As you could have probably guessed from past posts I'm over here at our factory in Taiwan getting our last production of the season out the door, getting stuff ready for 2009, and making sure the prototypes are exactly the way we need them.So far I've been over here for the whole month of January, the whole month of March, and now 2 months that started in May.
I've definitely heard horror stories of other bike guys coming over here to work at the factories and pretty much working all day and then seemingly being locked in their hotel rooms at night and on the weekends.
Its a shame because there is so much to do. 
If you're not afraid to ask you'll find that there's a ton of really cool things to do.On of the coolest things we got to do was check out the Chinese National Museum. This may not be your thing but the stuff inside was amazing.
Unfortunately no cameras were allowed but they have a really good website that features their stuff. I especially like this piece as it was carved from one block of ivory and has 21 layers of balls that move around inside it. They still don't know how the guy was able to make it since it has no seam and was not done in 2 pieces and then fit together. Keith liked the jade that looked like a piece of meat.The other really cool thing was we found out there was going to be a dragonboat festival.
This is something that I'm used to in Vancouver; where I'm from as its a really big deal there too. What I wasn't expecting was we'd not only get to see the festival but also participate in it and paddle one of the boats on a team.
Big thanks to Ceri [pronounced Carey] our team captian for letting me, Steve [Niner], and Ryan [Astrix] be part of the team.
It was cool as we qualified on the Saturday and then had to return on Sunday for the finals. We did pretty good and made it all the way to the finals against an overgrown bunch of South Africans...
seriously they all looked like they were on a rugby team. In the end they barely squeeked out first spot but they had 2 substitutions where we kept our original team and we saw one of their guys puking into the water on the tow back to the dock. I'm pretty happy that we gave them a run and next year we will own those byatches.
I wish I had a picture of the trophy... I'll try to get one soon. It was a glass handblown dragon with some cool colors in it.Is Steve giving the peace sign or
flipping me the English bird??!!!Well I better get back at it... these bikes don't make themselves.
I'll try to post up some stuff from the race in Kaoshuing this week. I'm heading home and trying to figure out which bike I want to bring back to hit up my local spots with [that would be the North Shore, Woodlot and of course Whistler]... I'm kinda eyeing up a white Scythe as last year I was busting everything on a hardtail so it might be fun to ride a full suser again. Might build up my confidence enough to follow Keith off that Whistler road gap.
