The boys have been enjoying the total freedom of our gated China neighborhood. They are free to leave the house unaccompanied by an adult and play outside with their friends. A favorite activity is to ride bikes and they seem to enjoy riding on sidewalks, over curbs, down stairs, and on top of the sodded roof of the Jin Shui Wan clubhouse.
All of this abuse has taken its toll on their relatively new bikes, so a recent errand during the holidays was to take the bikes in for needed repairs. We loaded them in the Caterpillar van and took them to the Giant bicycle store in downtown Suzhou. This bike shop was great. Normal procedure at a U.S. bike shop would be to drop off the bike, be told "don't call us, we'll call you," and then pay through the nose after they got around to finishing. Not here
We were greeted immediately by two repairmen who were shortly after joined by a third who went to work fixing three broken brake handles, one bad shifter, four flat tires, and a chronically unseated chain. They worked for about 30 minutes and charged my less than $10 for their trouble. My favorite repair shop ever.
All of this abuse has taken its toll on their relatively new bikes, so a recent errand during the holidays was to take the bikes in for needed repairs. We loaded them in the Caterpillar van and took them to the Giant bicycle store in downtown Suzhou. This bike shop was great. Normal procedure at a U.S. bike shop would be to drop off the bike, be told "don't call us, we'll call you," and then pay through the nose after they got around to finishing. Not here
We were greeted immediately by two repairmen who were shortly after joined by a third who went to work fixing three broken brake handles, one bad shifter, four flat tires, and a chronically unseated chain. They worked for about 30 minutes and charged my less than $10 for their trouble. My favorite repair shop ever.
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