Oooh, purty ...

After spending all day yesterday doing as little as possible and
spending the maximum amount of time whining about how cruddy I felt, I
decided that it was vitally necessary to get back on the bike today.

You fall off you got to get back on.

Even if it wasn't so much a falling off as a being knocked off.
Besides, today's group ride would be an opportunity to see lots of my
friends.

There was another foreigner. Italian. Works for Airbus and has been
living all over. His frame came from home but the rest of the bike's
parts were bought in Singapore (where he spent the last three years).

With bladed spokes, a carbon fork, and all sorts of other lovelies he
is now the owner of the most expensive bike in town. Then we found out
his mountain bike costs still more (though I find it hard to imagine
_how_). Thus making him owner of the most expensive _and_ second most
expensive bikes in town and the new most popular kid on the block.

Especially since it was rather quickly apparent that his bike isn't
merely a expensive toy owned by someone with too much money but
actually an expensive toy owned by someone who knows how to use it.

I do foresee one minor problem. The previous holder of the title of
"owner of the most expensive toys" is called Hai Ge and his two
favorite things are racing and mountain bikes. This new guy's Chinese
name is Ai Ge and his two favorite things are mountain biking and
racing.

Personally, I could have done without some of the early attitude about
the speed we were going (or more precisely the speed we _weren't_
going) because it was a 40 person ride and the big groups tend to
attract a lot of people who can't even manage the 20-25kph average that
tends to stick me near the front of the pack (and puts our best riders
in leader mode on their slowest bikes[1]) but after he learned that I
was going that speed because it is all I can manage rather than because
I was also s l o w i n g down he stopped griping to me. So that
was okay.

And he knows how to do all his own bike repair stuff in _English_ so
there is all sorts of hands-on stuff I can learn that I haven't been
able to pick up from the mechanics because I can't understand what
they're saying.

-M

[1] Even if he is the bike shop manager, there is something very very
humbling about being passed on an uphill by someone riding a
three-speed steel upright with forty peoples' worth of midmorning snack
on the rack.