Originally Posted by SurferRosa

Excerpt:

"TO THE STREETS OF SHANGHAI" September 21

... We were taken downtown to the Sports Federation building to pick up our rental bikes, and those with their own had them ready to ride. The Sports Federation is sort of like the government's Ministry of Sports, and it was they who organized our tour, our interpreters and guides, our logistics, and our rental bikes. It was typically bureaucratic as every city and province was under the control of its own local Sports Federation, thus every time we changed locale, we changed interpreters, transportation, and bicycles. Thus I ended up using about five different bikes during the course of the tour...