www.qianqin.de » sports

blessing in disguise

Qian Qin — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 23:00:35 +0000

Yesterday, Liu Chengyang (we call him Liu) and his girlfriend Pan Junli (called “Trampeltier”), Qian Le (someone else with similiar name like me), my girlfriend and me wanted to go to Snow Funpark, an indoor skiing hall in north Germany. Because they have been overbooked the last two days, they recommended that we should arrive before 9 am, so we could still get tickets. Anyway, to get there on time, we had to get up early and meet 6:30 am. 2 minutes before 6:30, Liu called me and told me he had an accident. Quite shocked I asked him what happend and he told me that he broke one of the wheels of his car by driving into the curb. But luckily we were able to get the wheel changed at A.T.U. and we could continue our journey 2 hours later. The trip was around 130 miles, so we had a brake at “Walsdorf Ost”. After we all went to the bathroom and sat back in the car, it wouldn’t start, so we called the “ADAC” (a car club in Germany) to ask for help. And in less than 5 minutes, a ADAC car came by and found out that the battery just died. Luckily, the ADAC guy had a reserve with him and installed it for us. 30 minutes later, we were ready to go again. Qian Le already thought it could be some hint for us not to go skiing, but we still continued the travel. Around 11:30 am, we finally arrived in Wittenburg, where the indoor skiing hall was. It is supposed to be the biggest in europe. With over 1000 feet in length, 30° declination and 260 feet width, the hall even had a half pipe. But because the hall just opened at December 8th, the half pipe wasn’t ready yet. the entry was € 15 that day for 5 hours, day tickets weren’t available because they were overbooked. Because of that, we were able to get tickets for 1:00 pm. It was finally time for the fun to begin! The piste was quite long for an indoor hall, but the snow was too thin. The top part of the slope was completely ice, so everyone was sliding and falling there. They tried to fix it, but failed miserably. But for € 15, it is a really good value.

More about our trip can be found on my girlfriends website: Junny’s Homepage

I filmed a little with my N70, so here is the video:

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time for winter sports

Qian Qin — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 23:00:45 +0000

?It’s getting cold again. All the years before, I’d stay at home in front of my heater and hope for the winter to end. But after my Shanghai trip, I changed. Winter is great, why? Because of winter sports. I had so much fun with the indoor skiing hall in Shanghai and Beijing that I just bought myself a complete set for snowboarding. First, I got snowboarding clothes from “Tchibo”. It is pretty cheap compared with professional clothing, but still very nice. I paid ~ € 130 for jacket, pants and gloves. Then I looked for an used board with bindings. On eBay, I found one from Salomon called “Substance” with “SP3″ Bindings also from Salomon. It matched my clothing pretty good and had the correct length (151 cm), so I bought it for € 150. I hoped to get it cheaper, but some jerk kept trying to outbid me from € 120 until € 150, when he finally gave up. So now only the boots where missing. I walked into a ski and snowboard store and tried some used and new ones on. K2, Burton and some other brands, but suprisingly, only the Salomons seem to fit my feet. Well, I went home, opened my browser and bought myself some Salomon boots for € 40 on eBay. The boots are still on the way to me, but I already got the rest. Really nice stuff, but very expensive. But since renting equiment is unaffordable too, I hope I mad the best choice. Can’t wait to get on the snow again with my “new” board!

bike tuning

Qian Qin — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:00:33 +0000

Sorry for not posting much in a lot time now. I’ll try to keep up my work here again.

After having so much fun with my bike in China, I decided to tune my bike in Germany too. First of all, I needed some security. Unlike in China, driving around in your bike can be quite dangerous. Not because of the traffic, but because of your speed. In China, it’s usually too crowded to even drive faster than 20 mph (30 kmh) as a car, so bike will be around 6 mph (10 kmh). Higher speed is not recommended in China because most bikes don’t have the brakes to get you stopped fast enough. You won’t have the opportunity to drive that fast anyway because 99% of all bikes drive at 6 mph. But in Germany, my average bike speed is around 16 mph (26 kmh) on almost empty roads with top speeds around 26 mph (42 kmh) or even higher downhill. It often happens that you will have to fully brake sometime because some kid’s ball roll on the road. Just like a car, you have to brake really fast. But my rear brakes were pretty down, so I needed new brakes. I bought me a V-Brake by Promax for € 9.95. Now, after I was able to brake, I concentrated on the next problem: Lights. In Germany, you are only allowed to drive your bike on the road if you have a full dynamo based lighting system. Meaning in detail at least:

A dynamo
Two yellow reflectors on each wheel
One white front reflector at the front
Two red reflectors at the back
One Front light with 10 Lux
One Back light with parking light function (Lights on even after your bike stopped)

Well, I didn’t have dynamo nor dynamo light. Why? Because I hate those ugly thingies making so much noise when they are on. I only had a battery based lighting system. So how to upgrade to an dynamo system without having those noises? The solution is easy, but expensive: hub dynamo. Changing your hub means you have to change your spokes too. I got a complete front wheel for € 40.00 on eBay with a hub dynamo from Shimano (DH-3N40) plus front light with sensor function for € 13.00 and rear light with parking light function for € 8.00 plus shipping for all of those items. So now I have my full dynamo based lighting system. It even turns itself on and off automatically depending on the lighting condition outside.

gokart racing in Berlin

Qian Qin — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:00:24 +0000

After racing for the first time in Shanghai, I had to race again. I went to the “Kart-World & Freizeitpark am Juliusturm” in Berlin-Spandau. The price was okay, € 5,50 for 8 minutes plus € 2,50 for a full head mask (for keeping the helmets clean). This time, the 400m track was indoor. I went there with my girlfriend, her little sister, Jonas and Foxi. All first time drivers except for me, the second-time driver.

Along with 3 other drivers, we started a 8 kart race. The other drivers seemed to regular guests of the track, so it was hard to compete against them. I finished third, after 2 of those other drivers. One of them lost against me, making him the forth. Jonas got the 5th place, my girlfriend the 6th, her little sister the 7th and Foxi placed 8th. My average speed on that track was about 35.73 kph or 22.20 mph making my best lap time around 39.29 seconds. At least I kicked one of those regular driver’s ass.

snowboarding in beijing

Qian Qin — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 23:00:45 +0000

The Indoor Skiing hall in Beijing is called “Qiaobo Ice and Snow World”. The Hall is sperated into 2 slopes. One slope is twice as long as the other one, and a lot steeper on the upper half. The lower half of the longer slope is just like the other slope and has some little hills for jumping. There is a fun park on the short slope, but it was located way to high. You couldn’t get fast enough to do a jump over the jumping hill, so the short slope was pretty boring. The upper half of the long slope was closed some days ago, so I can’t tell you how that is. I did go a little further than allowed and rode maybe 1/3 of the steeper slope of the top. It was quite nice and you could get pretty fast. I think many people went to the top and had some problems getting back down safely, so they closed it. The snow is very nice on the lower half, in fact it was so smooth that when you fell from a jump, you could rode down to the bottom of the slope on your behind. I did it once and my behind is still feeling that fall. There is one lift on the short slope, a beginner lift, just like a escalator. On the long slope, there were 2 lifts, both very nice to ride and way faster than the Shanghai lift. The entry price is more expensive than in Shanghai. 180 RMB an hour on weekends. In Shanghai, I payed 109 RMB for the hole day! But in Beijing, they have a student price, which is 150 RMB for the hole day. I went there with my parents in the evening. It’s only 198 RMB in the evening for 4 hours of skiing. All the equipment are much nicer in Beijing than in Shanghai. But they don’t rent gloves in Beijing. I had a nice time there and it if they open the long slope completely again, it will be really nice.

gokart racing

Qian Qin — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 23:00:35 +0000

Well, it was the first time for me going crazy on those karts. Go-kart racing seems to be a fun but expensive sport. It is 50 Yuan for 8 minutes of pure adrenaline. I have to say… definitely worth it! Although I wouldn’t go there a second time (at least not on that track), but I really enjoyed it. We drove a Yamaha K-9 with a top speed of 80 km/h, the real speed you get with all those corners is probably maximum 60km/h. But sitting all low on those karts, it feels so fast!

Frank, Shen Xiao and me, along with some friends of Frank had a great time racing on the track. We were twice on the track, 16 minutes in total, but after that, we were wasted. For 100 Yuan each, we got a real nice butt massage in front of a high end ventilator and next to incredible loud speakers making “brrrooooooom” all the time. And sitting in a tumble-drier which starts rolling whenever you get in a curve. Well, you know what I mean. My hands were shaking after every race from the uneven road. If you can’t imagine what I am talking about, go race a little for yourself. Then you will know what I mean. Anyway, a friend of Frank shot a video and I just cut it together for you to enjoy. Btw, I’m the dude in red t-shirt, Frank is in a black addidas shirt with 3 white stripes and Shen Xiao wears a green t-shirt. Have fun:

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