me to come in and do some translation work for them on a project we'd been negotiating for the past week and change and which very easily could have been done from anywhere I wanted (given that I wasn't supposed to go on their wifi and some people had been told off for previously letting me back into the office area) but which they really preferred I do on site.

Cause you know, not every interaction I have with the Men in Blue is confrontational.

Sweep out corrupt elements. Protect the environment. Foster development. Preserve peace.

Today's ride: 27 km (17 miles)
Total: 27 km (17 miles)

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