I Rode Anyway

I will be completely honest with you.  At 5:42 this morning when I got a message from Earl that said he couldn't ride because his shoulder was hurting too much, my first reaction was not sadness.  I was just about to get out of bed (no, really), and that was all the incentive I needed to stay there for a bit longer.  I considered going back to sleep, but finally talked myself into going for a ride anyway.  I left around 7:30 instead of the 6:20 I was aiming for, and that was just fine.  It was chilly and a little foggy when I left, but I had been awake long enough that I no longer felt groggy.

Gwangan Bridge looked like the Edge of the World

 I used an app called Map My Ride for the first time.  I can review my ride online (you are also welcome to do so), starting from the time I remembered to turn it on.  It's pretty fun to look at.  You can see my elevation, my speed for each kilometer, and where I stopped at McDonald's for breakfast on the last leg.

The bicycle path (red) is, of course, bumpier than the pedestrian path.

 I missed Earl.  Riding with a partner helps me keep up a decent pace, and makes it less likely that I will completely cancel out the positive effects of the ride by ingesting a 15 bazillion calorie breakfast.  It's also fun to talk to someone as you ride.

Bird, Bridge and Bugs.  I love the River Path.

On the other hand, when I ride alone I listen to podcasts, and that is fun, too.  I like hearing native Enlgish speakers, with clever ideas, fun stories, and relevant news without having to contribute.  My favorites include This American Life, Freakonomics, Escape Pod, Ask Pastor John, Marketplace, The Gist, and NPROne, which is not a podcast, but an app for my smart phone.  It lets me hear Kansas Public Radio News, which sometimes makes me homesick, and sometimes just makes me sick.  It is tempting to go into the virtues and vices of each, but that will have to wait wait for another blog post.

One of the exercise stations along this path.

The riverside walking and biking path is really very nice, when it is not crowded.  It's not very long, but it is obvious that there are plans to extend it.

The End of the Road.  That guy with the broom was told
to sweep up this mess.  15 years ago.

I rode for a while on some almost demolished trail, then on washboard dirt road to catch this last picture.  I could have gone further, but was not interested in that much off-roading.

Past the End of the Road.

It was a relaxing ride.  If you look again at the record of my ride, there is not much change in elevation.  (Shown in the little chart under the map.)  Until almost the middle, when the red elevation line climbs to 50 meters.  That's me climbing, about 40 vertical meters from where I started.

The Beginning of the Hill in the Middle of the Ride.

This is not an especially difficult climb, I think.  But two weeks ago when I tackled it with Earl, we both agreed that we were not going to complete it that day.  Today I finished it, based on the directions he gave me last week.  It was a good hill, with a wide shoulder so that the cars didn't pass me closely.  Some of the hills here in town are so crowded that I feel safer riding on the sidewalk.

Korean flag pinwheels in the shape of a heart,
the significance of which escapes me.

I miss the bike trails in Lawrence, KS.  You could ride around town for hours, crossing streets from time to time, catching some hills, occasionally riding on ten-foot-wide (3m) sidewalks.  But the river side park is not a bad substitute.  It's just limited in where you can go on it, and you have to get off of it to get any kind of climb going.

Lobster cages, windmills, the Gwangan Rainbow Bridge.  What a fun city!

I'm trying to get a ride like this in a couple of times a month.  Obviously it slows down the process when I stop to take pictures, but I want the folks back home to understand what I mean when I write that I've gone for a bike ride.  Next time I'll try to document one of the rides I do in town.

Nasal Irrigation, Speech Contest, and Biking (of course)

I've been coughing for a couple of weeks.  It moved up into my sinuses this past week.  I've been using my Neti Pot (a device for nasal irrigation) the whole time, once or twice a day.  Today I stayed home from church and have used it four times already, and plan to use it at least once more before going to bed.

Friends, if you have not poured water through your nose to fight a head cold, I most heartily recommend it.  I've been doing this for a few years now.  During allergy season I do it once a day, as well as when the pollution levels are high.  This cold is pretty nasty, but for ten or fifteen minutes after rinsing, I can actually smell things and breath freely.  I've also read that it helps you to heal faster because there is no more efficient way to get rid of the gunky mucus resulting from a cold.

So this past week I only biked a couple of times.  Got caught riding home in the rain Monday.  It was only sprinkling when I left school, but it slowly got heavier until I was soaked.  If it had just been pouring when I left school, I would have taken my bike on the subway; When it rains the roads are slippery, and the drivers are crazier.  Tuesday I was sore all over from the tension of riding in the rain on busy roads, so I skipped.  My cough was showing no signs of vacating the premises by Wednesday, but I still rode.  No rain, and I figured the exercise might help me throw it off.  Instead, for the last five minutes I started sneezing, as though I had walked into a hot barn full of dusty hay which had been thoroughly searched for needles by wrestlers who search by throwing things.  I figured it was something in the air, but it turned out to be something in my sinuses.

I didn't ride Thursday and Friday because the sneezing, coughing and ear-clogged dizziness just seemed like poor choices for riding partners.  "Hey guys, you wanna go for a ride?"  "Sure!  Don't worry, we'll keep it short!"  [evil chuckle].

Saturday was speech contest day at Dongsung.  It's in the contract, it's been planned for months, it was unavoidable.  I was miserable, coughing and blowing my nose while trying to be impartial in judging these poor 1st graders who had worked their hearts out.  The scores I gave showed a general downward trend that was more reflective of my physical and mental state than of the speeches being delivered or the props being presented.

Afterwords we all went out for sam-gae-tang;  It's a Cornish game hen stuffed with rice, flavored with ginseng, jujubes and chestnuts, and served in a heavy ceramic bowl in soup that is still boiling when they bring it to the table.  It was pretty good, one of the few Korean foods that comforts me when I have a cold.

So it's Sunday night, almost 11 o'clock.  I've almost finished my Theraflu Night drink (for severe colds, not "serve cold" Josh), and I'm ready to sleep.  There's plenty more on my mind, but you will probably not see another Roblog post for a while.  This week is shaping up to be crazy, and we have a job translating a website for a Korean company that makes a new, exciting (dare I say revolutionary?  Nah.) kind of shear reinforcement for concrete.  You probably know it as rebar--the metal rods that are hidden inside concrete structures to keep them from breaking when there is any force other than simple downward pressure put on them.  It's a new level of editing for me.  They gave me a version that has two English translations.  One is better than the other, but they are both clearly written by engineers.  A lifetime ago I learned that Engineers are generally terrible writers, and in some alternate reality my career is/was/would have been in technical writing and I wouldn't have ever met Horyon and Maxine and Quinten would be no more than cloudy dreams, forgotten upon waking.

Anyway, we're trying to get that done by Friday, but I just don't think that is going to happen unless I wake up tomorrow healthy as a bat.  And that is more possible if I get more sleep.  So goodnight.

Rides 8-11

This week I have ridden every day, following the subway here (20 minutes, though I think I got it down to 17 today busin' my hump) and taking the mountain road home.  I still can't get all the way over without putting a foot on the ground.  Especially if there is a lot of traffic coming up behind me, and especially especially if someone honks at me as he passes.  That happened yesterday and just blew my concentration, and once you stop going up a steep hill it is really hard to get going again.  I ended up walking a way until the traffic let up.

The traffic is not really that fast; they are dealing with stop lights and frequent stops by taxis and buses.  Sometimes I pass cars going up hill, even as I am in granny gear, huffing and puffing and wishing that there was a short cut to getting serious bike muscles and lungs.

Maxine told me that it looked like I had lost some weight.  I'm not sure that I trust her on this one; she knows I want to lose weight, and likes to say things to make me happy.

So I have biked back and forth to work 11 times out of the last 12 work days, missing only once because of a rainy forecast.  I could have beaten the rain here, but there's no way to know that when you set off, so I'm probably better off not finding out.  That puts me at around 92%, an A-.  But they have forecast rain for tomorrow as well, so we will see what happens.  As it is now, I change clothes when I get to work anyway, and my bag has a rain cover.  If it is a light rain, I might ride anyway.

It seems that this is really the only way I will get regular exercise.  I can't squeeze any more significant time out of my daily schedule, and this combines a necessary activity (getting to work) with a desirable activity (exercising).  I know that some people wake up early to exercise.  I just can't do it.  Waking up early is an unnatural activity for me, whereas staying up late comes easy.

In other news, at work they are asking for all of the foreign English teachers to evaluate a big stack of English science books to choose one for next year.  It will be a supplementary book, used a couple of times a month, and probably not by us.  It's hard for me to build up much interest in this, as this school has a reputation for soliciting advise and then ignoring it.  What does it cost them to ask us to spend time?  Nothing.  But we are not considered experts, in spite of our experience and first-hand knowledge.  It is quite frustrating.

And at the end of October it is time for re-signing contracts for next year, and for the school to let us know whether we will be invited to re-sign or just resign.  Unfortunately, there are already rumors about who will not be asked to come back, rumors spread by the people making the decision.  It seems very unprofessional to me, but once again, I was not asked.

The other event at the end of October is Halloween.  We will have our school-wide Halloween party on the 28th, with games, a haunted house, and candy.  It will be a nice break from teaching, but it is ironic that we are doing fake scary at the same time that some of us are going through the real-life scary prospect of losing a job.  I think if the party were after they dropped pink slips, some of our kids might get a bit more scaring than they had anticipated.

Maxine's Birthday, Ride #5 and Buffets

Today is my sweetheart Maxine's Birthday.  Six years old, going on 13.  Happy birthday Sweetie!

We celebrated yesterday by taking Horyon's parents to a buffet in Bexco.  It is a kid-friendly restaurant, with basically an indoor playground.  Some tables are right on the edge of the playground, and some are removed far enough that you can barely see and not hear the play area at all.

And the food... oh my hat, as my friend Gert says.

My number one favorite place in the line-up was the grill:  cute little steaks, cooked to order.  I had three in the course of the evening, all cooked to a perfect medium rare, three lovely sauces available, meat so tender I was cutting it with a butter knife.  Very very nice.  Right next to the grill was the pasta station, which was also very nice.  I had some spaghetti cooked with garlic, olive oil and dried chili peppers.  A bit too spicy, but fresh and wonderfully prepared.  The raw fish was fresh and tasty.  The hot dishes were all fresh and tasty.  The deserts were very good, and in such tiny proportions that I could have a creme brule (dangit, how do you spell that?), a raspberry cake/cream thing, a blueberry yogurt, and a little cordial.  The chefs were friendly and helpful, and spoke some English.  They didn't look down their noses at me when I came back for another steak, and even helped me pick out a good one.

The kids got to play and eat, back and forth, and we got to go back and forth as well to keep an eye on them.  With four adults, we didn't have to rush our food.  The adult price was just over $20, and the kids around $12, and we stayed from six until almost nine p.m.  We will not likely eat there frequently, but we will very likely go back, as I am in love with the place and we can bring the kids.

I don't know if Maxine enjoyed her birthday celebration as much as I did, but I think that's reasonable considering how often I do things with her that I do not enjoy as much as she does.  And even if she didn't enjoy the food as much as I did, she enjoyed the playground a lot.  As an added bonus Horyon's parents gave her a present:  some princess pencils and 10 new Barbie Dresses.  I think some of them are a bit over-the-top, but that's what Barbie is apparently all about.

It was my second buffet this long weekend (no classes Monday or Tuesday), as we went out after Sports Day on Saturday, which was an event requiring more attention than I can give at the moment.  Saturday's buffet was billed as "The Biggest Seafood Buffet in Asia."  Maybe so.  I had some crab legs, sliced ham (right off the joint), rare roast beef (with a perfect sauce), and a lot of other tasty food.  It was a very different atmosphere, as I was with my coworkers and without my family, the beer and soju flowed freely, and it was the end of a long, hard, but fun day.  I'm not sure how much it costs to eat there, as the school paid for it, but I still prefer the Bexco buffet.

So this morning I skipped breakfast.  Didn't feel like I needed it, as I was still burping from dinner the night before.  My ride this morning felt a bit sluggish, but it was good to be back in the saddle after four days without riding.  Kendra also rode this morning, and we have agreed to hit the mountain on the way home.  That will add some work and time to the ride, and though it may not make up for two buffets, it will at least be an acknowledgement that I ate perhaps more than I should have this weekend.

The Umbrella Charm

The weather forecast called for rain today, so I carried my umbrella and rode the subway to work.  Just as I got there it started sprinkling, so I think I could have made it by bike.  Twenty minutes later my coworker Ed stopped by my room on his way in.  He was soaked to the skin from riding his motorcycle to work.  He told me that when he left home the weather looked fine.  He took the tunnel (cuts a couple of k off the trip to work), and when he came out on the school side it was pouring rain.  So I felt somewhat better about not riding.

It was fairly clear when I left work as well.  It might have been a successful ride today, but then again I may have staved off the rain by simply carrying my umbrella.

If you had not guessed, I am attempting to publish the Roblog daily, even if the posts end up being somewhat insignificant.  I started this post before midnight my time, but it is now 20 after.  Even insignificant writing takes time, you know.

Before I go to bed, a quick update on the kids:

Quinten has taken to loudly announcing when a television show is finished.  To the uninitiated it probably sounds like "blah blah blah ih pinish!", but we can hear it as "Mickey Mouse is finished!"  He hollers whether one of us is in the room or not, and often yells three or four times even after verbal acknowledgement.

Maxine is psyched because her birthday is coming up, October 5th.  Don't tell her, but I think we are going to get her a turtle.

Rides #2 and #3

Nothing much more to say 'bout that.  I found that if I don't get curious about side streets or stop to talk to people the ride here and the ride home take about the same amount of time--22 minutes.  That is riding mostly in the streets, but taking to sidewalks when the hills are long and the shoulder narrow.

The distance is just over 4 miles (6.7 km or so, I keep forgetting to check/reset the odometer).

My coworker Kendra rode yesterday and today.  She is a bit more skittish about riding on the road than I am. For me it is just a return to my Kosin days, only the ride is about twice as long.

Today I passed a guy on a bike, and he followed me most of the way to work.  That probably pushed me to go faster than if I had been on my own.

Official Ride #1

I made it today.  22 minutes riding time.  Google maps says it's doable in 18 minutes, but I think they assume that the train pulls into the station just as you get to the platform, rather than leaving as you fret behind the person not walking down the escalator.  I left home around 7:20, so I got here at my usual time.  Still feel good at 4:00, half an hour before time to head home.

The question now is whether to ride home easy or hard: follow the subway or head up the mountain?  I will probably take it easy.  I won't necessarily have time to shower right away, and I didn't get to clean up after the morning ride, either, aside from splashing some water on my face.

And it is now time to go.  I am hoping to ride back and forth every day this week.  Friday I will have to take my bike on the subway, as I have something to do in Haeundae, and not enough time to ride there.

Bike to work?

So today (Saturday) my coworker/friend Kendra and I rode our bicycles to our school, just to get an idea of how long it would take.  On the way there we took a foothill road, and on the way back we followed the subway (above ground, of course).  The round trip was 20 km (12.4 miles for those of you who are slaves to ancient rulers) and took almost exactly two hours: 75 minutes to get there, and 45 minutes to return.  We spent about 10 minutes on a dead end going (an extremely uphill dead end), but came back pretty much directly.

Following the subway was a fairly level course, and I've decided to try riding it to work almost every day for the following reasons:

1.  In March I was diagnosed with high blood pressure.  Rather than tackle the causes, the doctor put me on medication.  This brought it under control, but Horyon has been worrying about it the whole time.  Last week she bought a book about it, and has decided that I need to bring my blood pressure down by more natural means than taking a pill every day.  And of course, losing weight is one way to bring down blood pressure.  Regular exercise being one way to lose weight, and not being one who frequents health clubs (loud music, bad smell, bright lights and no alcohol, it's like the worst half of the bar scene), I need exercise I can enjoy.

2.  Riding bikes is fun.  Working to the top of a hill is a challenge, and coming down the other side is like a well-earned reward.  A good, long, low-access downhill gets the wind blowing through your hair and clothes, and 15 mph feels like daredevil breakneck speed.

3.  It is a surprisingly low stress way to travel.  Even in a big city like Busan, it is relaxing for me.  Driving a car in Busan is stressful because when the fight or flight urge comes, the only option is to turn up the music.  But when you're on a bike you can almost always burn off the adrenaline by standing on the pedals and just working the bike with a vengeance.  And it is very satisfying to pass cars while they wait at a traffic light.

4.  Taking the subway costs about $2 round trip.  The bike is expensive, but it's already been paid for.  I can pump that $2 right into other bad habits.

5.  Taking the subway to work, together with the walk at both ends, takes about 30~35 minutes, depending on how long I have to wait for the train.  The bike route back today took 45 minutes, but I'm thinking that I can bring that time down by optimizing the route and getting my rather large behind in gear.  An extra 15 minutes is no big deal, especially since...

6.  Exercise wakes me up.  I will shop up for work with a fresh mind, if not the freshest arm pits.

7.  It's a good example for my students of living green, maintaining good health, and being unafraid to be different.

8.  It's a good way to stay warm in the winter.  When pedestrians are bundled up and shivering, I find that I am unzipping my jacket to avoid sweating too much.

9.  I am reducing my carbon footprint on the world.

10.  Just because I have ten fingers doesn't mean I need ten reasons.  I'm saving that last finger for someone who truly deserves it on the road.

In an attempt to encourage myself through better record keeping, I will attempt to make a small Roblog post every day, letting the world know whether or not I am keeping this commitment, and giving those who care a chance to encourage me.  Check back frequently, and maybe I can even throw in a picture of the kids from time to time.

Biking

Last week I topped Dalmaji 2 twice.

From Dalmaji 1 it really isn't a rough ride. Maybe 1.5 km, less than half of it uphill. Dalmaji 2 is no longer just a wide spot in the road, though. There is a parking with six spaces marked out, so at least 10 cars will cram in. From the small parking lot are some wooden stairs continuing up to some sort of gazebo which I can only partly see from Dalmaji 1.

Dalmaji 2 itself is not really the challenge. The challenge lies in continuing from there to Songjung Beach. It's a long ride down, with only a couple of small rises to break the monotony. It's fairly easy to reach speeds of 50 kph (30 mph). When I was riding with Earl we would push it even higher, but I am not as daring on my own.

What makes Dalmaji 2 a challenge is getting back up it from the other side. I always thought it was a miserable hill, and I was right. However, I have found that it's not quite so bad if you don't get off the bike at Songjung. I did take it easy, circling around a bit, riding along the coast. But it's too cold to just stop and sit, and with no one to talk with, there's no point. So I stayed in the saddle. Getting back up D. 2 was still pretty rough, but not as bad as I remembered.

The road itself is a bit superfluous. People who drive it do so only to appreciate the view. People who are actually going somewhere tend to use the tunnel. So during the week, it's pretty low traffic. There are times when the only sound is the wind whistling by me.

Of course, when I say "by me" I mean "out of me", and when I say "whistling" I mean "wheezing". One of my rides was Saturday afternoon. That wasn't as nice. Too much traffic. Still better than the main roads, but a bit stressful.

In spite of the pounding of my heart and the gasping of my lungs, I felt good. Round trip around 29 km. I believe the views are very scenic, however I am mostly focused on the road in front of me.

When I used to ride with Earl, he led me on beyond Songjung to Gijang, the next town after Pusan. The road is a divided highway with a very wide, well-paved shoulder. The road rolls along, not too hilly, not too flat. The main thing stopping me from continuing on to Gijang is time. Songjung and back is about two hours. Gijang is about three. Still, it's calling to me. Perhaps this week.

Good Kids

I had lunch at Burger King in Somyon yesterday, which is a rare treat for me. McDonalds has left it's huge footprints all over this country, but the King has not been so successful. People tell me it's because B.K. is too expensive, which leads me to believe that they can't tell the difference between a decent hamburger and a Big Mac. The menus at both places are pretty much the same as in America. You get the odd dessert thing with a combination of beans and ice cream (true!) or burgers with "Korean style" sauce.

But that's all beside the point. The point is that at the table next to me were four boys. (The rest of the restaurant had like two other tables with people, but they sat next to me. Welcome to Korea.) They were pretty well behaved, and they didn't point at me, make goofy comments in English (e.g. too many "OK!"s, "You are stone head!", etc.) or hit each other too much.

What they were doing was messing with their cell phones. I don't spend a lot of time around many kids, so I really had no idea how old these boys were, so I thought I'd ask. First I asked if they spoke English, and they all said yes. Good start. I might have been able to ask what I wanted in Korean, but I would have sounded like some kind of foreigner or something. They were very polite to me, and spoke English surprisingly well. This is what I found out:

They were all 13 years old. (I assume Korean age, so 11 or 12 by Western reckoning.)

The time they had had cell phones varied from four months to five years. Yeah, since he was like seven years old!

One of them didn't have his cell phone because his mother had taken it away. I'm afraid I didn't ask why.

One of their mothers had driven them to Somyon. They get to do something like this once a month or so.

They didn't all go to the same school, they just live in the same neighborhood.

One of them spent a year in Canada, though he spoke less than the other boys.

When I got home, I talked with Horyon about when Maxine will get her first cell phone. We're guessing even earlier than those boys. I think she's going to start asking pretty soon, because she's already fascinated by cell phones.

In biking news, today I got 2k up Kumryung Mountain. I decided that I am not masochistic enough to do this thing without stopping at all, so I took three or four breaks to drink water and pant like a dog. When I got up to 2k, I found the retreat center where our church had its outdoor service a couple of years ago. There was plenty of parking lot for me to ride around in without straining myself, but no alternate way down.

I've also decided that I don't like the Kumryung Mountain road. It is very steep and curvy, as well as being poorly surfaced for biking. Lots of washboard concrete, and a few patches of red stuff they put on the road to remind cars to slow down. all it does for bikes is make us feel like we have no traction. Going up is bad enough, but down is almost worse. I had to stop halfway down to take a rest and get the cramps out of my hands.

And so I'm limiting myself to one Kumryung Mountain attempt per week. Even after relaxing in the bath house, I still feel beat up. I'm too old to be doing this kind of thing every day.

Kumryung Mountain, 1st Attempt

The visit to the bike shop went well. It cost me $20 to replace the shift cable. I decided that the other shift cable and the brake cables looked just fine as they were, and didn't need to be replaced. Before I left, I applied some WD-40 to my pedals, and was amazed at the difference it made. Very smooth. Very nice.

While there, the bike shop guy noticed that I had a broken spoke, so he replaced it for free! In spite of our communication difficulties (see Bike Annoyance Day) I am going to miss him.

I was feeling pretty jazzed about taking care of two problems in one shot, and figured that with three problems solved in the past two days, today might be a good day to try for new heights.

Kumryung San (Mt.). As difficult as it is to pronounce, it is even more difficult to ride a bicycle up it.

I reset my odometer at the base of the hill, across the street from McDonalds, because from there on it is all and only up. I made it just over one kilometer, panting all the way. My legs are still sort of tingling, and will probably be delivering less pleasant sensations by tomorrow, but I now have a benchmark.

Perhaps I should elucidate on the bicycle pedal thing. You may have noticed that when you see pro bikers on t.v. they are wearing very futuristic-looking shoes. These shoes are not only aerodynamic, they are made to fit the pedals.
My shoes are bottom-end biking shoes. They set me back around $70.
The pedals are also special.
They are the same on both sides. The metal piece on the bottom of the shoes actually came with the pedals. Bicycle shoes have standardized fittings for the clips that come with fancy pedals.

The advantage is that your shoe stays in the correct place on the pedal, maximizing the return on your leg power. You don't have to focus at all on where to put your foot when you start, or where it moves to while you are pedaling.
The first time I tried them, I was amazed at the difference they make.
Going up hill is much, much easier.

The disadvantages are:

1. These shoes are not one bit comfortable to walk in. One way they maximize the return on your leg power is by being very, very stiff. However, if you are messing around with equipment on this level, you are hardly likely to ride your bike to the park to go play with the other kids. I usually don't take more than a dozen steps in these shoes.

2. When it's time to stop, you want to take your feet off the pedals so you don't fall over. The shoes decouple from the pedals by simply twisting. If I push my heel out an inch or so, the pedal releases my shoe and I can put my foot down instead of collapsing like Enron.

I knew this would be a problem from the beginning, because Earl suggested that when I first get the pedals I should ride around someplace grassy, for when I fall. He made sure to stress that he meant when, not if. This being Pusan, there is not a lot of grass growing anywhere, so I was forced to practice on the next best thing: the pavement. I focused on the action to get my feet released while standing still, with just one foot clicked in. After spending five minutes or so doing that, I took some very short rides, focusing on clicking out before braking. Within a couple of days, it started to come naturally, and I've only fallen once for not being able to get my feet off of the pedals.

I have used this as a concrete example of how practicing something enough can make it second nature, and suggested that my students try similar tricks with their problem points in English. However, most of them continue to metaphorically fall over. I believe that the reason they don't improve is that they don't get scrapes and bruises when they fail.

Which suggests a new method for teaching English: the Big Stick Method! Make a mistake and you get corrected. Make it twice and you get whacked. I think I could make some serious money off of this one. Too bad I'm leaving Korea soon.

Yeah. Too bad.

Bike Annoyance Day

Yesterday was Bike Annoyance Day. First I got a flat about five minutes into my ride. I walked it to the bike shop, about 20 minutes away on foot. The bike shop guy told me he didn't have any tubes that would fit my tire, and he would have to order some. So I sat down. My feet were tired, because my bicycle shoes are not the most comfortable for walking. I asked if he could patch it, but it turns out that the leak was on the joint where the post attaches to the tube.

He must have taken pity on me or something, because when I didn't leave right away he came up with a tube that fit. I was quite happy, even though it was a $10 tube, instead of my usual $5 tube. In fact, that may have been what he was telling me about not having a tube. Frankly, his English is even worse than my Korean, so our communication is based almost entirely on good will, bicycle jargon, and pantomime.

And let's be honest, you and I. You who are reading this have friendships based on weaker points than these, right?

So I rode out of the shop, and decided to take it easy. I took the gentle slope that comes up to the middle of Iggydae through a commercial/residential district. Lots of annoying stoplights, but about half of them can be biked through if one is very attentive. Some of the slopes involved are low enough to do in the mid-gears, but I found that I had trouble shifting. When I got to the top, I stopped and took a look. My front gear-shift wire had rusted almost clear through, and was barely hanging on. I'm not sure how it had held so far. I was unable to shift into any of my high gears, but it was all downhill coming home.

Today, when I go back to the bike shop to pay him for the tube because I was only carrying about $3 yesterday, I'm also getting all the cables replaced. Which will undoubtedly extend Bike Annoyance Day into today.

Biking Goal

OK, I'm cheating the posting date a bit, marking it for yesterday. I was too tired to write it yesterday, so it goes up today.

The weather was lovely, temperature up in the 50s, if I judge correctly, and the sun was out. It was the day after Solnar (the Lunar New Year, see my next post), and I had no duties. So I rode my bicycle to and up Dalmaji, round trip 27 km (16.5 miles). The distance isn't the killer so much as Dalmaji the hill.

It's a lovely, scenic road. Once you get started going up, it doesn't let up until you hit what I call Dalmaji 1, a wide spot in the road with a little convenience store, restrooms and a small parking lot. Because Monday (sorry, today) was a holiday, there were hundreds of people up there. I didn't pass many cars on the way up, but the fact that I passed any at all speaks to the traffic jam to get to this lovely, scenic place. I didn't stay long to enjoy it, maybe five minutes. Just long enough to take off my helmet and jacket, drink some water, and pant like a dog. I didn't want to cool off too much because it's easy to get a chill coming down off a hill like that.

From Dalmaji 1, there is a descent of about one km and a small bridge, after which it starts to get ugly. The first stretch of the road is where I took a tumble riding down a few years ago. It just climbs and twists in the way that mountain roads do. After much panting, sweating and swearing, one reaches Dalmaji 2. Dalmaji 2 is the real peak of this road. It's wide enough for a couple of cars to pull off, but there are no facilities to speak of, and the view isn't really that good. Even biking, I only stop to take a drink.

Look at me, using simple present, as though Dalmaji 2 were a frequent destination for me. I haven't been up there for a long time. I'm not sure that I even made it last summer. It's a long haul without a partner, and I have lost Earl as a biking partner. He is suffering from neck problems, and his doctor strongly recommended that he give up biking for the foreseeable future. I hope that is able to pick it up again some day, as biking is a true joy, if not an obsession, for him.

I am planning to ride Dalmaji 2 again soon, but it is not my final goal. My final goal is Kumryung Mountain [sorry, I originally wrote "Kumkang" mountain, and there is a difference]. There is a nice, mostly new paved road going up in my in-laws' neighborhood. It stays in good shape because it doesn't continue through, so people only drive up there for the view, then turn around and drive back down. It makes Dalmaji 2 look like a picnic. It is non-stop up for longer than I care to think about, after which is rolls along the ridge for a bit before petering out.

I am hoping that by the time we get to Kansas I can go into a bike shop without the salespeople laughing behind my back. I don't think there is anything to compare to Dalmaji, much less Kumgang Mountain in Kansas. I'm not sure if Kumgang Mountain qualifies as an actual mountain, but it's more extreme than the Flint Hills of home. In Kansas I'm figuring that distance and rolling hills will have to make up for the lack of geological upheaval.

That's it. The more substantial stuff is in the next post, which I am already working on. I'm sorry there are no pictures of these places I've been biking, but taking pictures from the bike is a bit beyond me at this point, and stopping for photos will drag it out a bit more than I want. Still, I will put it on the agenda, because I would like some visual reminders of this exercise.

Peace,

Rob