I put Singapore on the BBI World Map!

(the sky was literally orange when I stepped out from class just now.
You will see a bald head at the bottom of the second pic. That 's the head of John Barnett, the founder of the school:))

Hi everyone,
I have just completed Day 1 of my training here at Barnett Bicycle Institute. Honestly, I did not sleep well at all last night. I had mixed feelings about the first day at school. On one hand, I was excited about the course and all the things I would learn and how I can make use of the knowledge gained. On the other hand, I was worried that I would not be able to handle the learning, that it would be too tough for me as I have never really worked on a bike my whole life. I was also worried that the students would be unfriendly, that they would be the "rough" type of people. Thankfully, none of my fears turned out to be true!

I did have a brief scare though. When I went in through the door, one of the staff greeted me and handed me a pin. I had this crazy thought that maybe they wanted to prick my finger and do a blood test to check if I was on drugs or maybe check what was my lactate threshold level! Luckily, he pointed me to a map on the wall and asked me to place the pin on whichever part of the world I came from. Of course I found Singapore easily and became the first Singaporean to place my pin on the BBI world map. There were many other pins on the world map as well; pins of other mechanics who have been trained here since the school started and I felt proud and privilleged to be here.

Well, the class has a good mix of people from those who own bike shops, work as mechanics to people who want to start their own shops, to people who race and want to know how to maintain their bikes and lastly to myself, who simply wants to know more. There was also another Asian attending the course. He is a Korean by the name Park. He has his own bike shop, and was complaining to me that he had been eating from the same Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant since he arrived. So after this, I am bringing him out to a nearby restaurant to eat some Japanese food :)

My learning progress has been quite good. I would say I understand completely 85% of the things taught and are able to carry out the procedures satisfactorily. First, we covered the use of torque wrenches, then moved on to adjustable bottom brackets, then cartridge bottom brackets. After lunch, we learnt how to install, adjust and dismantle threadless headsets. The pace has been good, with time split between watching the instructor demo, and time to practice in pairs. Not only are the instructors experts in their field, but they were also to teach clearly.

I did not manage to take any pictures at the school today. I was "paiseh", plus no one took out any camera and I didn't want to be the odd one. I will try to take some tomorrow, especially the one with my pin on the map.

Thanks for reading!