So I bought a mountain bike. An 08 Santa Cruz Superlight with a mix of SLX/XT 9sp components. It's nothing special. Just a single-pivot full-susser with an average build spec. Surprisingly, this is only the second mountain bike I've ever owned and the first one with gears and squishy bits. My first rig was a Surly 1x1 with a rigid fork. I built it up with a complement of inexpensive and durable components and lovingly referred to it as my po'boy mtb. I'll readily admit this new bike was an impulse buy. A UK expat was unloading it on one of the Beijing cycling list-servs and I immediately grabbed it up before I could think twice about it. Since I landed here last summer, I was trying to see how I could get a mtb here from home the cheapest way possible. As I mentioned in a previous post, my language skills aren't super great yet so I don't quite have the confidence in my ability to negotiate with a LBS here in order to not get screwed over on the price of a new bike. Thoughts of getting a bike here from the states were driving me mad. The cost of paying retail, boxing, and shipping a bike here were pretty high. Add to that the risk of potential damage to the bike and I was forced to look at more po'boy options. Singlespeeds, rigid forks, and cheap wheels were all I could even think about bringing to Beijing. And because I have no knowledge of the terrain or trail conditions out here, a po'boy mtb is something I just couldn't convince myself to buy. So when the opportunity presented itself, I couldn't pass it up. Or at least that's what I'll tell my parents if they ever find out that I'm building a bike dungeon clone in Beijing. "Financially independent" also means "buy more bikes" in my book.
In a way, buying one before the icy cold winter arrives was a smart idea. People are looking to unclutter their households which in turn made for a low(ish) price. In other way it kinda blows. The problem with buying a bike before the winter is that, you'll soon have no time, sunlight, or available non-life-threatening terrain to ride on. But I hope that dreams of me blasting down some singletrack will keep my dirty mtb thoughts warm throughout the icy winter. Hopefully my Chinese will be good enough come this spring that I can ride with the local Chinese mountain bike clubs in addition to the expat club rides. That way I can piggyback on their excursions past the 6th Ring Road and maybe find some more secluded trails that I wouldn't have found otherwise. As far as where I can mountain bike that I don't need a car to get to, rumor has it that Fragrant Hill's new No-Bikes policy is more of a soft-enforcement of the rules. Considering that this is China, I'm not particularly surprised. I have yet to go out there as it's on the opposite side of town from me, but at the same time, I haven't had to ride away from any security guards yet either. I heard through word of mouth that there's also a chance that I can ride on the old 2008 Olympic XC course which would be pretty cool (almost as cool as being able to ride on the Olympic velodrome, which I also need to find out if I can do). One of the Belgians I ride with brought up a good point the other day. Riding here is way less consistent. There are so many factors that work their way into your riding plans. You can roll out your front door from just about anywhere in the US. It's a little different here in Beijing. Knowing where to ride and how to get there are the biggest issues, especially with the crazy traffic in the city. Then there's pollution, with the AQI rising into the 300+ "Hazardous" range for several days at a time. Add to that hazy regulation of park usage policies and the potential for frustration grows that much larger. The chance that I might ride my mountain bike all the way across the city, risking life and limb in traffic, only to be turned away by a park official would totally suck. But sometimes you just have to live the dream and hope that you can regularly finagle your way onto some trails and it's because of that that I made this seemingly impractical purchase. Damn I miss some good ol' US mountain biking!
For the time being, I'll just be sitting idly on my mtb, checking the rear shock sag for the 23489th time, and making imaginary mountain bike noises (brrrraaapppp!) as I wheel it around in circles in my studio apartment's kitchen/livingroom/bedroom/bikeshop.
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