Bike Hugger 

Having flown back from Taitung the six of media persons are back in Taipei, touring some local bike shops. Or rather, hunting for cool items that you can’t get in the states. Cyclelicious was in a bit of turmoil over his inner need for a mini velo. We had stopped at an Orbea shop, and he got to test ride a Bianchi Lepre, a dropbar mini velo. Among mini velos, what’s cool about the Bianchi is the retro styling.

I had my own temptations…

Reader Gianluca sent us photos of his drop-bar Cannondale.

Assembled this bike just to obtain a road bike with hydrauilc disc brakes cable-actuated by Campagnolo Ergopowers. The sprockets are Miche for Shimano cassette, but I corrected the thickness of spacers to fit a Campy 9s cassette. On the handlebars I placed CLB Tech One (they are like Problem Solver Travel Agent) to encrease the amount of pulled cable. Hydraulic levers are actuated by derailleurs cables, not brake cables to obtain a better fitting around the CLB internal pulley (slim cables are more flexible)

Very nice.

Recently tweeted and in planning now is our Fall trip to

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On the organized ride series of Let’s Bike Taiwan 2009, literally all the bikes except for one or two (mine being one) are provided by Giant Bicycles. I don’t know the exact number, but it’s somewhere between 100 and 200. How do they get all those bikes to the five rides (we did 2), each in a different area of Taiwan? By means of some of the most amazingly efficient packing I’ve ever seen.

It seems that they made a layer of bicycles in the van and then laid a double layer of cardboard directly on top of the bikes to create a second story. I couldn’t believe the pack density of bikes.

We were on our way to Taroko National Park in eastern Taiwan. Nothing but small little towns out here, and still the rain follows us. Here’s a motorcycle food cart we saw at pit stops. I liked the little windshield wiper.