On or about July 8, 2006 I will be flying from Guangzhou to Baltimore.
Depending on how my tickets work out I very likely will be going to the
airport straight from the Shimano Bikers' Festival. Though I still
haven't convinced laobanniang that the club's chartered bus should
detour and drop me off on their way back to Hainan so everyone can say
goodbye to me at the airport.
I have a bike in the US. More than one. Which is kind of funny since
I didn't get serious about biking until well after I got to China and I
still only have one bike in China.
But none of those bikes are any good. With the possible exception of a
pile of bike parts that I have access to which could probably be
reassembled into an okay road bike, maybe.
So I'm taking my bike back with me. Which lots of my local friends are
highly amused by cause it's only a 3000rmb bike with Shimano Sora and
even if is only 9 months old it's got over 11,000 kilometers on it and
why would I possibly want to take something like that to the US when
the US certainly has much better bikes.
But the much better bikes don't belong to me.
Besides which I like my bike. It's mine.
I know I won't be getting anything resembling the kind of riding in
that I do over here. The primary reason for going to the US is to
visit friends and family and most of them aren't real keen on 30kph or
20kph even. But I want to get some riding in.
If at all possible, I'd also like to look into Maryland area second
hand mountain bikes cause if I get creative with packing I should be
able to get most of two bikes into one box, come in under per piece
weight limit _and_ neatly avoid the politically weighted decision of
which friend's bike shop to get my mountain bike from by not getting it
from either of them.
Basically, I'm looking for information about bike related stuff, clubs,
organized rides, etcetera, in the Baltimore area roughly between July 8
and September 1.
Thanks,
-M