It's not about the Bike

by Mike Braden

Jan 4 Ca Na to Phan Thiet
115 km
4 hrs 53 min
avg spd 23.5 km/h

......about 3km before I got to Phan Thiet my derailleur hanger broke....I
thought I had a spare but no. I got a ride on a motorcycle taxi into the
city, to a bicycle shop. After trying to sell me a new derailleur which
wouldn't fit properly, they miraculously said they could get it
repaired.....and they did but I don't think it will last more than a few
days at most but at least the bike is rideable for the time being. The
chain bent as well so they replaced that too. I also broke a spoke which
I'll fix tomorrow. Maybe in Saigon I'll be able to find the part. I was
asking around for a bank when a Vietnamese woman who saw/heard me
floundering in sign language came up to me and said in near perfect
English...."Can I help you with something"? Turns out she's a
Vietnamese/Canadian.......here on vacation with her husband, son &
brother, visiting family who still live here. They left Vietnam in 1986
staying 3 years in Indonesia before getting sponsored to go to Canada in
1989.  They live in Vancouver now.

Jan 5 Phan Thiet to Mui Ne
17km
1 hr 7 min
avg spd 14.7 km/h

I tried to replace the broken spoke but it's on the cassette side of the
hub and I don't have the tools to remove the cassette. I went to the bike
shop and they couldn't get it off either. I'll have to ride it as is and
hope the wheel holds together at least until Saigon where hopefully they
have the proper tools. I sent an email to the Toronto dealer where I
bought the bike and asked them to courier me a new hanger to a hotel in
Saigon. I decided to do a short ride to Mui Ne beach to see how the bike
rode and wait for a reply from the dealer. I baby the bike....it doesn't
sound good....the chain is out of alignment because the repaired hanger
isn't straight plus the repair job doesn't allow the wheel to sit
perfectly straight in the frame. I may have to just shorten the chain and
ride in one gear.......no fun. No reply from the dealer, probably because
there's 12 hour time difference between here and Toronto.

Jan 6 Mui Ne
******I realize I have left a blister pack of my anti-Malaria pills back
at the Phan Thiet hotel. I get  a motorcycle ride from a hotel worker and
fortunately they have them. I hear back from Toronto dealer who says he's
looking into my part request.....what does he need to look into? I reply,
indicating it's urgent and to just put the parts in an envelope and
courier them to me. Because of the time difference I have to wait another
day to hear back. I decide to stay here another day...better to be "stuck"
here than in Saigon with 5 or 10 million people. I met a Vietnam/England
family staying at my hotel. They have family in Saigon but came to the
beach for a few days. One of the men works for a Norwegian
company.....hardware and software for the oil and gas industry.....he used
to work in London but got transferred to Vietnam when the company opened
an office here. Since the state owns/controls all the oil and gas in the
country, he has to deal with state people. I know from Cuba what it's like
to do business with state owned businesses. I asked him about the
difficulty in doing business here after spending time in England. He told
me he had just sold the software to a Vietnam oil & gas company after
working the company 'decision maker' for about 2 years....diining out,
entertaining etc....never any hard core sales talk....never business talks
at the office.....mostly around a restaurant table over food and drinks.
Recently  the 'decision maker' needed some money for 'personal' reasons.
There was room in the state company budget and the 'sale' was made. I rode
from my hotel about 10 km to see some sand dunes....so big that kids rent
sheets of semi-rigid plastic so you can slide down them.

Jan 7 Mui Ne
Still here. TO dealer replies that the part I need is out of stock and has
been for some time. It turns out that my bike is made in Vietnam and
apparently the company is making special arrangements to send the part
directly to me from here in Vietnam......we'll see. I don't have
confidence that my bike will make it to Saigon so I bought a bus ticket to
Saigon.

Jan 8 Mui Ne to Saigon (also known as Ho Chi Minh City)
The four hour bus ride to Saigon is uneventful. Amazing...the parts I
ordered have arrived at the hotel......delivered by a girl named K.T. who
works for a bicycle factory called Strongman....with a note saying to
contact her if I need anything else.

Jan 9 Saigon

*******I called K.T. at the bike factory to find out where there was a
good dealer that could get the cassete off. She said she didn't know and
then offered to have the bike fixed at the factory. She arrived in the
company Mercedes van with a driver. K.T. is from Malasia and she gives me
an overview of the company as we drive back to the factory about 30 min
away. Strongman is a Taiwan company but their headquarters is here in
Saigon. They manufacture bikes for different companies.....Kona in the US
and Norco in Canada but their main business is for European bicycle brands
as an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer). We arrive at the factory and
K.T., whose needed for something, introduces me to Eva who takes me and
the bicycle to meet the assembly supervisor who seems to know his
stuff......although Eva has to act as translator to communicate. I explain
what happened and what needs looking at. He says it will take about an
hour.  Eva escorts me to the office building where I wait in the board
room....coffee is served and I read some info about Strongman. I asked Eva
if I could get a tour of the factory but she has to ask the plant manager
for permission. She returns saying yes I can have a tour but no cameras
allowed. We tour the factory....the whole process....they make bikes in
both aluminum and steel.
From the raw material they cut (with CNC cutters) and weld the frame
sections manually. Then the frame sections are welded together, the
assembled frame is then painted, decals put on and then all the components
are installed on an assembly line. They also manufacture rims, seat posts
&  handlebars. A huge amount of the manufacturing of the bicycle is in the
finishing....just making the bike look good.....making sure the frame is
perfectly smooth which is done manually, that the paint job is
perfect....like a car finish and done by computer operated sprayers...and
that the stickers, of which there are many, applied manually, are
perfectly positioned and stuck on the frame. It was fascinating. We go to
check on how things are going with my bike. There are 4 guys working on it
when we arrive. They have replaced the front derailleur telling me it
doesn't match the shifters that I have and that it's made for a double
chainring not a triple chainring which is what I have. They have replaced
the rear derailleur with the same LX model but a newer version. They have
replaced the spoke....not using the replacement one I provided. They have
replaced the chain....explaining the one the local shop back in Phan Thiet
sold me is for bikes without any gears. And of course they've installed
the derailleur hanger which, other than the spoke, was all that I was
planning to replace. The four of them are huddled around my
bike.....adjusting the shifting, the brakes, cleaning the bike with rags
and oiling it with WD40..... The manager asks if I want a derailleur
protector installed....I stumble on that request for a milesecond and say
sure......a worker runs to get one. Would you like a rear reflector the
manager asks? OK, I reply.

Eva and I go back to the boardroom to get my
camera. We return...the bike is ready....it's now got a rear reflector
PLUS a halogen headlight has been installed. The manager then asks me if I
want a kickstand...."how do you keep the bike upright when you stop"? he
asks. I explain I just lean it against a tree and that I want to keep the
weight down....I think he's disappointed I don't accept his offer. Eva
calls the driver whose going to drive me back to my hotel. I ask about
payment but apparently it's not even a consideration. I'm sure they
rarely, if ever, deal directly with the public. K.T. appears and the three
of them say goodbye to me.....as if I'm someone important. The two
uniformed guards at the gate salute as we exit the factory....so I salute
back....but they don't crack a smile.

Strongman is a Taiwanese company but all they have in Taiwan is an office.
All the managers and supervisors at the factory are from Taiwan except 2
from Malasia and they all live and eat in one building located on the
factory property. All the labourers are Vietnamese....I don't know the
wages but they manufacture in Vietnam because of the cheap labour and they
manufacture in an industrial zone in Saigon so they can import and export
materials and finished products without paying duty or very little duty.

PS Bike shifts like butter....better than new.


Mike

[Mike is a Canadian citizen and splits his time between Toronto, where he owns and operates the Braewood on the Lake B&B, and the Dominican Republic where he leads cycling tours for Iguana Mama. He would be happy to talk to you about either.]