My New Rig

9.5.2010

On Sunday Shortly after I wrote my last post Kevin and I went out to have some lunch at Muslim place downstairs. Emerging from a filling plate of homemade noodles and salty stir-fry, Kevin dragged me over to a street side vendor of bicycles. They wanted 150 rmb (like 22 bucks) for a shabby built street bike. Maybe we said, but we were really looking for a bike for 100 rmb and I was not about to buy crap. We walked down the street to a “real” bike shop that gave exorbitant sticker prices (for Chinese standards). I was dumbfounded to find a rip-off Specialized S-Works—a $6000 bike internationally being sold for 600 kuai.
We determined that the bicycle street vendors were destined to rip us off because our lack of Chinese skills. We were just about to give up and wait for Marx to help us when we stopped at a woman’s stand right outside of the Fudan campus. She started with a hard 200 kuai asking price for the stock Chinese everyday bike. A little much we bargained her down to 150. She decided to throw in a basket and we were more less set on her price. After she took her time installing the basket I gave the rig one last test ride. But something was up, I parked the bike and found the crank arm was just about to fall off and the seat couldn’t handle my American body weight. I couldn’t buy this bike, as a former bike mechanic I couldn’t buy crap. We left the troll-like street bike merchant in the dust as she chassed after us giving us any price we wanted.
Back at the apartment we saw Marx who immediately took us out to do some more shopping. He took us back to one of the stalls we had been but couldn’t negotiate any better price. Marx after returning from talking with the merchant: “he said that these are nice used bikes. They are 200- now but if you buy two at the same time they could be 200-” Kevin: “That’s the same price.” And so on.
We were losing patience and we didn’t want to buy someone’s stolen bicycle so Marx led us to a nearby bike shop that was a little more authentic than any of the places we had seen before. They showed me the biggest bike they had, which still made my knees think they were using the little BMX rig that I had in high school. Regardless of the pain in my lower extremities the bike was pretty well made and for 320- we could get a nice ride with a basket and an extra lock. It was a sale for Kevin too and we went to the bank to get some more funds. At this point I only had some hundreds bills and a little mixed change so instead of paying the full 320 I just handed the vendor 300- and left with my bike. I rolled out of the bike shop with a slick new black commuter and Kevin followed in a blue identical with Marx sitting on the rear basket.
At sunset I took my new rig out for a spin, swerving in and out of traffic, passing up grandma and grandpa in the bike lanes and running stop lights—when in Rome, do as the Romans.