Well, it seems everything has to be transportation related in this blog, so after Bluey was gone, I figured I needed some wheels fast. The round trip cab fare from my house to campus is about 24RMB; and you have to trust your life to a cab driver. I'm an American and I need personal mobility, plus there are no cross-suburb buses to get me where I need to go. So I did the math and I could pay for a bike within a week...80 RMB and I was rolling on a vintage Chinese bicycle. It took about 45 minutes for the bike repair guy to get the brakes semi-functional, but hey it stops fast enough. Well, a couple of days of riding and a little complaining landed me a loaner e-bike, truly my heart's desire. This is actually the same e-bike I used for my dissertation research two years ago. The owner bought a car. This is a pretty sweet ride, but still only a two seater. It gets me where I need to go, but moving the family can be tough. We don't have a name yet, but how can this classless and uninspired ride be named? Any suggestions? I saw an e-bike today that had a sticker on the side "Future Spaceship". Hmmm? I ended up handing down my bicycle to Luke, one of the students who just arrived to work on some research with me. Now I'm rolling in style. I even got a helmet (but not one for all of the family). Luke and Elliott each have a bicycle, we went on a 10 mile bike ride through the city for a few hours to get them acclimated (I believe in
trial by fire). Remember, I was on my e-bike...no human power required. I felt like Mickey (Rocky's trainer) riding in the car next to Rocky (my students) pushing them to pedal harder, look out for that manhole, jump in front of that taxi, don't let that nasty granny on an e-bike cut you off, and above all look out for the donkey cart. They did fine and by the end of the trip they went from scared crapless to confident mixed traffic bike riders.
Well, it seems everything has to be transportation related in this blog, so after Bluey was gone, I figured I needed some wheels fast. The round trip cab fare from my house to campus is about 24RMB; and you have to trust your life to a cab driver. I'm an American and I need personal mobility, plus there are no cross-suburb buses to get me where I need to go. So I did the math and I could pay for a bike within a week...80 RMB and I was rolling on a vintage Chinese bicycle. It took about 45 minutes for the bike repair guy to get the brakes semi-functional, but hey it stops fast enough. Well, a couple of days of riding and a little complaining landed me a loaner e-bike, truly my heart's desire. This is actually the same e-bike I used for my dissertation research two years ago. The owner bought a car. This is a pretty sweet ride, but still only a two seater. It gets me where I need to go, but moving the family can be tough. We don't have a name yet, but how can this classless and uninspired ride be named? Any suggestions? I saw an e-bike today that had a sticker on the side "Future Spaceship". Hmmm? I ended up handing down my bicycle to Luke, one of the students who just arrived to work on some research with me. Now I'm rolling in style. I even got a helmet (but not one for all of the family). Luke and Elliott each have a bicycle, we went on a 10 mile bike ride through the city for a few hours to get them acclimated (I believe in
trial by fire). Remember, I was on my e-bike...no human power required. I felt like Mickey (Rocky's trainer) riding in the car next to Rocky (my students) pushing them to pedal harder, look out for that manhole, jump in front of that taxi, don't let that nasty granny on an e-bike cut you off, and above all look out for the donkey cart. They did fine and by the end of the trip they went from scared crapless to confident mixed traffic bike riders.
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