Big city

Class last night was down in the CBD, I took the R9 (still haven't decided on a name..) from Wangjing figuring that, despite the risk in rush hour traffic, I would save some time. Definitely a good cost/benefit analysis there: + save 15 mins vs - get doored and flung out onto the 3rd Ring Road fu lu. After zipping down the road, meandering this way and that deftly through the zig-zag, the engine began to sputter, and I rolled up onto the sidewalk as the pistons stopped spinning. The veracity with which everyone shook their heads "no" when I asked for a shop told me two things: 1) this seems like the first time ever where several Chinese folks consecutively know pretty surely about a shop's location, and 2) I was going to be pushing the R9 for a while before I could find anyone who could help me.

After pushing up to a shuttered shack on Dongdaqiao Road, 5 guys playing chess told me the bike shifu should be back in the morning. Turns out the bike shifu wasn't much of a shifu, and after pushing on to Baijiazhuang near Sanlitun I was told that the closest thing to there was JinTai Lu, out on the newly-constructed Line 6, about 6 kms east--one subway stop away. In southern Manhattan I could walk a subway stop in 10 minutes.. If only I had a rice cooker, or a blender, or even a microwave to fix, could jump right on the train--instead I had this 200 lb hulk of a worthless piece of iron, I thought as I sweat into the smog. Saved me some time before, but who cares about that usefulness in the urgency of this moment, right now? Crawling across white dashed crosswalks, it felt torturous to think, if it worked, I could be 5 k's down the road in 5 minutes. Instead, I'm looking at an hour or so of forced march. The white lines of the next crosswalk passing slowly underneath the tires reminded me, and each crosswalk after, that I couldn't call 114 for assistance, as the cops would ask for my license and registration if I wanted a lift. As happens so often, the convenience of China's lawlessness comes back around to an inconvenience.