They invited me.

         They told me I could go.

         So I went.

         It's that simple.

         I cut short a holiday in another country and went through the hassle and cost of flying back to China solely because I was invited to go on this trip. So obviously there must be more to it than just a simple invitation. But first you'll have to get a lengthy bit of backstory and, as I like to make my journals self-contained pardon me if I repeat something you've read somewhere else.

         On June 11, 2000 I broke my leg in a freak swimming pool explosion. Really, I did. I know the words "swimming pool" and "explosion" aren't usually assosciated with one another but that's how I was injured. I was working as a lifeguard and something went catastrophically wrong in the pump house. Unfortunately, the boom bits happened as I was walking in to investigate the funny smell.

         Compound complex open fracture of the right tibia; Spiral fracture of the right fibula; A really chewed up right arm (that perfectly matched the shadow of completely undamaged skin on my face), well you get the picture...while I was at it I also inhaled some chlorine and did nasty stuff to my lungs.

         In the aftermath of the accident I went from being the kind of person who swims a mile or two a day to the kind of person who sometimes goes up as many as three flights of stairs a day. The metabolism takes a while to adjust to reduced activity levels. I didn't merely put on weight. I ballooned. I think I topped out at 250 pounds (from 186) before my weight started dropping again.

         I went back to university.

         I learned to walk again.

         I graduated university.

         I got pretty good at that walking thing.

         And my friend Mike decided riding a bike would be good for me.

         So he reached into his collection (which, while not containing anything especially fabulous is impressively large), got out a bike that could be adjusted to fit me, adjusted it, put air in the tires and sent me toddling off down a low traffic dead end rural road while he and another friend went to work on fixing motorcycles.

         Oh, what fun! What incredible fun! In the two, or very possibly three, kilometers I did that day I saw squirrels, I saw a deer, I saw a bunch of really pretty houses. It's a good thing I had such a fabulous time because the next day even using narcotics for the pain wasn't enough to coax me very far out of bed.

         A little more than a year later, about a month after I moved to China, I decided to buy a bicycle. Taxis were impractical for wandering, I was afraid of the bus system, and I'd thoroughly explored everything within my extremely limited walking range. For 220 rmb I ended up with an upright single speed comfort bike that had originally been marked at 498 rmb. I drove a unintentionally hard bargain due to my not wanting this particular bike but by wanting a much cheaper bike which, for some reason, the shop flat out refused to sell me.

         It wasn't a particularly nice bike. No other bike before or since has ever given me a bruised ass during sedate riding on paved roads. But, it served its purpose, until eventually (during the intense boredom that was SARS) I had a few 50km days.

         After it got stolen I got a nicer comfort bike (400rmb) and when that got stolen a hideously ugly secondhand mountain bike (500rmb). So far as I know the mountain bike has managed to not get stolen. I gave it away when I moved to the tropics.

         It's warm in the tropics. If you don't regularly exercise outside the mere idea of exerting yourself outside seems pretty crazy. So, when the road bike I picked up (for free) in the US got stolen I didn't replace it. Six months later my new job let me go to the bike shop and pick something out as a contract signing bonus. Three months later when that road bike (600rmb) was stolen I didn't replace it. It took another seven months but eventually the bus system became too inconvenient, the taxis too expensive, the things to do within the practical limit of my walking ability too boring and I had to get a bike.

         The first place I went had road bikes in the 200-300rmb range. They weren't merely bad. They were scary bad. The next place was the shop my previous bike had been purchased from. I went on my own and used my limited Chinese to ask questions about price and stuff. They wanted 600rmb for the same bike I'd had before. The third store didn't have anything I liked. The fourth, seen completely by accident, on my way home was the Giant shop. The bike closest in quality to what I'd been looking at down the road was around 100rmb more expensive. However, when I came back with translators to help me their prices (which were actually written on price tags) stayed the same whereas the other shop's prices had gone up significantly. And there was this real nice salesman who spent about 30 minutes enthusing at me in great detail about how thoroughly wonderful the 24,000rmb carbon bike was before offhandly telling me I really oughtn't get a bike like that but should go for something more like the 698rmb one I was already eyeing.

         (He wasn't a salesman and two weeks later would buy that 24,000rmb bike for himself.)

         I got the 698rmb bike.

         I got a water bottle cage.

         I got an odometer.

         I got gloves.

         I was biker chick.

         I was too cool for words.

         I'd never actually met anyone in China who owned a bike more expensive than this one or who was more serious about bikes than myself.

         When the salesman who wasn't a salesman wasn't selling me the carbon bike he mentioned something about a bike club that met in the evenings out by the beach and rode to the train station. The beach was really far away from where I was living downtown but after a fair amount of effort on my part I finally made it out there.

         To the place I was told they met.

         At about the time they met.

         But no one was there.

         So I went home.

         One evening I went to the bike shop for something. I have no recollection what was broken or needed adjusting but I was there when some people were getting ready to leave to go to the beach. A bunch of boys on a variety of not very nice mountain hybrids and some weirdo dressed in spandex riding a road bike. I mean puh-lease it wasn't like there could possibly be anyone in China who was sufficiently seriously into bikes and good enough at it to justify having the word Shimano written on his (admittedly rather good looking) ass. Talk about an Armstrong wannabe. This level of slavish affectation went beyond cool bike person to total dweeb.

         Even though it was drizzling I went with them. I didn't know it but except for the weirdo they weren't bike club. And I still don't know why he was escorting them out and back since, except for the weirdo, I haven't seen any of them since. It was obvious that 'Shimano Boy' was a stronger rider than myself or the others but it wasn't obvious to me just how strong a rider he really was.

         (While my helmet and handlebar tape don't match, I do have my own set of spandex with Shimano written on my ass and he's now a pretty close friend)

         A few days later I went back to the beach on my own intending to go swimming. But this time I met the bike club. When I saw the spandex wearing crowd head out in a paceline I had to admit to myself that they weren't wannabes. It wasn't affectation (except maybe for the yellow "livestrong" bracelets). Struggling along the route I kept passing crowds of people who had just seen them go by. Crowds of people who shouted encouragement at me. And I wanted to be. I really really wanted to be.

         Not very long after that I first heard about the yearly Round the Island trip and was unequivocaly told, under no uncertain circumstances, that I couldn't go. Furthermore, I shouldn't even bother with trying to make the effort to train for the 2006 ride because I wouldn't be able to do it. Set your goals for 2007, and maybe you'll have a chance, I was told.

         I don't think the person telling me this knew me well enough at the time to know that saying this would have the specific effect of making me want to go even more. Though, at least in the beginning, I made no special efforts. Simply going out with the bike people and trying (but never succeeding) at riding all the way to the train station was more than hard enough.

         I'm not sure I ever really started making a special effort to be allowed to go on this trip. Because the bike people became my friends. People who, by dint of being spandex wearing freaks, could understand as no other Chinese people could what I felt like when strangers stared or yelled at me. I went on the evening rides because it meant seeing my friends. And I went on long and lonely rides because I'd always liked that, just that long and lonely now means 4 or 5 days with frequent breaks instead of 4 or 5 hours with frequent breaks.

         They invited me.

         They told me I could go.

         So I went.

         It's that simple.