Michigan

So Matt and I, arrive at a small motel on the outskirts of New Buffalo. Brit, the owner, greets us, gave us each a beer, and we start talking about differences between the metric and imperial systems. It came about because both Matt, who is from China, and I think in metric. Brit was one of those in favor if the metric system. The car industry, for instance, has a huge expense due to the fact that they need two sets of tools.

Being far from the restaurants, Matt and I ordered pizza and chicken wings. This is my chance to get some information from him. He is 26 years old, our way of counting, or 27 in the Chinese system. In china one's age is counted from the beginning of the year, so when born you are "one". We count the age at the end of the year.

China, according to Matt, is a democracy but not liberal. One gets to vote, and there is more than one candidate, but the results are known in advance....I think we have different a interpretation for the word democracy.

We moved on to personal questions. He spent some three years in England. He recalled his experience to be a more rough environment than what he was used to back home. Later, he moved to the U.S., as legal alien (his words), and has studied philosophy.

He does not know yet if he will move back to China or not. This depends, also, on his girl friend.

The next day, I headed towards Ann Arbor (a two day ride).  Along the way I got to a nice bike trail. At the trail head and along the way there are air pumps. I was suffering from an air leak in my tubeless tire. Instead of stopping and inserting a tube, I stopped every so often to pump air into it.

A local cyclist, Michael, was very helpful in finding on his phone the bike stores in Jackson, a big city just 10 miles ahead.

Hmmmmm

Well, the guys at the bike store, On Two Wheels, did a great job. But it is more than just being good bicycle mechanics. They ran out of tubeless tires. So they stripped one off a new bicycle from the display floor and installed it on my wheel. Service!!

So thank you Pat, Jeff, Frank and Adam for taking care of me and my bicycle. Professionals and gentlemen.

All I can say is

Oh, yes, and what does this mean? Rebels?