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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

News Cycles and Links: Free Bikes!!!


*According to Cycling News Asia, Rikulau, the Taiwanese custom frame manufacturer is giving away FREE bikes. Yes, FREE!!! Rikulau specializes in high quality titanium and steel tubed frames and has a reputation for some very nice bikes. The new promotion offers a Buy One Get One Free for Father's Day. Between June 20th and July 20th, you can buy a 6AL-4V Titanium frame for 12% off and get a Reynolds 853 Mtb for FREE. If you don't mind graphics that look like the 80's Thundercats logo, this is a great deal.

*The KMT English language cheerleader, The China Post, speculates on what the ECFA cargo cult will mean for Taiwan bicycles.

*Cycling Satin Cesena discusses the important issue of bikes for women.

*Sesquipedaustralian writes the Epilogue of their travels around Taiwan last Lunar New Year.

A Ride With Mosaic : 鐵馬賽克


Gaomei Wetlands

After logging only one meaningful ride in two weeks, mainly due to the weather, the rain clouds parted just in time for a warm-up ride with Rocky and his crew from T-Mosaic.


A Group on the Go

The ride was perfect for what I wanted to do. I have some heavy climbing this weekend as we attempt to do the Central Cross Island Highway again and I really didn't want to over do it and be less that 100% energized for the weekend long haul.
Cold Cash

I wanted to mostly go 50% on the effort and just loosen the legs up so they won't get tired on the climbs. I was also having a mild asthma attack and I was having trouble getting my lungs full of the oxygen I needed for any major effort. The route was simply down to the Gaomei Wetlands and back. I rode for a while with Cash Huang, who has the perfect build for cycling, and a bike that looks like a charity project.

The Emperor's New Cycling Shoes

I stretched it out with a few spurts of energy here and there, but when I would feel my muscles working too hard I would dial it back.

Mr. Mosaic Himself--Rocky Huang

We arrived near the wetlands and sat around doing nothing for a while before heading back to the T-Mosaic shop on Liming Rd.

Heading for Home

The croup was fairly small and since I normally don't have time to ride with these guys, I was a bit of the odd man out in an established group. No biggie. They were all nice people and a mix of skill levels. As we turned back toward Taichung the headwind made it so that we were doing flat hills... until we got to the hill over Dadu Shan, which combined a head wind with a climb and thus making it feel like we were doing hillier hills.

We Eat So We Can Ride and We Ride So We Can Eat!

We ended the ride at Dante's Cafe on the Donghai University campus where conversation swirled around...mainly the topic of food an of a shaved ice store that is operated by girls with large breastseses. It was a calm and relaxing ride. Just what I needed. 35 miles of easy, happy biking.