The weather looks like it won’t cooperate, but if it does, we’ll be meeting at the fountain in People’s Square at 8:00 PM, heading out around 8:15 or so. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, I intend on staying home and eating a wheel of cheese and waiting to go out on Thursday evening, but if you want to meet up, go ahead. As usual, picture is unrelated.

The night started off poorly. Heading over to people’s square, some dipshit decided to ride down the wrong side of the road. When I yelled at him and tried to avoid him, he t-boned me, then, with a “mei guanxi, mei guanxi” rode off, leaving his keys on the street. My wheel was still a bit wobbly, but ride-able, although, at this point, I think it might be a bent fork.

Waiting for me at people’s square were a big crew of Chinese guys, all of whose names, unfortunately, I cannot remember, but Datou, Pipi, Nino and Nono were amongst them. Valentin showed up a little later and off we went, down a very crowded Nanjing Dong Lu, then up through Hongkou to find a Family Mart that had beer.

We went back down south through a darkened, tiled street that was clearly a tourist destination but I’ve never even seen it; highly recommended late at night. We continued on down to the Bund, where we hung out in front of the Prada and Chanel stores in the Peninsula hotel, much to the chagrin of the guards. The Chinese guys did tricks and Valentin and I pretended we knew how to do tricks.

After a good deal of waiting around for something or other, since my Chinese isn’t especially spectacular, we broke. Those of us returning home went tearing down Bejing lu, a street that I have very curiously neglected in my time here. It will not happen again.

And, of course, here’s a map of where we went. More or less. There were a few turns I couldn’t follow up in Hongkou:

June 2, 2010

Wish you were there? Show up next Wednesday, or better yet, this Saturday for Beer Bash. Pictures are forthcoming.

Hey, here’s a thing that’s happening! Check out this cool flier.

We’ll ride around the French Concession, have a few beers and enjoy the great weather we’ve been having. Come on out, it’ll be fun.

Just so everyone knows. we’ll be riding on Wednesday, June 2 instead of doing our standard Tuesday/Thursday rides like we normally do. Route to be determined, because we’re tapped for ideas. North? South? As usual, meet at the fountain in People’s Square (that’s just outside of the Shanghai Museum, for those of you who don’t know) at 8:00, we’ll set off at 8:15 or so. Picture, again, unrelated.

Finding a pair of shoes that can stand up to the rigors of riding a bike can be tough. Sure, you could be a smart person, get a pair of SIDIs and some look KEOs and ride clipless, but that’s not an option for urban adventurers such as we are. Incidentally, China has cheap shoes in spades, and, while cheap in both price and quality, they’re better than riding in bare feet and have a certain degree of cachet attached.

Warrior shoes stands as one of those “China famous brands”, which basically means there’s a good deal of Shanghai and China pride in them but nobody outside of China has really heard of them. The company got started in 1935, with this particular model coming out in the ’70s. They were popular for a good deal of time until other brands were discovered, leaving Warrior shoes to become the footwear of choice for migrant workers doing construction work. They’ve gotten a bit of a renaissance thanks to hipsters (us) picking up on them, but do they stack up as a decent pair of shoes?

Short answer: No. The most important part, the sole, is too flimsy to be a good bike shoe. It is, however, nicely grippy and sticks to the pedals well. The bigger but less bike specific issue is that the shoes come in size ranges. I happen to sit firmly between the 41-43 and 44-36 ranges and therefore can either buy one size down and wear the shoes without socks, or buy one size up and wear the shoes with two pairs of socks. You may fare better, what with your feet not being the exact same size as mine.

Beyond cycling, however, the shoes do exactly what they need to do (keep syringes from stabbing my feet) and the shell-toe is nice for keeping my feet dry for .3 seconds longer than a full canvas shoe would. I couldn’t really ask for too much more out of a pair of 45 RMB ‘kicks’ that can almost certainly be had for cheaper. Plus, they have a creepily convenient bonus of matching my bike, colorwise.

Interested? I’ve found them on Xiangyang lu a few hundred meters north of speedcat, 585 Zunyi lu, and in the convenience store at Jiao Tong University. If you’re looking, you’ll probably have a hard time NOT finding them.

Tyler wrote a little story about air quality a while back, but there’s a new wrinkle. Now that Expo’s here, Shanghai has put real time measurements online. The site can be found here. This is important, especially for those days when just being outside makes you tear up and strips the paint off of your bicycle. Now you’ll have an idea of just how much shit is being funneled into your lungs.

Other, older measurements (for cross reference) can be found at AMFIC and the official Shanghai Air Quality site.

Oh, and so our friends in Beijing don’t get left out, there’s measurements for their air here. This is a twitter link and therefore may require some…creative internetting. It measures PM2.5 instead of PM10 and is therefore better, but it nevertheless lacks that expo sheen. For more info on what particulate actually MEANS, check out the fantastic information at AMFIC again, the always-useful wikipedia, or the less-bike-more-china-specific Cost of Pollution.

Pat yourselves on the back for not contributing to the airborne detritus, then slap yourself a little harder so you can cough up that black lung.

Have you ever been under the Bund? Did you even KNOW there was an ‘under the Bund?’ I had the vaguest inkling that something like that existed, but it was only during our abortive ride on Thursday night that we discovered. After having had a few beers and being shoo’d off the Bund by overzealous police (which they will do to anyone with a bike, but if you’re a foreigner they’ll wait a little bit before proceeding), Jeff stopped to take a leak at a bathroom carved into the big sea wall. He walked out a little while later. “Follow me, and bring your bike,” he said. “But it smells like piss in there!” I responded.

Beautiful. If not for getting kicked out.

I’m sure glad I went in. Under the Bund is a long, slick hallway, sort of like a parking garage, but completely unutilized. We rode around for a little bit before discovering that it was actually some ant-like tunnel to transport cops from point a to point b, at which point we were kicked out by the li’lest police officer, who, naturally, had the biggest complex. The others all found us to be entertaining, especially when Jeff fell off the back of his bike while trying to wheelie.

Here, have a video of a thing.

And some other stuff from the evening:

Jetpack Jeff starts the night right.

The bund at night.

Jeff's best "Smooth Criminal" impression

Cops apprehend salesmen fencing fake Haibao dolls

Shanghai sure likes its blue lights

We ride off into the neon light, laughing at the law as we ignore posted signs

Could you discover the running theme in this post?

I don’t have access to that little events bar over in the corner, but just letting everyone know that we WILL be riding tonight, May 6. Meet at People’s Square fountain at 8 o’clock, leaving around 8:15. The usual, if you will. Should be nice weather, maybe we’ll ride over to expo or something. Picture unrelated.

Yup.

Like teletubbies on wheels!

When it rains in Shanghai, the streets all of a sudden become bursts of color as people don their ponchos and go flitting through the drenched streets. One of my friends likened it to ghosts floating around and dubbed the kits “ghost coats.” Some others, perhaps even those reading this site, gave them the more socially unacceptable but more appropriate moniker “Rape Cape.” And then, not to be topped, another certain somebody goes around calling them by the equally appropriate (except when the ponchos are equipped with viewing windows) “Public Masturbation Jacket.” I’m still waiting for the Abu Graib shot with one of these things.

Clear front included for exhibitionists.

The problem with the PMJs is that they’re made for people riding scooters or beat up old China Famous Brand bikes. These invariably offer more protection than our waifish, ridiculously-unfunctional-except-in-prime-condition fixed gears, which means that if we want to go out in the rain, we either have to find some snap on fenders or ride around in rubber pants, and, well, the rubber pants I only wear to bed, to keep the sheets clean.

I’ve tried sitting on the rape cape, I’ve tried hanging plastic bags from the back of my messenger bag as it really low, but really, I think the only solution for me is to actually pony up and get some fenders, because honestly, it rains way too often here and getting caught in it is the worst, worst thing.

Stay away from spicy foods. Alternately, don't ride in the rain.

I don’t think I’m doing it right.

This thing IS a trade show, after all. It’s not like bikes come pre-made, and the components have to come from somewhere (Pakistan or Anhui, apparently). Some of these components are anodized and look really pretty, and some of them look kind of dirty and will be clearly put on kid’s budget bikes. The number of stalls selling machines that build wheels was pretty impressive as well. Of course, there are apparel salesman, some from right here in Shanghai! There were some famous brands, some lesser brands, but the gap between the high-end brands and the imitators was pretty evident. Some things were pale copies. Other things were clearly inspired by the glitzy brands but had missed the mark by a pretty wide margin. For instance, these metal aerojokes. These things are HEAVY.

A lot of the booths had “No Pictures!” signs up. I couldn’t figure it out until I asked one guy (after being waved off a couple of shitty no-name brands and wondering why they wouldn’t want free publicity) and he said, “Well, you look like you’re not going to steal our work, so go ahead!”

Hell, they even have a spot to complain.

There was a trials set up. I missed the fun, but then again, I wasn’t supposed to take pictures of this at all.

Knog showed up with some stuff. I guess to protect their IP.

This kid was dancing around like a fool to the metal music in some bmx video that was playing.

I have a special place in my heart consisting of love/hate for Zipp 404s. Love, because they are nice wheels. Hate, because some scrub dickhead I used to race against in college had a set, and 1) he wasn’t good 2) he was a dickhead.

On the metro home, I stood next to somebody who happened to have just purchased the exact same bag I have. It was an awkward several stops.

Lots more pictures in this here gallery!