Idle Hands and Winter Wait

Whoever said "idle hands do the devil's work" must have known I was moving to China.  Since I've been here, I find myself constantly trying looking for things to do to.  The goal is to take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way in China, maybe make a friend or two, and keep myself from playing too much Sudoku and Tetris on my phone.

The group rides were a good way to kill a good chunk of time on Saturdays.  The early starts got me up and out the door before 7am and home by 3 or 4pm.  The added bonus of these rides is that I had a legitimate excuse to to not spend too many nights out each weekend, drinking heavily, eating street food, and making poor decisions (e.g. KTV).  Also, I would usually come back from these rides in shambles and it would only take 1/4th the amount of booze to knock a post-bonk Idiot down for the count.  Three cheers (literally) for cheap nights out!

But it's Winter now and the group rides have gone into hibernation until the Spring.  So without the riding to fill my schedule, I was scared that being left to my own devices would result in some serious weight gain and  belligerent drinking.  Thankfully, a fellow Peloton-er had the awesome idea to do a bike maintenance and repair class and asked yours truly to be the instructor.  And while it hasn't helped keep the poundage down, as someone who's slung a wrench or two I leapt at the opportunity to get my hands greasy again.  My crap pubic speaking skills and average mechanical ability probably don't make me the most ideal person to teach Wrench-Fu here but I damn sure have fun doing it.  We're set for an 8-course run to teach basic installs, derailleur and brake adjustments, headset and bottom bracket troubleshooting, cable installs, and a little bit of wheel truing.  I'm makig a little bit of cheddar on the side, but I'm mostly happy to get out of Bike Dungeon Ver2.0 and check out a new part of town.  The classes are held at a place called The Hutong, which is a kind of expat workspace where people host various classes that range from cooking traditional Chinese cuisine to art and photography.  I'm definitely planning to check out some of the course offerings there, especially the ones where I get to eat what I cook.  I'm still working on the not being a fatty-fatty-fatty here so going to cooking/eating lessons might work counter to my winter goals, but waiting for idle hands to do their damage sounds a lot worse than adding a little "roundness" to my belly.

Off to Class; The Extra Layers are Masking the "Roundness"