Food Picture of the Day

Spicy Flavored Oysters.
Rate 1- 10: 9

Race Next Weekend

Now I need to find a way to get my Reynolds here.

Shanghai Group Ride

I found this local club called Flying Hairy Legs which is basically made up of a whole bunch of expats like myself thru a guy named Martin I met on Thursday morning.
Meeting time: 7:00 am at the German Center (10 min ride from where i am staying and living)





Ride Distance: approx 100k. I need to start thinking in km because I have no idea how far that is.

# of people: id say there were a good 25 people at the start




about 40 minutes into the ride we were riding on what felt like a Highway because it had 4 lanes and metal guard rails on the side. Then the Semi pulled up next to us going just a little faster than we are and the next thing I know there were 6 of us sucking this guys draft going id say 45 mph (I have no speedo but I was spinning out in my 53/12 ). We did this for id say 3 to 4 miles until we turned off to head toward the Pudong International Airport. Not soon after the airport the road turned narrow with little traffic.




Martin is on the local Trek Development team (riding a Trek in Marco Polo colors) turns to me and says "lets go" he takes off.. I jump on.. I take two pulls and then it's time for me to pop (HR 190). little did I know there was the sprint maker 1 mile up.

Anyhow, after that we stopped at a local market where a bunch of locals were looking at us like we were aliens.




On the way back it was much slower and I had a chance to talk to everyone. People from Singapore, UK, Scotland, Austrailia, US, I think I'm missing a bunch.

One of the guys took a picture of me on the nice FLAT road on the way back. Definitely different scenery around here..




Last note.

CRIT RACE NEXT WEEKEND!!! Grandstay's going to "rock the free world" in Shanghai.

Traffic Rules in China

Green light= Go
Yellow light = Go Faster
Red light = Stop (see below for more details)

So far everything seems ok... Then you get the

Red (right turn) = Go ( The traffic will slow down for you)
Red (left turn) = Go (when the car in front of you goes or you can squeeze in between cars they will slow down)
Red (no cars) = Go

So as far as I can tell Red equals Go but its up to your judgment on whether its safe or not.
Oh... one more rule. Yellow line = Optional (oncoming traffic will slow down)

But there is a good side... On todays ride no one honked at me to get off the road.. Everyone respected that I was on the road and gave me plenty of room.

Bike lane traffic in the AM... not bad huh.

Chinese class begins

Well it turns out that a Mandarin Chinese language school is located in the same building as where I am going to live. I signed myself right up to start taking classes this Thursday. Hopefully I can learn enough in the first few classes to communicate with the taxi drivers enough where I no longer have to pull out the Map. That in itself is a interesting because I've come to realize that none of the taxi drivers here have ever seen a map. I'll pull out the map and they'll start looking at it upside down, sideways, you name it even though its got Chinese written right next to the English words. oh.. we've also learned not to take the Red or Blue taxis, they tend to not know where they are going.

And try to avoid the motorcycle taxis, not sure how safe they are

Maiden Voyage

Well... 6am i was on the bike. It felt great. Not 2 minutes into the ride I meet up with the GM for Specialized Asia to do a few hot laps around century park. We rode for an hour with two laps (i was ready to puke) 2 months off the bike is rough... just happy to be back on.


Next race November 18th... time to start the intervals.

The Bike has Arrived

My long awaited bike has arrived!!!! could'nt wait to unpack.


I can't wait to get out tomorrow, but have no idea where to go. but that doesnt matter at this point. AM weather 65 and sunny!!!

Living in a Hotel

Well its now almost 3 weeks living in a hotel... granted its a nice hotel but i am really looking forward to moving into my new apartment once my China Work Permit clears. Hopefully within the next two weeks.



There is however a nice plaza within two minute walking that has a Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Macdonald's, Starbucks, among other international cuisines, and also lots of shopping. So Cat and I have been visiting there almost every day.



Today we decided to try an Italian restaurant, I was throughly impressed. Should have taken a picture of the meal, but Cat took a picture of the pigs feet we had the other night...



Oh.... my bike finally arrives tomorrow... Im dying to go for a ride... good think the sun still comes up at 5:45am here and its in the 60's so ill be riding in the AM... will post what the streets looks like once im out.

Tor is the best

I'm not an IT expert but i downloaded the program called TOR that apparently routes my internet traffic thru different locations for security reasons... or in my case around the giant firewall that i sit behind being in China. This is allowing me to actually view my blog where i could only just post and not view.

There is a down side... Today my ip address is located in Bonn Germany and now every title block and menu bar for the blogger site is in German... anyone know what "Mitteilungen Bearbeiten" means?

Cat is fully recovered

Cat want's me to tell that she is much happier after all the meds....

Pudong at night

Oh.. i figured i should add a picture of Downtown Pudong viewed from downtown Shanghai

First Blog from China

Well, my original stance on a blog is that why would anyone spend the time to read anything I type. I figured though, since I moved to china I can come up with a few interesting topics. At least Dave Z. will read my blog since he does nothing at work except for reading blogs anyway.

Technically I cant read bogs in China (even my own), but ill post a few quirky daily life stuff I come across while i'm here.

Well i'll start off by saying after Cat getting hit with food poisoning 1 hr into a 24 hour trip and 3 days in a hospital, we are finally getting settled. Granted we're living out of a hotel with our luggage, but its better than the hospital.
















Second part is the fact that I found the LBS which sells high end products... Not sure how the locals afford it but I guess its there for the foreigners like me. I stopped by long enough to find out that there are a few people that ride on the weekends from where I will live. Also found the local message-board (www.bikehome.net) where apparently there was a CRIT today and I still don't have my bike yet.



Any how I guess this will be good for my first post... will post more soon.