Saturday October 11, 2014, 5:30 a.m. Bird Nest Guest House
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I did return to the bike shop (called Bike Pro, by the way) yesterday. Jason was there, and I was happy about that. He was working on a couple of other very fancy bikes, but he was happy to chat with me about my bike and changing the chain. It’s been great to be able to sit around in the shop and just watch as Jason works. I’ve learned a lot about modern bikes just by sitting there and watching.

After a while, Jason finished with his current jobs and went out and got my bike. I noticed that there was a small problem at the beginning. I saw that Jason was going through all the boxes of components at the shop looking for a chain. This shop is great because they have huge piles of equipment everywhere. No matter what Jason needs to rebuild a bike, he just reaches into a box and comes out with high-end bottom brackets, headsets, whatever he needs. However, my bike is a bit older and a bit unusual, so it leads to problems. In this case, all the chains he was coming up with were 9-speed chains. Every bike in that shop had a 9-speed gearing system on the back. Jason says that 9-speed systems are better because the chain is a bit narrower and it centers faster and changes gears more smoothly. My bike has an 8-speed system and requires an 8-speed chain. Jason looked everywhere but he couldn’t find an 8-speed chain. He said that a 9-speed chain would work just fine on my bike, but it would be a bit more expensive. I had no choice, really, but to agree to that. He was the expert, after all. If he was telling me that a 9-speed chain would work on my 8-speed cassette, I had to believe him. He came back with a SRAM PC 991 HollowPin chain. I asked him about this chain and he said that it was very strong. In fact, it was a much stronger and much better chain than the one that I currently had on the bike. That didn’t surprise me because when I had the bike rebuilt in Sarnia, Bob didn’t really offer a lot of choice. For some reason, I didn’t insist on high-end components, and we installed one of the basic low-end systems he just happened to have in the shop.

Jason removed my old chain in about half a second. It’s so amazing to watch a skilled mechanic with the proper tools at work. Everything looks so easy. He had the SRAM chain on the bike in an equally short time. He had to remove one chain link to make it fit, and then he started working the gears and making adjustments to get the gear shifting right. Everything seemed to be going fine, but he suddenly clucked his tongue and shook his head and told me that he was going to replace my cassette, too. And he was going to do it for free and that I shouldn’t tell anyone. When we discussed it earlier, he had agreed that we could change just the chain and not the cassette. The cassette was likely not that worn, and unless there was a big problem, the cheaper option of replacing just the chain would probably work fine. The SRAM chain, by the way, cost 140 ringgit, which is about $45.

That $45 price tag is not a big deal, but it can add up depending on how often you change the chain. I did some random Internet research yesterday morning, and people with touring bikes talked about replacing their chain as frequently as every 3,000 kilometers. That answer was very common, but it makes little sense to me. A person on a long bike tour would easily cover 3,000 kilometers a month, so are they putting on a new chain every 30 days? That would be 12 new chains a year at a cost of up to $500 a year. That seems a bit excessive.

Anyway, Jason’s resolve to change just the chain suddenly weakened and, as I said, he told me that he would also change my cassette and do it for free. I don’t know why he would do that. My guess is that the problem had to do with putting the 9-speed chain on my 8-speed system. He had said it would be fine, and he was the one who chose the 9-speed chain. And now if there was a problem, he didn’t feel good about telling me that I now had to buy a 9-speed cassette. It was pretty clear that he was doing me a big favor and that it had to remain a secret. As he picked out a new 9-speed cassette from the boxes of supplies, he turned his back on his co-workers and boss so that no one would see what he was doing. He also turned his back as he removed my old cassette and sneakily handed it back to me and told me to put it in my bag. The chain he had removed he just threw in their big garbage can, so they had no problem just tossing heavy bits of metal in the garbage. But he didn’t want to put my old cassette into the garbage because it might lead to questions.

I wasn’t about to argue with him, of course. In the Philippines, when my grip shifters broke, I’d had no option but to put on 9-speed shifters. There were no 8-speed shifters available. Now I was putting on a 9-speed chain. So it made perfect sense to also put on a 9-speed cassette. That at least brought all my components into line and I now had a complete 9-speed system instead of a Frankenstein mixture of 8- and 9-speed components.

While I was in the shop, I also picked up an extra-large water bottle cage – one of these special cages that are designed to hold 1.5-liter plastic bottles – the kind that Coke comes in. Earlier, I had taken some measurements and compared them with my bike and concluded that these extra-large cages wouldn’t fit inside my bike’s frame. And that was true. However, Jason, being the genius that he is, pointed out that it WOULD fit if I just used one of the mounting bolts. That is what most people do, he said. You shift the entire cage upward and use just one mounting bolt on the bottom. You use plastic zip ties or metal hose clamps to attach the top part of the cage, and then it usually fits just fine. I fiddled around with the cage for a minute or two, and I saw that he was right, and I bought one of the cages. It was made by a Japanese company named Minoura. I’d never heard of this company before, but a lot of the components I’ve seen here in Kuala Lumpur are from this company. This cage is a Minoura AB-1600 Pet-Cage. I have no idea if Minoura is known for making high-end accessories or cheapo ones. This cage wasn’t super expensive, but it wasn’t cheap either at about $20. I’m also not a huge fan of the design. The top of the bottle is supposed to be held in place by a thickish rubber ring. I’m no mechanical genius, but I’ve been around the block long enough to know that if you have to stretch a rubber ring every time you want to remove a water bottle to take a drink and then stretch the ring again to put the bottle back, it is not going to last terribly long. It’s not a heavy-duty system designed to last for years. I still like the idea of getting a Bike Buddy system from that company in Britain, but that would have to be shipped here, and it’s impossible to tell beforehand if it would fit on my bike at all. This Minoura AB-1600 is the only option available to me. I figured that when the rubber ring breaks, it won’t be that hard to rig up some kind of replacement. When I got back to the guest house and had a chance to play around with it, I was pleased to note that my 1.4-liter Nalgene bottle also fits into the cage perfectly. I would just have to come up with some kind of strap to hold the top of the bottle in place.

I had a great time at the bike shop while Jason worked on my bike. There were many other customers there, and they were all bike fanatics and I had a chance to talk with a lot of them. The bike shop was the kind of place where bike geeks felt comfortable hanging out. The owner of the shop was a bit of an acquired taste. I’d heard that he can rub people the wrong way, and over the last few visits, I’ve begun to understand how that could be. He is loud – almost strident – and perhaps a bit abrupt in his speech and mannerisms. Yet, everthing he does and says is meant in a friendly way. It may not always come across as friendly, but the intent was there and I felt comfortable around him. He was the guy at the cash register taking all my money, so I’ve had lots of chances to interact with him. I love these shops in Kuala Lumpur. They are so much better than anyplace in Taiwan or the Philippines or even in Canada. I don’t think I’d had a negative experience yet. Once or twice, I’ve thought, “Uh-oh” as, for example, some large unfriendly woman approaches me in a shop. I figure this woman is going to be the typical rude “you buy now!” type of shop clerk. This happened yesterday when I went to another bike shop to look into buying a new bike mirror. But the woman turned out to be extremely friendly and helpful. She just looked kind of mean, but she had a heart of gold.

My bill for the new chain, new cassette, and water bottle cage came to 198 ringgits – about $65. That was a very good price because the cassette was free (I think it cost about $50), and despite all the work Jason did on my bike, he didn’t charge me for labor. That free labor is a great deal because Jason was the kind of mechanic who couldn’t leave things unfixed. As he worked on replacing the chain and the cassette, he would notice that this or that other bit of the bike wasn’t working quite right or needed cleaning and lubricating, and he would just do it. It’s been great having him go over my bike and get everything back in shape. It also shames me to a certain extent because it makes it clear just how little I really care for the bike. I just ride the darn thing. I don’t really like fiddling around with it and maintaining it. I think it’s different for bike mechanics like Jason because 95% of the time, he is working with brand new bicycles and brand new components. They all fit together perfectly and can be adjusted easily. It would be like working on a brand new car as opposed to trying to keep a 30-year-old Toyota running – all rusted bolts and rotted wiring.

I forgot to mention the other day that when I rode my bike back to Bike Pro (the nightmare journey), I noticed another bike shop called Bike Quest. It was a huge place spread over three buildings with a different type of bicycle in each building. I checked it out eagerly, but it didn’t have much in the way of touring equipment. The owner was very friendly, though, and we had a good chat about my bicycle and the touring bicycle that he was building for himself. He then told me about another bicycle shop – a place called Van’s – that was just around the corner. He said that they specialized in touring bikes, and that I should check them out.

I went there right afterwards, and though they didn’t have much of use to me, it was interesting to check out. They specialized in mainly touring folding bikes – the very expensive Bromptoms and Terns. They had all the racks and pannier bags and handlebar bags that come with these bikes. Had I Tom Cruise money, I’d definitely buy one of these systems. The owner of the shop and a few customers ended up gathered around my beast of a bike outside the shop and we chatted for a bit. I’ve pointed out many times that I give off some kind of a vibe that makes people comfortable giving me advice and telling me what I should do. That vibe was in the air, and I could only laugh inwardly as these guys gave me a long lecture about everything I was doing wrong. They asked me how many spokes my wheels had. I said they were 32-spoke wheels. They all shook their heads and told me that for touring, I should have 36-spoke wheels. They told me that I had the wrong tires. I should have Schwalbe Marathon tires. They were aghast at my lack of a helmet. This comes up all the time, and it gets a bit annoying. The safety-safety-safety culture is alive and well around the world. Personally, I’m astonished at the number of people I see wearing helmets as they ride their touring bikes around the world. What a giant pain in the ass that must be. But they all do it.

The situation was funny because technically, I was the expert in the field. Out of all these guys giving me advice and telling me about all my mistakes, none had ever gone on more than a 3-day bike trip. Heck, I had ridden my bike for three hours across Kuala Lumpur to get to their bike shop. They had never ridden a bike in Kuala Lumpur in their lives. They loaded their bikes into their SUVs and then drove to a mountain trail to ride their mountain bikes. Out of all the people standing around my bike, only one person had ridden a bike across Canada, down the coast of the US, and in Ethiopia, Guinea, Cambodia, and the Philippines. That person was me. So why was I being treated like the amateur who needed tons of advice and help? Like I said, it’s just this vibe I put off. People are comfortable telling me everything that’s wrong with me and with everything I do.

Of course, they were right on all counts. I’d love to have 36-spoke rims or even the new 40-spoke rims. They just weren’t readily available when my bike was assembled. In any event, the 32-spoke Rhino Lite rims I have are more than strong enough for touring. I’d also love to have Schwalbe Marathon tires. They’ve just never been available. I told the guys that I wanted to get Schwalbe Marathon tires, but nobody carries them. They said that THEY carried those tires. I got excited for a brief moment, but then I learned that the largest size they carried was 1.5 inches. That would be fine for light touring down smooth pavement. But I wanted at least 2-inch tires. They didn’t carry those, of course, and they couldn’t order them either. As for the helmet, I just told them that I had a hard head.

I left my bike at Bike Pro again. It was getting late in the afternoon when my bike was ready to go and I didn’t feel like riding through rush hour traffic. I also was thinking about buying a new saddle at a different shop, and I wanted to return to check into that. (And I was sick to my stomach.) So I asked Jason if it was okay to leave my bike there overnight again and come back and get it the next day. He was fine with that.

I rode the LRT back into town and then I went to yet another bike shop to buy a bike mirror. This is another annoying thing. One bike mirror was smashed during the typhoon. The other mirror survived, but the plastic mounting bracket had become brittle over time. I was holding it together with hose clamps, but it wasn’t going to last long. I needed new mirrors – at least one – and I’d only see one shop that carried any type of bike mirrors. I don’t particularly like the style, and they were expensive, but I didn’t seem to have a choice. This shop was the one with the seemingly unfriendly one who turned out to be very friendly. The owner of the shop was once the coach of the Malaysian national cycling team and he was also very friendly. I hemmed and hawed over this bike mirror. It was a Zefal Cyclop, and I didn’t like it at all. But I bought one. I figured I’d try it out and if it worked out, I could go back and buy a second one. I like to have a mirror on both sides to monitor all the insane traffic coming up on me from both sides.

By this point, I was exhausted and it was all I could do to trudge back to the LRT station. I don’t mind riding the subway, but I still dislike buses, so I still end up walking long distances from the subway stations to the various places I want to visit. Predictably, the Malaysians I encounter are astonished that I would walk at all let alone the several kilometers that I routinely cover.

Very little happened when I got back to the guest house. I’d heard nothing from Olympus – which is annoying. I called them yesterday, and they said that my camera was still being checked. So I don’t even have an estimate on the repairs yet. Who knows how long the repairs will eventually take. I had trouble communicating with the woman over the phone, so I’m not really sure what is going on. At least they appeared to have me in their system and hadn’t forgotten about me completely. It’s interesting that I find the Malaysians hard to understand when they speak English. My brain is simply horrible with different accents. I can’t process them. I might as well not even bother on the phone. I can’t make out what anyone is saying.

Tags: Bike Pro, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Schwalbe Marathon