A friend of mine is really into biking. He recently graduated to a really nice drop handlebar road bike which he rides along the riverside. Since getting his new bike, he has allowed me the use of his older yet also very nice bike (as seen above). It comes at great timing as I’m getting pretty bored with my daily exercise routine and have been looking for a new form of exercise. But nothing is truly free, as I found out, as this bike has been taking me through the circles of hell.
The first thing is the front wheel needed to be replaced. So I went around to the official Giant stores to check prices. I eventually went a neighborhood repair shop to ask the price and that guy just went ahead and did it without even asking me, and had a bit higher price. Also the quality of his is not as good as elsewhere. I was pretty upset, but I’ll take it as a lesson that in Taiwan, the local neighborhood places are usually not as good at customer service as the big chain places, which I know seems like an oxymoron.
The second thing is that I was looking for my air pump and can’t find it. I’m pretty sure that I had it during my last move as I know which box I had it in, but it’s gone now. Either the movers took it, or some neighbors stole it. Again doesn’t seem like a big deal, but this air pump actually meant a lot to me as it was the air pump I’ve used all my life. I have fond memories of it over the years of my life using it to pump air into my various bikes and balls.
The third thing is that I have a bike lock, but I don’t have the key. I remember this during the move, finding some keys and thinking to myself “what the heck are these for!?” and just throwing them out. As you can see I have my bike in my apartment, which is an unusual thing in Taipei. Most people leave it out in the hallway of their apartment building and just leave a lock on it, but as I have no lock, I’m keeping it inside my apartment.
I haven’t gotten a new lock yet cause I really don’t know what kind of lock to get. It’s a nice bike so I’d actually like to use it to run errands around town and to get to my appointments. However for the most part there is no place to safely lock up a bike in Taipei. Mostly people will just put their bike on the sidewalk and lock it to itself (i.e. the wheel to the frame) and not actually lock it to anything like a pole. So technically somebody could just pick up your bike and take it. This is one big reason why 100% of the bikes on the street are really bad ones, as people won’t really care if they are stolen. So I’m debating with myself if I should risk taking it around town, or just use it for riding along the riverside.
The fourth thing is a true “first world problem” meaning that you should probably just skip it as it’s just the complaint of a spoiled brat. I want to be able to listen to my music while riding. Not so much when riding in traffic, but for when I’m on the bike trail along the river. The bike has a storage bag under the seat, but the problem is that my earphones while very nice, are not long enough. Extension cords are an option, but that means that my inline controller on my earphone cord wont’ work if I attach it to an extension cord. Meaning that I can’t skip songs, and I love to skip songs. So I figured that I would get a mount to put my phone on handlebars. There are some super expensive options which I didn’t want to try cause I would feel like too much of a brat paying that much just to be able to skip songs. So I got a Chinese cheap version, but the problem is that my handlebars are too wide so it didn’t work. Thankfully the shop let me return it for a refund.
In the end I decided that I’ll just bring my backpack, and put my phone in there. And if I don’t feel like bringing my backpack, I’ll uses the extension cord and put my phone in the bike’s bag and just load up a podcast or audio book so no need for skipping. And finally my week of misery is over and everything for the bike is set up and ready to go…but of course tomorrow will be a rainy day.
As an added bonus you can see some of the weights I use when doing my exercises at home. Seeing as I have been able to stick to an exercise routine, I think I will end up investing in some home gym equipment as I know I can make myself use it everyday. Perhaps in a year or two every picture on this blog will just be pictures of myself in the mirror with a shirt off showing my muscles. Let's all hope for the larger muscles but not the larger vanity.
