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Published: November 26th 2008
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bike saga
the bike graveyard The Great Bike Saga
The university campus is large with well set out lawns, fountains, walkways and roads and with 10,000 people living on campus, quite large.
So it is quite necessary to have a bike to get around if you don’t want to spend all day walking.
Often one teacher who is leaving sells their bike to the new teacher coming if there is a hand over time, but this did not happen for me so I needed to get a bike from somewhere else.
In the basement of our building is what the others call the bike graveyard where students and teachers have left bikes when no longer needed. Most of these are minus important parts such as a seat, a wheel, have a bike lock on, or are really decrepit. But amongst all these bike skeletons, one stood out. It had a seat, albeit damaged and hardly able to stay in one position, two good tyres, still with air in them, no bike lock and both wheels and a handle bar.
So after a quick dust off and a tyre pump up, I managed to get on it and ride to the local village
bike saga
head bike mechanic for tea out with my new teaching colleagues. Mind you no brakes, limited ability to steer, and a seat that had a mind of its own made for a slightly difficult bike ride.
The next day we went off to the East gate of the college where there are shops and stalls. One of the stalls is a bike business. A stall may be a little bit of a grand term for this group of three men who work from a small moveable container of bits and pieces and a piece of concrete and dirt surrounded by piles of rubbish and other assorted stuff.
What they lack in business premises they make up in expertise. They got to work straight away, replaced the saddle, replaced the brakes, greased the front wheel and adjusted and greased all other joints. All for 20 Yuan or about $5-00.
A friend of the bike repairmen who had dropped in and saw the foreigner standing around looking helpless, assisted me by telling me how much it cost in English, and politely helping me with paying the right money.
Purchased my first bike lock for 18Y but it ceased to work so
bike saga
the cart containing all the spare parts they seem to need now I have the biggest bike lock available to man, bought at the local supermarket for 29Y. I defy anyone to take my bike.
Today I visited the friendly bike repairmen again to get my pedal action happening more smoothly. My ability with charades has increased remarkably so I was able to mime that one pedal worked well and the other did not. So within 5 minutes it was all fixed and he mimed that it cost nothing. So I put 2Y in his hand and he gave me 1 back, so total cost of 25 cents to get my pedals fixed.
And making me the best customer of the day, my chain came off after I rode to the village and back, so back I went to the bike men who quickly fixed it and again wanted to charge me nothing, so this time I gave him half a Yuan.
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