I found out who the man with the Colnago pedals is. Random comments he
made, various stories he told, and the fact that I've never heard
anyone disagree with anything he's said had already led me to the
conclusion that he was hot stuff.
But I still didn't know who he was.
And I didn't have the nerve to admit that I didn't know who he was.
So he was just "coach" which is what everyone calls him anyways.
I was having a not good bicycling day.
It started out alright. Sunrise on the highway bridge I'm so not
supposed to be using and so love. Being one of the first at the beach.
Kraft singles on whole wheat bread as a special indulgence. Practice
time trial going against the girl who, for lack of a better word,
indentured herself to the bike shop for two years so she could have a
Bianchi.
And I missed the turnaround, rode half a kilometer too far, and
completely nixed my results.
That was just the beginning of a long series of minor whingy
irritations that kept adding up. Many of which were completely
non-bicycle but most of which were my bike.
Fast forward to evening. I'm heading out the university's north gate
towards dinner when I see a bike friend. The only other serious roadie
on campus and he's not very serious. I was going to the beach everyday
before I became the slowest person with coach's printed schedule. He
might maybe go to the beach once a week if that.
He won't be going to the Guangzhou race cause he's going to go home for
the summer. But we chatted a bit about it and then he said something
like "it's evening, how come you're not at the beach?" "Coach's
schedule called for morning practice." "Coach Li Fei?" "Umm, well, I
don't know his name actually..." and my friend then proceeds to
describe coach. "yep, him."
Dinner eaten the next stop is the internet bar and google. It's a
relatively common name using characters and even moreso in pinyin so I
still don't know that much more about him that I didn't alredy know.
But...
http://en.olympic.cn/athletes/national_teams/2004-04-14/140525.html
At least as recently as 2004 he coached the national cycling team. Now
he's living down here and enjoys having people who volunteer to get up
at 5am to do intervals because he asked them to. And I'm the slowest
person with a printed training schedule.
-M