The idea has been floating around my brain for almost a year, after reading Kaiser Kuo’s musings about owning an e-bike and how it had put [him] back in touch with Beijing .

I liked the idea of the e-bike for many reasons: ecologically friendly, low maintenance, practical, no legal hassles and generally easy to own. My biggest problem though was the range: Most e-bikes on the market right now have a 30 to 50km range on a good day unless one invests in a lithium ion battery that might cost twice the price of the bike and won’t necessarily work out for the best.

My adventures and roamings through town can be lengthy on any particular evening taking me from the East side of town to the CBD then over to Gulou with a pit stop in Sanlitun, a trip to 2 Kolegas and finally back to the East side of town. This type of Journey adds up to about 60km and I needed a bike that could last the distance.

beautiful on the outside, scary on the inside

My first choice was a Big Turtle King or Da Gui Wang (大龟王). I like the way they look and they’re popular enough that it would be easy to get them serviced anywhere in town. The standard battery comes with realistic range of 30 to 40 Km when travelling at 35 k/h, much less if going faster. Don’t believe any shop keeper that says otherwise. Better batteries are available at a premium with the Lithium Ion option running at 4000RMB for the battery alone but it will last for 80 to 100km depending on the speed you’re driving.

I figured I’ll get one with the base battery and then upgrade as needed after I was convinced it worked. However, a trip to the bike shop changed my mind rather quickly: The big turtle kings are nothing but the shell of the gas powered version that someone took the engine out off and hacked up with an electric motor. They’re literally using fuse switches like the ones outside my door and there are naked cables running under the hood. There was no way this thing is gonna withstand one of Beijing’s famous downpours without electrocuting me… yeah, everyone is riding them but that don’t mean I will.
There is an export model making the rounds around Beijing that should be cleaner/neater but it’s not readily available and will run you 5000RMB minimim with the shitty battery.

Next up were the brand names: Cityfy is had a good reputaion but didn’t make any model i cared for. Yamaha, on the other hand, had just come out with the Metis Max which was a substantial upgrade to the regular Metis series they had been building for years now.

I had seen this model online and it was rated with an autonomy of 80km on one charge. I was lucky enough to be at the shop when someone that owned one came around and i was able to ask them a few questions about it. In a nutshell, of all the options available, it seemed like the one most likely to fit my needs and i got it. Total cost 4000 RMB including registration which was the taobao price.

The bike, or scooter I should say, is quite comfortable and has no problem handling 2 passengers! There are two power settings on it: Low and High. Using the low setting allows you to go at speeds of 25km/h to 30km/h and travel for at least 60 to 70km when riding alone.. about 60 if you have a passenger.
The high power setting brings in quite a bit of zip to the experience and lets you go between 35 to 40 km/h for a distance of up to 40km… this is all on the stock battery!

I’m also a lot more comfortable riding something that I can assumed has seen a semblant of quality control so that the lights and other components won’t fail without a warning! I could have paid a lot less but I’m a firm believer in the “You get what you pay for” motto.. this thing is gonna last me.

I’ve been using this baby for exactly a week and I can’t believe the difference it’s made in my life already: I can go anywhere i want anytime I want without dealing with taxis, crowd on a subway or any of the mafan that has plagued my life over the past few years. I’m also slowly venturing into side roads and back alleys seeing a whole new side to Beijing i never new existed.

now, unto the negatives:

- The battery on this thing is a freaking monster: it weighs in at 29kg… yeah, that’s twenty nine kilograms!
- There is no odometer telling you how much you’ve travelled. you have to rely on the battery gauge and learn to estimate your own distance. I used google maps to figure out how much i travelled on average and keep a cheat sheet as a reference.
- It is no speed demon
- As a brandname, it’s not so easy to mod the bike. local no-names can have tons of addons but the Yamaha might not handle them.
- that’s it

I decided to keep track of distances travelled per day and taxi costs I would normally pay to travel said distance in an excel spreadsheet just for the heck of it and so far, I’ve logged the required amount km I would do on a normal week in taxis! And guess what: in one week, I’ve saved 10% of the bike’s value in Taxi fare! yes, I had no idea I was spending in excess of 400 RMB/week in cabs!
At this rate, I would recoup the whole cost in about 10 weeks. That is not to mention the fact that I am no longer drinking out as much as i used to. 1 alcoholic beverage is all I’m allowing myself at the moment.

Do I have any buyer’s remorse? Nope! I can’t believe it took me this long to take the jump! The battery weight is definitely a pain in the ass and a bit of a concern. So far, I’ve taken it in 3 times and I’m getting used to it but I’d much rather have a 10kg battery. I still look at the Big Turtle Kings with envy sometimes but that more because i like the way they look. If someone were to clean them up and do a neat install, I’d consider switching and getting the extra speed but for now, I think I got the best bike for my needs.

My next mission is to convince bar/restaurant owners to set up charging stations much like they have free wi-fi available. Keep a charger or two handy for those customers that might require a little top-up. It costs less than 1 RMB to recharge the whole battery for 10 hours so think about the extra added value of keeping a customer on a seat drinking/eating while their bike charges. You’d make up that insvestment in a heart beat.

The Silver Daze

I’m also fixing to Join Kaiser in his quest to get a gang together with the sole purpose to keep bike lanes car-free…. I’ll go one step further and say i want them to be pedestrian free as well!!! Those bastards have sent me into fits of road rage cursing at their selfish ways over the past few days… who’s with us?

My iphone is my ultimate tool! I’m constantly making sure that it is charged so that I don’t run out of power and fall off the grid or can’t access my information.
My macbook pro is my other tool of choice! god forbid i forget my power cable at home as it would spell tragedy… I never got the 7 hours advertised battery life, more like 4 hours under moderate/heavy use.
My camera has also been an essential part of my armada since beijingdaze.com took off: I have documented almost every meal I’ve had and every show I’ve gone to. No camera = no post most of the time.
Now, for the new addition, my e bike: Battery life is now dictating where I go and how fast i get there most of the time! If I’m out, I literally have to stop and pull the 29kg battery out, go home and then recharge the damn thing before i can use the scooter again.

oil dependency? I don’t think so…

(yes, I know oil is used to get electricity yaddi yadda.. it’s still battery life as far as I am concerned)

how about that?

Over the past year, it’s give me the motivation to get away from “expat” Beijing and rediscover parts of the city that i had ignored in favor of the general bar scenes. I’ve also managed to get to know quite a few amazing/great persons hanging out til the wee hours of the morning talking music.

Meeting these musicians comes with benefits, one of which being the ability to secure a shitload of songs that i can share with my readers with absolutely no strings attached. so if you care about live music or want to hear some of what’s brewing in the Beijing music scene, head on over to http://beijingdaze.com/category/freeloading/ and get yourself those mp3 while they’re still up.

there’s rock, bluegrass, country, reggae, etc…. the list goes on with more goodies on the way!! merry christmas!

Right now, it’s crunch time with preps on the way for the world cup! yeas, yours truly managed to secure tickets to a few games and i’m planning to have a blast! So far, I’m scheduled to catch Germany-Serbia, Germany-Ghana as well as a round of 16th game between 1H and 2G… how about that?

There is a bit of doubt though because I’m hitting South Africa in their winter and that is a word i don’t really want to hear about for another few months considering we just came out of the winter-that-never-ends in Beijing with temperatures flirting with the 0 Celsius in April.

Nevertheless, the prospects of going back to what has become one of my favorite countries is quite thrilling. I get to spend loads of time hanging out with a person i care deeply about/for and also visit parts of the country i have not seen like Port Elizabeth.

here’s one toworld cup fever baby!

The rules were simple, pick at the most 25 songs that represent your journey through life!

yeah, simple my ass!!! How am i supposed to sift through an entire itunes catalog with songs in over 10 languages and decide on the 25 that changed my life or represented milestones? tricky tricky!

The first go netted a little over 100 songs. Thing is, these were 100 songs that i love, not songs that meant something in particular. That wasn’t gonna cut it! I deleted that playlist and started over with a new criteria: The song had to bring back a memory, good or bad! This process netted about 45 songs that I managed to work down to 25 but it wasn’t easy! The result actually surprised me… certain names are on there while others i expected to make the cut were nowhere near!

Here is what came out:

The front cover is a picture i took a few week ago at the Black Sand Beach in Langkawi, Malaysia. I couldn’t get it out of my head for a while and kept drifting back to it whenever i thought about a cover for this mix. At first, I couldn’t think of a way to connect the water, sand, music and all. Of course, I could just put it all together just like that but I wanted the whole thing to flow. One late night sipping rum, I got the right inspiration and that’s what came out of it. I absorb music the way sand absorbs water… it comes in and becomes part of who/what I am.

The back cover is a bit of funky idea on its own, I d be curious to see if anyone figures it out

Of course, most people are aware of the controversial decision to pull avatar out or the 2D screen in favor of the local production but more importantly, said local production has been slaughtered by foreigners and locals alike. I heard so much criticism of the movie that made it sound like one of the worst cinematographic products of recent memory.

The prominent Chinese blogger, Han Han (as translated by chinasmack) wrote that :

Finally, I want to say that the movie Confucius, whether it is from the perspective of cinematographic meaning, business profits, artistic merit, what it explores, its educational qualities, its historical accuracy, its entertainment value, its emotional resonance, etc., is completely unnecessary. It is a film that could be completely done without.

what? I mean come on, give me a break! I’ve seen plenty of movies in and out of China but I’m not going into that right now.

Maybe it was a byproduct of my low expectations but I can’t say I didn’t like the movie, at least from my limited perspective as a foreigner. I really wished I could actually follow the whole thing without needed the subtitles as there were times when I caught myself concentrating too much on what was written and forgetting the picture.

so, a few notes:

• I liked that they showed more than just the philosophical side of Confucius. I’m not sure he waged war with such ability but but it was good to see that aspect of his life/personality emphasized. One could even argue it was too much of an emphasis
• Too much politics, not enough philosophy. Then again, that is in many cases representative of the real situation in China even nowdays.
• G.O.L.F: Gentlemen only, ladies forbidden! The one somewhat meaningful female part was more or less meaningless. The empress is assassinated without explanation as to who or why.
• The was a sense of rushing through the story without tying loose ends… a cinematographic equivalent of the Chinese “deng deng deng” or etc..
• Chow Yun-fat did a decent job with the acting.. I honestly like the guy much more so than I like Jackie Chan.
• I don’t see what the fuss is all about either way
• The movie will get a decent reaction from overseas markets. They’r hungry for anything China and Confucius could use some PR. It’s also nice for the general mass populi to get a bit of education and have their stereotypes replaced by others that are closer to reality but nevertheless stereotypes.

what did you think?

The Romans used gladiators to distract the mass popula from real problem and state trouble. Other rulers used similar tactics to distract their citizen from whatever issues were at hand and disguise them. They’ve used comedy, games, wars, tragedy and music amongst others. This whole Google thing feels much like that right now.

In a few more weeks, it will be all but forgotten! the ones that want results can get them with or without google making their move! It’s not gonna give me a more table access to picasa or google docs, not that i care much to use them. It’s not gonna get the folks that lost their job at Fanfou their jobs back…
what it did/does very well was to provide us with a good opportunity to pretend we can use out analytical abilities for the first time in a while

just a sham or a scam..

I wish I could say that it was some sort of effort but it wasn’t. I was out in the hotsprings with some friends recovering from NYE celebrations when I ran out of smokes and decided to not go and get more. My last cigarette was officially on January 1st 2010 around 9:00 pm

Let’s see how grumpy and bitchy i’m gonna be since tomorrow marks the beginning of my yearly detox week and lord knows i need one this year: The last two months were noticeable in terms of excess: too much going out, too much eating, too much drinking, too little sleep etc… I’m actually looking forward to being creative with my diet again and going for a whole different spectrum of dishes, not to mention experiment with new ones at home and outside.

wish me luck

love you all

10 years ago, I was in France with one of my best mates getting ready to bring in the new millennium in a chateau outside of Marseille. This year, I’m in China getting ready to bring in the new decade in a Villa outside of Beijing!

such is the life of a modern day vagabond but it’s not a complaint in any way, shape or form! I consider myself extremely lucky and blessed!

So as I get ready to turn a new page, I just want to take a minute to remember every one that mattered and still matters in my life! I want to thank the time to thank you/them all for being there and helping shape me into what i am today!

It’s been a strange road but the journey is still young

Love