Shifting Gears

My bicycle clicked effortlessly into gear as I began my decent from Qi Pan Shan back into Kunming City. After nearly three years of teaching at Kunming International Academy in Yunnan Province, Peoples Republic of China, I finally call Kunming and its surrounding hills home. However, for the twelve years prior to my arrival in China, I had lived and ridden in Whitefish, Montana and the surrounding Flathead Valley. While my transition to the Middle Kingdom had been rather painless, saying goodbyes to people, places, and things had created some anxiety. Riding partners, local cross-country routes and rural highways, even my Stumpjumper Comp: I said fair well to all of them and boarded the plane not knowing when I would return. Strangely enough, people, places, and things ultimately bridged the transition gap between The Fish and Kunming.

(One of the Brothers Xiong works on my "dr" brand mountain bike. At the Xiong Brothers shop, once a bicycle is purchased, all adjustments and tuning are free for the life of the bicycle. All the customer pays for are new parts, if necessary)

Giving away things had been the easiest part of my departure from Whitefish, and it was the replacing of these things, including my mountain bike, that worked their way most easily into my life. After almost six months of getting settled in the Chinese culture and the routine of teaching five different courses, five days each week, I finally found the time to price mountain bikes at the local bike shop. Xiong Brothers, the only quality bike shop listed in the Lonely Planet’s guide to Kunming, displays a rather extensive array of mountain bikes, and while I still felt like I was cheating on my Stumpjumper, I forked over 6,650 yuan for a nice aluminum frame with a mixture of Deore XT/LX components. I enjoyed the fact that a comparable bike in the States would have cost me almost half again as much. However, it was not as if this replacement did not come with its own struggles. In China, most bicycles are set up with the front break lever placed on the right hand, the back brake on the left. I managed to negotiate this small obstacle with what little Mandarin I had already learned. And with relative ease, I had found a fitting substitute for the bicycle I had left behind.

(Deborah Carpenter descends one of our 'expert' trails in Qi Pan Shan. She and I once met a heard of goats and two small boys with a heifer and a calf on this path. While some of this is definitely rock, much of what you see is hardened clay, so when it rains or is foggy, the trail becomes rather slippery.)

While things are relatively easy to substitute, places, such as paths to ride, require a bit more effort in order to find replacements. In Montana, some people guard the whereabouts of the best riding with as much secrecy as their favorite fishing hole. In China it is a bit different. Footpaths, leading from the outskirts of town, head every direction into the hills, however, few, if any, of them can be ascended. The Chinese people herd their livestock up these trails, most of which end in a myriad of white-rock sepulchers spread out along the hillsides. Therefore, the challenges for me lie in finding a way up to the top of some of these trails. Luckily, Deborah, the fifth-grade teacher at our academy, a five-year veteran of Kunming and a native of Colorado Springs, already knew most of these routes. She introduced me to the Xi Shan (Western Hills) highway. From this two-lane asphalt snake that reminds me of Big Mountain Road back in Whitefish, she pointed out enough descents, beginner through expert, to keep me busy. While the bike had been easier to come by, with some help I replaced rides like Pig Farm, Spencer Lake, and Haskill Basin with trails I know as Xi Shan, Qi Pan Shan, and An Ning.

(Suli negotiates a tiny rock garden near the top of one of our Qi Pan Shan paths. Because she is only about five feet tall and weighs a slight forty-five kilograms, Suli relies on control to negotiate most of the downhills. I, on the other hand, rely on power, simply bulling my way down the trails.)

Unlike places and things, when one makes a move as monumental as from Whitefish to Kunming, one does not replace friends so much as find new friends with whom to spend time. With riding friends in the States like Bear, Reid, Jake, Yvonne, Bob, Russ, Reidi, and Duie, I never desired to find replacements for such quality people. Instead, I searched for people with similar personalities and riding skills, people I viewed as better than me (in more ways than just riding) who could challenge me to become a better rider (and person). In Deborah, I had already found one. She told me she had waited five years for someone to come along who would join her in testing new trails. Together, we whooped and hollered our way down trails the locals had assured us no one could possible negotiate on a bicycle. However, after only a few months of riding, Deborah informed our school’s director that she would be moving to a school in La Paz, Bolivia the following year. Before she left, she introduced me to Jim, one of our school’s secondary science teachers, Miss Suli (my soon-to-be wife), and the students with whom she had begun her extreme sports group. I became Jim’s challenge (he really does not like going downhill) and immediately talked him into signing up for a mountain bike race that we later found out was a Regional Olympic Qualifier. As for the students, I became their mentor, much like Deborah (and all the people listed earlier) had been for me. On the weekends, Suli and I showed them various downhill routes, how to negotiate different obstacles and steep descents, and generally how to be a better person. So, over the span of two years, I found new friends to enjoy an old pastime.

(Ryan and Daniel, two of my students, take a quick breather as we ascend the Western Hills highway toward Tuan Jie Xiang. Deborah started the adventure sports club, which consisted of mountain biking and rock climbing. After her departure, I have tried to keep the mountain biking going for those who want to get back into the hills.)

People, places, and things: I left many of these behind in Whitefish when I made Kunming my new home, but with the help of a new set of each, the riding has picked up where it left off in Montana. I wish I could say moving was easy, but no move is truly effortless. However, the relative ease with which some people approach change may lie more in his or her ability to find suitable replacements for those items left behind. As I steered my Chinese mountain bike onto one of the many descents into Kunming, a handful of students following me, I realized that moving—change—is more like simply shifting gears.

(The author diving down a steep section in Qi Pan Shan. Many of the original trails have been wiped out by a new road and some newly paved hiking paths, so now I have to go deeper into the hills to find new trails. Luckily, plenty of livestock roam the surrounding mountains, creating new trails all over the place.)