New Hot Wheels

Last week the inevitable happened.  My bicycle was stolen.  I wasn't exactly surprised.  I definitely lock it every day and don't do anything to advertise it, but stolen bikes are a fact of life here and the fact that I hadn't had one stolen previously in my three years here in Tianjin was almost miraculous.  In fact many friends have had three, four, and even more bikes stolen while here so when Molly called me from outside to tell me that my bike was gone my reaction was, "oh, I guess it finally happened."  

Like many things you don't realize how much you miss something until it's gone and having a bike can end up saving a lot of money in weekend trips to school and fellowship.  So Saturday afternoon I went off to the Giant Bike store.  Four other friends from school (all in need of bikes either because they just arrived or theirs was also stolen) went with me.  We were all successful and I really really like my new bike.  I managed to take a picture of it before I "defaced" it.  The important thing here is that you make the bike look junky enough so that no one would want to steal it.  There's a balance between buying a good quality bike that rides well, and one that's not too expensive that you would be extremely upset if it were stolen.  You can see my bike before I covered up the name brand with electrical tape.  It does not have any speeds (not really necessary around here - it's all flat and if you ride TOO fast you get frustrated by everyone that rides REALLY slow).  I even rode it to school this morning early!  That's a first this year.  I'm hoping I can keep it for a while.  And just as a side note, I have three locks.  One if built into the bike, the other locks the back tire, and the third is a chain that use to lock it to something else.  We'll see how long it lasts.