China Bike

If you thought you were cool, think again. This is a wedding gift from Sloan's former track coach and friend, Carl Cruz. Thank you Carl. It's a folding, rechargeable, electric bike from China and possibly the coolest thing ever. It has a light, a bell, a basket harness in back and goes 40km on one charge (I don't know how far that is in American). According to Carl, the entire Dutch team had these at the Athens Olympics to get around town.

Sloan is helping Carl train a high school track phenom so the two of us met the two of them at the GW Track at 5:30pm Wednesday. It's a beautiful spot on a small plateau with light breezes and a view of the University of Guam Field House which looks like a big cement opihi napping in the grass. The track, like bunches of other things on Guam, is not very well maintained. For some reason a 25 meter section of a straightaway is cemented over. Actually, the reason we were at the track at 5:30 was because another high school, JFK, was so poorly maintained (rusting rebar, mold and crumbling cement isn't that healthy for kids) that it was shut down forcing GW to hold double sessions to accommodate all the new students. The early shift goes to school from 7-11:55am, the late shift from 12:30-5:45pm. Our track star got out of class 15 minutes early.


Carl showed up late and brought his big, long, salt and pepper dog named - pepper - and this bike. "It's no good for the open road," he kept saying. "But it's perfect for urbane areas: China, Berkeley, Tumon. If you guys lived in Tumon it would be perfect."

It is already perfect. I love it. The first time he offered the bike I wasn't there. For some reason Sloan claimed:
1. We don't have the space.
2. No one bikes on Guam.
3. We have to ship it when we leave. Etc.


Good thing I was there the second time he offered it. I did some laps around the track without pedaling. We clocked it at 5mph. It's now sitting in the garage with 2 extra tire tubes, 1 extra tire and a Mandarin instruction manual. Maybe Jasper can translate. Check out the website: www.junji-power.com.

"Whatever you do," Carl said, "don't give it away. I'll be real mad if you give it away." Are you kidding me? This thing's worth more than our truck and it has a spare tire.