Sam pushed his bicycle across the finish line, his face dark.
He glanced at Alex in the distance, beaming as he accepted everyone's congratulations, then spat viciously on the ground and muttered a curse.
He was not cursing Alex, who had crossed the finish line first, but the Anjette bicycle beside him.
If not for this damned bicycle, he might have had a chance to cross the finish line first, winning not only the generous championship prize but also the extra hundred gold coins.
But this damned bicycle had ruined everything!
If the chain on this damned bicycle had not kept coming off along the way, forcing him to stop repeatedly to put it back on, he would never have lost so much time or reached the finish line so late.
When Sam had entered the Xinfei Merchant Guild Road Bicycle Race at this time last year, he had not won the championship, but he had proudly made the top ten by completing the full sixty kilometers in under three hours, earning himself quite a bit of attention.
Thinking of the difference between last year and this year, Sam grew even angrier and could not resist viciously kicking the bicycle's rear wheel.
But when he kicked it, the rear wheel actually gave several sharp clinks as a few screws fell off.
Then the rear wheel came straight off the frame and toppled to the ground.
Sam stared dumbfounded at the rear wheel lying flat on the ground, disbelief written all over his face.
Was this some kind of joke?!
He had bought this bicycle less than a week ago and had only ridden it over the past few days to prepare for the race. Even including today, he probably had not ridden it more than five hundred kilometers in total.