June 4,  Location:  Xiji  35° 58’N 105° 44’ E, elevation 1882 metres, riding day #16. 1,600m climbing, 141 km today, 2082 total to date.

A hard day today, due to the route change the day was long, lots of climbing, one very long climb with a hard wind against – tough!  But the good news is that we are in a very classy hotel tonight.  Need to enjoy it as our first camping night is tomorrow.  It will also be a harder day than initially planned, some 140k and 1,800+m climbing, hopefully no headwind.

Another 1,000k complete, so in distance we are about 20% of the way.

For the first time since I signed up for this little ride, I think there is a good chance I will complete it, slowly all my worries have been resolved and are falling away.  I think I am physically able to do it, obviously something may happen, but at this point I am starting to believe I will actually get to Istanbul!

Whilst I am writing this, as is typical in most Chinese towns, the central square is the evening gathering place – right now I hear loud Chinese Disco music – thump, thump, thump – a good beat to write to…

A few pictures from the day…

June 3,  Location:  Pingliang  35° 33’N 106° 39’ E, elevation 1337 metres, riding day #15. 127 km today, 1941 total to date.

A pleasant day, with a bit of wind behind, mostly country roads very pretty, rain at the end of the day and almost cool.  We just got word that our route for tomorrow may be quite creative, one of the tunnels we were supposed to go through has collapsed.  The organizers are out route planning as I write this.

Some health updates:  My stomach/bowel problem passed in less than 24 hours, with no incidents of note.   My butt is doing well, still arguing a bit with the saddle, but so far I haven’t needed the butt grease, but I expect the need will arise.  Also, I’m very pleased to report that both knees have settled down – I’m being careful and backing off whenever I feel anything in either knee and that seems to be doing the trick – I hope.

June 2,  Location:  Changwu  35° 12’N 107° 47’ E, elevation 1191 metres, riding day #14. 84km today, 1814 total to date.

A bit more climbing today, about 1,000m up, 800 down.  Another very dirty day, a continuous stream of coal trucks.  Our first tunnel today, about 1.5km long, very dark, needed both tail lights and a headlight to be able to see.  Note the “no cyclists” in tunnel roadsign in picture below.

June 1,  Location:  Yangshou  3534° 41’N 108° 08’ E, elevation 1024 metres, riding day #13. 107km today, 1730 total to date.

First day of what will be 6 in a row.  Mostly uneventful day, other than I got to know the toilet fairly well last night – seem to be stable today, good thing as a fairly hard climb.  But distance was short.  We’ve asked a couple times where we can wash off our bikes – use the shower.  So I just spent some quality time with my bike in the shower – both of us now happy and clean.

Some pictures from the last few days below.  A couple notes:

- the large Buddha is really large, about 100’ high.

- we went over a high ridge, the whole way there were bee hives, with honey for sale

- I gather they bag the fruit on the trees as a way of preventing insect and bird damage.  Also, prepackaged for selling…

May 26,  Location:  Xi’an  34° 16’N 108° 56’ E elevation 539 metres, riding day #12. 124km today, 1623 total to date.

The ride into Xi’an was total chaos, tons of traffic, buses everywhere, the bike lane changed into a bus/bike lane – you get used to having a full size bus running 5’ behind you – and I was pedaling at 30k.  Unfortunately one of the guys had a lady step out right in front of him, he went down breaking his collar bone.

This ends the first section of our ride, two guys are leaving and three join us.

A simple hotel, but great – not only is there water in the shower, there is warm water, and the drain drains, and the sink plug plugs so I can do my laundry, and it is on a quiet (I think it will be) small alley, and we have toilet paper, and it is a non-smoking room!  Amazing luxury!

                                                                                                                                                              

We went into the Muslim quarter for another fantastic dinner, our chiefs:

We've gone through what seems like a 100 towns like this...

May 26,  Location:  Huayin  34° 32’N 110° 05’ E elevation 389 metres, riding day #11. 142km today, 1499 total to date.

Another day doing the equivalent of a GranFondo, found it hard today.  Feeling very tired.  Goods news is that my right knee is getting better, quite a relief for me. Other good news is that we ride into Xi’an tomorrow (about 130k), then a rest day.

A couple pictures from the day:

Yes this is a flock of sheep being herded into town – possibly part of my dinner tonight.

All the back roads are used for drying a harvest.

I love these overloaded tractors

No idea why these arches are here, or what they represent.

This guy was using a whip that I think is laced with gunpowder to snap at the top, it sounds like a firecracker going off.  Speaking of firecrackers, they go off for almost any reason, completion of a construction achievement, Friday night or whatever.

If you ever find yourself in Huayin, China, go to the restaurant pictured below.  It is a Muslim restaurant and the food is fantastic – except no beer.  Tell them that Zabie from Kashgar sent you.  We have three local support people, Zabie, Abdul and Ackbar are all from Kashgar – great guys.

Most city squares have exercise and dance classes in the early morning and evening.  The same square where the pictures below were taken had several classes going on in the evening, including what I think was a Bangra (sp?) class.

May 26,  Location:  Samenxia  34° 46’N 111° 12’ E elevation 204 metres, riding day #10. 133km today, 1357 total to date.

Another very dirty ride, a very industrial area - we all look like coal miners coming home from work. I knew I looked really dirty when all the TdA staff at the hotel were taking pictures of me.  It took two serious washings to clean myself.  I know some of you won’t believe it, but I am seriously hand washing all my clothes everyday.   Some climbing today, about 1,500m, in fact almost exactly like the Vancouver/Whistler GranFondo – a bit longer, about the same climbing, but this had all sorts of heavy trucks and dust and dirt with the trucks coming and going on/off the highway without signals.  The road was quite bumpy in places so the trucks would drive where ever there were fewer bumps – e.g. the wrong side shoulder and usually passing another truck at the same time.  I had a “conversation” with a couple guys in a heavy truck going up a long (7km?) hill, we were going about the same pace – it spite of the diesel fumes, dust and rough road, it was quite fun. No idea what they were talking about.  And tomorrow will be the same and so will the day into Xi'an, although hopefully less dusty and fewer heavy trucks.

To add to the fun on cycling the roads, the ditches are definitely not to be ridden into, they are about 3’ deep with essentially vertical sides – it would not be a pleasant landing.

We just had an interesting exchange with the local police at the hotel.  The tour company has been very careful to only use “approved for foreign visitors” hotels, confirming before they book when they book etc.,  Turns out many are not approved for foreign visitors, so we have stayed in some very nice hotels.  Tonight, the police came around when a bunch of us were sitting in the lobby, asked various questions, with a serious looking guy in the background carefully taking pictures of all of us.  After checking all the paperwork, they then insisted on taking a picture of us in front of the TdA vehicle with the lead guy in the middle, so I took a picture of the guy taking the pictures.  We eventually concluded this was just a publicity shot for them, showing they were doing their work, either that or I am going to end up on some sort of China’s most wanted list…

 

I hadn’t realized it, but Dengfeng where we stay two nights ago, is the home of the famous shaolin monestry and HOME of KUNG FU, one of the riders whilst cycling through the town stopped tosee the hundreds of cool wee Kung fu kids on their break time playing and fighting in the school yard,

The food has been wonderful, yes occasionally not sure what we are having, and ordering in a restaurant is always a challenge, but the eating is great.  We are getting better at the "...get the bowl close to your mouth and just shovel and slurp..."

Yes, this is an older woman street sweeping on an 8 lane major road and yes that truck is coming at her.

A couple other interesting shots:

May 26,  Location:  Luoyang  34° 40’N 112° 27’ E elevation 204 metres, riding day #8 (6th of 6 in a row). 62km today, 1224 total to date

An easy short day, good thing as I need a break and my right knee is bothering me.  A lovely day that started off cool, but getting really hot this afternoon some 38° C.  And a bonus of a rest day tomorrow.  Really nice to ride in clean air with no dust, yesterday was just awful.

May 25,   Location:  Dengfeng  34° 31’N 112° 57’ E elevation 562 metres, riding day #8 (5^th of 6 in a row). 152km

Hard day, strong wind against, tired from yesterday, very dusty.  Absolutely filthy at end of day.   See picture.  Our accommodation is very modest to say the least, probably quite good by 3rd world standards.  Had two flats today one front, one rear.  I’ve never had a front flat before!  It was a rock pinch.  The rear flat was due to glass.

For the first time we did some climbing about 500 meters for the day, should have been easy, but with heavy wind against and at the end of the day, it was hard.

May 24,   Location:  Yanling  34° 06’N 114° 09’ E elevation 65metres, riding day #7 (4^th of 6 in a row).

Interesting day today. Heavy rain for the first 4 hours, then cleared off to sunshine.  Left things rather muddy.  We had to navigate two really serious 6” deep mud holes around a bridge under construction.   I made a minor mistake in copying the route direction notes..  End result was an extra 48k added to the planned 140 – so a 188k day.  My all time high for a day.  The good news is that tomorrow is only a 155k day.  The other good news is that the first 1,000k is done!  Only another 11,000 to go.

One of my fun things today:  I was drafting behind one of the 3 wheeled little trucks, commonly the father is driving in the single front seat, with mother and child in the back, commonly they are in a canvas enclosure, open to the back.  In this case the young kid was maybe 1 year old, I spent 10k (20minutes) waving and making faces with the little kid, to the great amusement of the mother.

May 23,  Location:  Yuli  33° 51’N 115° 29’ E

This is the home town of the philosopher Lao Tsu (Laozi or “Old Master”) a 5^th or 6^th century BC philosopher, credited with creating Taoism. See picture of the large statue and the guy on the OX cart.  Throughout history, his work has been embraced by various anti-authoritarian movements – I like this guy already!

Also attached is a recent photo, most of you won’t recognize the guy in the picture, hell, I don’t recognize the guy when I look in the mirror!

A couple other photos from the day below, it was nice to get onto some back country roads, the heavy traffic and blaring horns of the larger highways start to get to you.

…Ron – a.k.a the guy with the sore backside