Leaving the Nebraska farm, I had few expectations of Grinduro and my new Speedvagen rugged road. I'd seen pictures from previous events, I'd ridden another Speedvagen, so how much better could it get? I learned a few tricks for anyone thinking about going next year. (P.S. You definitely should)

1. Northern California is amazing. I'm lucky enough to have been to Arran as well (not for Grinduro) and Quincy was just as scenic. Seriously, parts of the roads looked straight out of Lord of the Rings. The trees were huge, the vistas were scenic, and there were great things to look at around every turn. It's a limited cell service level of remote, and totally worth not being able to upload to instagram. 

2. In addition to the big trees, there were big pine cones. You wouldn't think this is remarkable enough to make a top five list, but they were HUGE. I thought I knew a lot about trees, but damn. I took one home, and its rad. Go to Grinduro for the pine cones.

3. In what is likely the harshest burn I've ever received, my wife ridiculed me (correctly) about not being able to turn my handlebars past 10 degrees. Even on a sweet new custom steel racing machine, that's basically true. I was acceptably close on the uphill and flat segments (even the TTT one that I solo'd), but did really bad on the descents. I mean, BAD. Given that 2 of the 4 segments were downhill and I can't turn, I considered it a success that I kept it upright. 

4. Like most time trialists, I don't really care for anything other than riding fast over a given course. If someone puts a rock in the middle of the course, I'm trying not to crash, and slightly annoyed. Spoiler alert, MTB courses have a lot of rocks. Some on the side of the trail, some in the middle of the trail, and sometimes the whole trail is rocks. As someone who doesn't get along well with rocks, I find MTB super hard. *mumble positively about the view* MTB is hard, but the climbing makes up for it. 

5. In one sense, I didn't properly focus on enjoying Grinduro. Along the course I took approximately 2 pictures, had 0 shots of jameson, 2 SIS gels, and 1 beer. In another sense, my goals were to enjoy the view, get a good training ride in (World Cups are almost here!) and not crash, of which I did all 3. Fortunately, the gravel community is awesome, and no one cared how I decided to do the race! I met a lot of amazing cyclists, saw lots of cool bikes, and drank at least some whiskey (after the ride, of course). It was a great event, and I look forward to attending year! 

2018 Speedvagen Rugged Road W/ Enve 2.0 Fork

• Groupset: Sram Red 22 Hydro Mechanical, with Quarq Zero Power Meter

• Wheelset: Zipp 303

• Tires: WTB Nano 700x40

• Headset: Chris King

• Bar Tape: Fabric

• Handlbars: Zipp Service Course SL-70

• Stem: Zipp SL Speed

• Seat Post Head: Enve

• Saddle: Fabric Scoop

• Bottom Bracket: Kogel

Paint -2018 Surprise Me

Give Ashton Lambie a follow on Instagram

Questions? Comments? High Fives? Send them to info@speedvagen.com 

It's been an unofficial tradition that when a customer goes with a custom mixed color and it knocks our socks off we name it after them. It's honestly pretty rare that this happens, we tend to have our own ideas on color. With that said, don't be surprised if you see "Gatens" Green show up more over the next few years. This custom Speedvagen Road Disc is a new contender for shop favorite this year, it has just the right amount of class, speed, and mean-ness built in. 

2018 Speedvagen Road Disc W/ Enve Road Disc Fork

• Groupset: Shimano Dura Ace Di2 9170

• Wheelset: Enve SES 4.5 AR w/ DT Swiss 240 painted to match hubs.

• Tires: Schwalbe Pro One

• Headset: Chris King

• Bar Tape: Brooks

• Bar/Stem: Pro

• Seat Post Head: Ritchey

• Saddle: Brooks Swallow

• Bottom Bracket: Kogel

• Skewers: Enve Ti

• Frame Pump: Silca Impero Ultimate

Paint - Ghost Scheme in custom Gatens Green

Questions? Comments? High Fives? Send them to info@speedvagen.com 

It's not everyday we get to showcase an employee build. Jim who's official title is "do-er of things" because he gets shit done, just completed his Custom Speedvagen Road build. 

Jim was sitting on the Ultegra group and built up the rest of the bike with a mix of parts he had on hand and a few new parts (those EE brakes). Putting together a smart build coming in at 16lbs 9oz. The full build list is below.

2018 Speedvagen Road Frame W/ Enve 2.0 Fork

• Groupset: Shimano Ultegra 6800 with Dura Ace 9001 Shifters

• Wheelset: Enve SES 3.4 w/ Enve Carbon Hubs

• Tires: Vittoria Corsa Control

• Headset: Cane Creek 110

• Bar Tape: Supacaz

• Stem: Ritchey C220

• Seat Post Head: Ritchey

• Saddle: Fizik Antares

• Bottom Bracket: Kogel

• Skewers: Enve Ti

• Frame Pump: Silca Impero Ultimate

• Brakes: EE

• Chain: KMC SL Gold

Paint - A-Team in Vermillion, Dark Vermillion and Gold. See the rest of our paint options in the 2018 Guidebook.

Questions? Comments? High Fives? Send them to info@speedvagen.com 

It's rare that a Vanilla comes up for sale and this one is very special. Here's a brief background:

Scott Ramsey has been one of my longest running employees. He started out as a mechanic doing assembly and that job evolved to be the main point person for customers, parts ordering, fabrication, running electrical in the shop for new machines, framing in new rooms, and damn near everything else at one point or another. 

He has also become one of my best friends. 

Back in2008 Scott (I call him Ramseys*)and and I built this Vanilla together for his lady. 

Now that they're moving with their young family, they want the bike to go to a good home and we're helping them sell it. 

Scott and I probably built about 1000 bikes together over the course of 7 years. Of those, around 100 bore the Vanilla name.  

Some details:

-Built as a single speed. Housing clamps on TT can be removed for the ultimate in non-brake tidiness

-Henry James brand lugs, BB and fork crown

- Vanilla stainless track drops. The brass reinforcements keep the wheel centered when you're giving it the goods

-Custom (made for this bike) Trucker brand front rack.**

-Phil Wood (the best) low flange hubs laced to Velocity rims, with DT competition spokes and Challenge Paris Roubaix tires. 

-Nitto (the best) handlebar, stem and seat post

-Brooks B17 Special saddle with titanium rails.

-Berthoud (pronounced "bear toe") stainless steel fenders.***

-Campagnolo Record Headset

-MKS pedals

-Dura Ace crank 170mm (old school 7100!)

This bike has all of the components that we love for a build like this and is both a piece of our history and a beautifully functional daily driver. It is basically brand new, with approximately 500 miles.

If we were to build this bike today, the retail price would cost close to 10k. Asking price for this cream dream is $6295.

The size is approximately 54.5cm and will accommodate a saddle height of 700mm to 770mm fitting a person from 5'5" to 5'10". 

This bike is bound to sell quickly. If you want it, you can easily purchase through our store. 

Questions? Contact us at info@speedvagen.com

*Nacho Libre anyone?

** Made by Ben Leonard. Another original employee who went on to make the worlds most beautiful bike racks!

***French!!

If you have any questions shoot us an email any time. info@speedvagen.com

Have you ever wanted a more in-depth read about whats beneath the paint on a Speedvagen? Below, founder Sacha White writes about the technical details of our tubing, which gives our bikes that signature look and more importantly ride.

SEAT STAYS

Like all of the rest of our tubes at .5 mm our seatstays are ultralight. But wait, there’s more!

There’s a lot going on in our seatstays. First, the curves: they’re sexy, we admit it, but they’re also curved to soak up shock from the road. Imagine you’re holding a small tree branch in your hands. If it’s straight and you’re pushing on both ends, that branch won’t bend. If it has a little curve (like a bow) in will flex under pressure. The same science applies to the rear end of a Speedvagen. With that flex comes shock absorption, giving the bike a springy liveliness and smoothing out the rough stuff.

If you look at the bike from the side, you’ll notice that the seatstay looks a lot thinner down low. That’s because the stay is squashed in that plane. From the back, that lower portion of the stay looks quite wide. We do this to help the bike resist flex from side to side - part of what helps the Speedvagen put power to the pavé.

DOWN TUBE

Our down tube is ovalized vertically at the headtube to deal with the tremendous force that’s transmitted from the road, through the fork and into the frame. It’s then ovalized horizontally at the bottom bracket to help transfer your pedaling power directly to the rear wheel, instead of flexing the frame. These shapes also allow us to run a thinner tube, making it lighter and giving you a more lively ride.

TOP TUBE

The top tube is there to resist flex on the front end. Without it, the bike would be super floppy from side to side.

Our top tube is a larger diameter at front end and a larger diameter makes for stiffer, so it does an even better job of resisting the twisting forces on the front of the bike when you’re standing up and hammering. The top tube then tapers to a smaller diameter at the seat tube to give you more suppleness and comfort.

CHAINSTAYS

A typical chainstay has a long small diameter taper. A smaller diameter means more flex.

In addition to being 4-6 times stronger than a typical steel, our Chainstay retains a large 24mm diameter nearly all the way back to the rear dropouts. Larger diameter makes for a stiffer tube. This means the power is going directly to the rear wheel and the bike has a sensation of jumping forward when you stomp on the pedals and... you are going faster.

HEAD TUBE

The prime example of our form and function approach to design. We use very light material for the main body of the headtube and reinforce the ends to distribute stresses from the rider and the road. These reinforcements taper out to just the right diameter before meeting the headset, making for a beautiful transition. Each headtube is finished by hand and sized to the perfect length for it’s owner.

All in, this adds an hour or so to the process compared to a standard head tube. With the weight savings and the added sexualisimo, this is one of those details that take a Speedvagen frame to the next level.

If you have any questions shoot us an email any time. info@speedvagen.com

Part Four - Looking out for my mama and my day-one bitches. -Junglepussy

Words by Laura Winberry

 All Photos are shot on 35mm film by:

Campbell Steers.

Ian Stowe &

Laura Winberry

Thinking about it now, it almost makes me mist up a little. Not that misting up is out of the ordinary for me. But still. Looking through the photos taken by Campbell and myself, thinking about the rare specimens who convened in Beijing for seven humid nights, it makes something well in my chest. Which is to say: fuck, that was something special.

With one race left in our domestic cyclocross season, Nationals in Reno this coming Sunday, I find myself arriving at a similar sentiment. Different than the last, and then different again than the time before last, this year’s ‘cross season was something special. They kind of always are in their own weird, indirect, unexpected ways. This year, though, starting with getting to race ‘cross in Beijing, I began to feel a greater connection to and through the women with whom I toe the line. Locally, I’m fortunate enough to have a pack of ladies that I’ve grown close with over the years of riding in circles together. My wolf pack. Fuck, I’ve even written an entire book of poetry that, more or less, stems from this wolf pack, these women of ‘cross, and my animal experience as a human female racing bikes. It’s being published this March. 

But I digress, because what I’m getting at is this: though the women’s UCI ‘cross scene is a larger stage and, in my own introverted experience, a rather challenging one to initially find meaningful connection in and on… once you do, it’s fucking incredible. And it just keeps unfolding into something you never expected. Until you’re like, holy shit, I GET to go balls out with this dynamic group of babes almost every other weekend. And you realize that it’s about what it was always about, or at least what some of the most fulfilling things are rooted in—human connection.

all good things take time. I hate this cliché. Mostly because I hate clichés, however much truth we find in them, and because people ruin them by making dumb posters and GIFs and bookmarks out of them. It’s true, though, on the UCI ‘cross stage, the connecting took time. It took time to let one another in. Time to let ourselves be let in. Time to perform in these very public spaces and also be human and real with one another, regardless of the outcome. As for the stage of our Beijing summer camp for adults? The time factor in the equation was sped up. Friendships were stumbled upon, made, and cemented, all in a matter of days.

I remember the first night well. Beyond tired and beyond in awe and beyond ready to shower the film of airplane from my skin, I extracted two gold bikes one by one from a

massive Pika bag and rebuilt them. I was several stories up and half-naked in an upscale hotel room, and Frank Ocean was slinking from my iPhone and I was all yesss to have not been given a roommate while seemingly everyone else had. Then a knock hit the door and I was scrambling to make myself less naked while feeling a twinge of fuck, I have a roommate.

Enter Campbell Steers, the chick who took most of the dank images accompanying these essays, donning dingy red Chuck Taylors, a faded tank top, and worn shorts. The gal who several minutes later I am gushing with about the subtle intricacies of hip hop and Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar. The woman with whom I most recently collaborated on a photo/poetry piece for the final issue of Boneshaker. And the Rock Lobsterette with whom I can discuss art and writing and music, and not get a blank stare in return.

Enter Emily and Sammi, the women of Squid whose style precedes them. Whom I knew prior to Beijing, but got to know a little more over the course of six days of dining halls and Great Walls and hall wandering and strange evening strolls through abandoned wonders. A duo that speaks for itself, and two individuals who bring it like whoa in their own diamondesque ways.

Enter SBG, my girl from Oregon and all-around solid human. Podium-snatcher, focused warrioress, fierce light. Someone with whom I trade tattered yet very capable wings back and forth, whenever one of us needs them more than the other. A grounded presence and forever-complementary counter to my aerial ways.  

Enter Sarah, the lady who first contacted me about flying across the North Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan and North Korea to subsequently touch ground in Beijing. The one who got me on board to race bikes and make friends and eat brined food whose translation placards bore titles like Very Beautiful Shrimp or Miscellaneous Bacterium Soup or Potatoes Burn the Flank. Yeah, for real. The gal-pal with abundant energy and kindness and without whom Beijing would have been quite different. The third unsuspecting victim, alongside Campbell and myself, in an evening massage gone very wrong. Or right, depending on how you look at. 

Enter Rebecca. Bold impetus who catches you off guard in the best ways possible. Very real human and badass, no-bullshit veteran. A staunch advocate for women in racing, no matter what level. One of the ones whom I don’t know well, but that I get to see a little more into, and appreciate, at each intersection. And, straight from the source herself: 

There’s a lot to be said about surrounding yourself with a group of passionate, hard charging, fierce, determined women: willing to take risks, test their abilities, and push each other’s limits each and every weekend. Bike racing is one minuscule piece of a very large puzzle, but my wish would be for everyone to experience it at least once in their lifetime. There is a world of opportunity out there that racing can help you to see, alongside a no-holds-barred open invitation to a sisterhood of strength. I would love the sport to grow for the sake of growing the sport, but even more meaningful is what [bike racing does] for the individuals who give it a try.

Preach.  

Enter Kate. Committed and all in, yet fully aware there’s more to life than racing bikes. A woman dwelling in the motherland of Jersey, who also happens to share the same sensitive (adventurous-food-averse) stomach as I have. The one that rejects large portions of the Chinese palate with vigor. Someone with a beam of a smile that can’t stop won't stop, and with whom I’ve shared a laugh on and off the start line more than once. Kate… Kate is great.

And there are more. Many more. Including the women OF Beijing itself. The female photographers, cyclists, and super-fans. The women hocking shit on every street corner, the ones that exist on a plane hovering somewhere above the meaning of no. The high-heeled dames pedaling through spills of traffic like what. The podium beauties and the beauties collecting the excesses of our post-race water bottle plastic. So many. 

Here, these are but a few from Beijing, and a few from the whole of the ‘cross scene. But these women, they're fucking Bad Ass. Indelicate with their ferocity and unapologetic in their swagger, their vulnerability, their strength. Y’all should have your own trading cards, for real. 

So… until “night five” comes through next in this seven-part photo essay, I want to leave you with some real talk from Vanilla’s one and only Jenn Levo…

"I’m proud to work for a bike company that doesn’t see women as a weaker sex that can’t “keep up” with the dudes… In fact, in a world where most brands are looking for ways to appeal to more women riders, we’ve always been super proud to feature our fast women, who don’t need a motor in their bike to drop your ass." 

Yes, queen. Yes.

Stay tuned for part 5 coming next week. Like what you read? Get in touch with Laura Winberry

The year is wrapping up and there are some positive changes underway at The Vanilla Workshop. We have our sights set on the 2018 Speedvagen guidebook and what's to come. We do feel that it's a important to celebrate our craft, and all the blood, sweat, heart, and hard work that goes into what came out of the shop this year.  

Largely, as a company we march to the beat of our own drum, but we love to hear form our customers, fans, and potential newcomers to the #SpeedvagenFamily. Below is a gallery of 26 (no we couldn't narrow it down to 25) complete builds that the crew here has selected, but really we want to know which is your favorite? What do you want to see 2018? Has the lack of sparkle in our paint schemes been the hold up for you? Let us know! 

Drop us a comment below! or Shoot us an email with your thoughts, questions or high fives info@speedvagen.com. 

Part Three - Bring your squad / Biceps, Triceps, and Quads.  -Jay Z

Words by Laura Winberry

 All Photos are shot on 35mm film by:

Campbell Steers.

Ian Stowe &

Laura Winberry

Arriving at the Beijing airport for the first time, I see the moon through the fog outside only it isn't fog. It’s something that’s always there, reminding us of the ways in which we consume and emit. I discard the barely utilized plastic utensils and styrofoam cup and wet wipes placed on my tray table, without permission, during the long flight over. As if I wouldn’t have survived the pressurized cabin, broken seat recliner, or time changes without them.

One minute I’m arriving and I’m bloodshot sandy-eyed, dragging bags from claim #7 through customs and out a muggy exit. The next I’m suited in lavender spandex and a gunshot is piercing our thick hush of thick-gammed racers from all over the everywhere. In other words: the transition is quick and we’re off into the heat and the cicada thrum of a scrubby Beijing sidehill that’s been mowed through with precision. It’s hot. It’s a blur. It’s early-season cyclocross racing and we’re hanging on by small gold threads, some more adeptly than others, sucking in oxygen through flimsy plastic straws.

The taped-off course is slick in peculiar places, bumpy and like old coffee grounds in others. An agitation of camera lenses lines its edges, their massive onyx eyes opening and closing at 1/1000th of a second and faster. Behind the peering lenses, a tide of locals hovers, taking in the spectacle by way of periscope, aperture, ISO. A depth of field of a field depth spreading itself out over time, slowed down and sped up in the same instant.

Shutters shutter, over and over and over. Then the race is over, for different people at different times. Sprint finishes and calculated gaps gel at the front. What had begun to splinter a lap or two prior now trickles across the white line, flushed and fully salted. Near the back, fevered swashbuckling dissolves into the final pushes just ahead of the 80% rule.

For lack of a better or more encompassing word, the front is always fun. And sometimes we’re there. Or right there. Or we’re just off the mark and watching the front take off like teenage love. Other times we’re out of focus inside a hot cave, somewhere off the back and seeing cats. Either way, a race is a race is a race. No matter how our bodies or our minds or our minutes uncurl. Salt-sweat still plummets to our top tubes. Things still hurt. We still find our reasons, any reasons, to not bow out.

 

 

 

For lack of a better or more encompassing word, the front is always fun. And sometimes we’re there. Or right there. Or we’re just off the mark and watching the front take off like teenage love.

Back at the hotel, before and after and between the races, I roam hallways lined with bike bags and cardboard boxes. My body wants sleep but my curiosity craves a 3D experience of all the things, all the people, all the places I can fit into seven nights in Beijing. I forgo sleep and push on. Others do the same.

At various points throughout the Beijing stay, assorted stages of fatigue settle into our small inlet of racers. While different individuals fade in different ways, the occurrence of these multihued shifts is distinct. Kind of like what happens in a race, only here I get to watch it all unravel as both observer and participant.

At dinner and during breakfast. On the bus speeding towards the Great Wall. Mid-conversation on the elevator. In a flighty side street running the length of the Forbidden City. On the subway. Exhaustion does not discriminate on the where or the who. It takes its victims swiftly and without discernment.

One by one, on day one or day six or hour forty-two, individuals brighten and fade into a foreground that does not cease. Eyes get smaller and slit themselves. Yawns spread, people zone out, people excuse themselves. People stand up slowly during lunch, retreat to bed without words. The long stare, inevitably, overtakes us all.

Stay tuned for part 4 coming next week. Like what you read? Get in touch with Laura Winberry

Part Two - I'm biking' downhill and it sound like a fishing' rod - Frank Ocean

Words by Laura Winberry

 All Photos are shot on 35mm film by:

Campbell Steers.

Ian Stowe &

Laura Winberry

Someone recently said to me: I love how beat to shit your bike is, it tells a story. This person was referring to my gold Speedvagen and, they were right. Not only has that jazzy beast gone to Japan, Italy, Canada, a smattering of U.S. states, and, now, China, but it has also been throttled, to say the least. I’ve ridden it on trails better suited for hikers with long legs. I’ve ridden it at my favorite event ever: Grinduro. I’ve twisted it through the paved and cobbled hairpins of Europe, and through mud you’d have to see to believe. I’ve chucked it into the ice-rutted snowstorm that was last year’s Cyclocross Nationals in Hartford. Taken it down the sandiest of “shortcuts” and into the unforgiving bellies of massive cities. The list goes on. I’ve also managed to eat huge shit on that thing more times than I care to enumerate.

The thing is, our bicycles enable us to create stories in our lives. Quite different ones than we would have otherwise spun or encountered. And, in a unique way, those same bicycles that give us the freedom to pedal down that street, across that bridge, through those un-plottable woods and weave tales of adventure and triumph and close calls, can also become the record of our stories. Our own personal Babylonian tablets, drifting beneath us. Not everything gets recorded. But still. Whether we own a home-assembled Huffy or a rusting Bianchi or a featherweight Trek or a smooth-mint Rock Lobster or a glowing Speedvagen, the stories, thankfully, are there.

Beijing, and probably most of China, is filled with bicycles. Motorized and non motorized. Some reveal their age, or at least their failure to weather well, through thick rust that hangs like dead coral reef from their tubing, their joints, all their vulnerable places. Others squint back as you squint at their sheen in the diffused light of factory dust and sun. Many slide by, unnoticed. Veiled by the sea of bikes and people and bikes in a country of almost 1.5 billion.

From strictly utilitarian to straight up aero, these bikes hold histories. Some more interesting than others. They are new and fast and slow. They are heavy and barely functioning and swift. Innumerable and vibrant novellas in motion, much like the humans propelling them forward in space and time.

 

"And, in a unique way, those same bicycles that give us the freedom to pedal down that street, across that bridge, through those un-plottable woods and weave tales of adventure and triumph and close calls, can also become the record of our stories"

And the colors, the colors are also many and as much a part of the story as the scratches and dents themselves. Eggplant and spearmint. Grenadine and hyssop. Pigeon grey. Shades of brown like a collection of taupe-inspired paint swatches from Sherwin-Williams: copper dust, russet fawn, morning syrup.

I don’t know the stories of these bicycles or the individuals who ride them. Whether they pedal out of economics or accessibility or convenience, out of joy or ease or necessity, I don’t know. The thing is, these people pedal. And while I’m convinced that the reasons for their doing so are simple and complex at the same time, these are not my conclusions to draw, however crystalline. In fact I don’t want to draw them. I want to make note of a country, or at least a large portion of it, where riding a bike is a way of life. Not a statement. Where it’s a way of existing in this world and moving through it. And of connecting point A to point B to point J, by way of two-wheeled memoir, over and over again.

Stay tuned for part 3 coming next week. Like what you read? Get in touch with Laura Winberry

Part One - What Did Biggie Say, It Was All a Dream?

Words by Laura Winberry

 All Photos are shot on 35mm film by:

Campbell Steers.

Ian Stowe &

Laura Winberry

Earlier this summer, a sweetheart of a woman from Boulder, CO got in contact with me to see if I’d be interested in joining forces with the ever-awesome Topo Designs and heading to China for some cyclocross racing. I thought about the proposal for less than 3 minutes and said yes. 

Now in its sixth iteration, I had heard wild tales about the Qiansen Trophy Cup from friends who had attended in years past. I knew that it would be more than just a UCI event showcasing two C1 races. It would be a robust overseas adventure, replete with never-before-experienced foods, sights, smells, sounds, dialects, cultural norms, and, of course, competition. I had also been told how generous and genuine and hospitable the promoters, Yanxing Song and his father, were, and was touched to find a great deal of truth in these whisperings. 

Come late August, I was Beijing-bound without a clue as to what would transpire on the other side. No, really, I tend to do this. I say yes, and then start moving forward and subsequently realize that there are some very major components missing from the equation. In this case, what I’d be doing once I reached Beijing, whom I should look for at the airport, where I’d even be going from there. These were all factors I… forgot to confirm. Or didn't think worthy of confirming? Still, I had my Chinese Visa and a set of gold bikes. I had three sets of ENVE wheels, a notebook, one of my favorite dresses, one lavender skinsuit, and some snacks. As for everything else, the details would somehow assemble and Beijing would end up revealing itself as the weird lucid dream state I reckoned it would be.       

For the seven mostly sleepless nights I spent there, Beijing was a sea. Shifting, rising, and catching me off guard. Eddying, swelling, and then finally receding. As a brined, wide-mouthed body of water, Beijing and its culture and its space were not without rhythm. Not without wisdom or undertow. The whole of it kept me wide-eyed and slightly off balance in the most memorable of ways. I’m still awaiting equilibrium. 

 

 

 

"Beijing was a sea. SHIFTING, rising, and catching me off guard. Eddying, swelling, and then finally receding."

Fast forward to a snapshot of the so-called end. The end where Beijing is a tide rushing out far below, foaming over a memory of my bare calves, sucking itself back into its own dark sea. The end where I am an ant in a metal capsule hurtling towards the same sunset twice. A slurry of solid images from seven nights in Beijing, suspended in the water of my thoughts. 

Here, from inside the speeding capsule, I watch the small, intimate moments of strangers. I watch them sleep and eat and wake and dream. Their eyes ice skating beneath pliable tissue paper eyelids. I witness the wears of travel on the human species as they unfold in various ways. Looking around, the contents of this plane are a vulnerable concoction of sleep deprivation, time change, hunger, discomfort. A man’s snore gets caught in his throat. A woman curls further into her thin blue airplane blanket. I slip into a kind of blurred half-state, somewhere between that slurry and Portland.    

Hours earlier, the morning light is punctual and jimmies its way past thick curtains into a dark hotel room. It pecks at my dry closed eyes and I keep them closed. I can still hear Alicia Keys’ high notes and Jay-Z’s low bars from the night before. The night before being only four hours ago. In this dark hotel room shot through with persistent quartz-like light, I refuse to stir from beneath a single starchy sheet on a hard bed. I am quiet and my eyes burn and behind my eyes I am still dancing. I am still sweating and laughing. Singing my intercostals out amongst a small international contingent of awkward cyclists.

And even earlier still, what to me is the sunset of this Beijing summer camp… A roommate leaving in grainy half-light, her dirty-red Chuck Taylors padding across a stained carpet. The weighted click of a heavy hotel room door. A car horn honking with abandon. The half-naked pack of a scattered room into a duffel.

Stay tuned for part 2 coming next week. Like what you read? Get in touch with Laura Winberry