Total distance bicycled - 84.24 kilometers
Total distance travelled - ~160 kilometers
Total time elapsed - ~8 hours
Total time spent riding - 4:00:01
Since I thought riding with seven other people was really really cool,
I'm not sure how to even begin to describe what it was like riding with
twenty other people and a sweep truck.
Except for the fact that it isn't really a real word fantabulous sort
of works.
Or maybe just "wow."
They were going to Sanya and will arrive the day after tomorrow. I'm
not sure how they are getting back to Haikou. Unlike the
round-the-island rides, having Sanya as an endpoint makes it somewhat
more difficult to get home at the end.
I suspect a few of the more impressive riders will decide to go back by
bicycle, while others will send their bikes back by truck and, perhaps
after a day spent lounging on the beach, will ride the bus home. Don't
know. I'm going to Shanghai for the next week and a half.
(Alas the first biking event I've been told about in Shanghai is the
same day as Rosh Hashanah services. And since I'm going to Shanghai
for High Holyday services, slagging off to ride my bike with a group of
similar nutcases would be counterproductive.)
Wasn't planning on going on this ride at all.
Wasn't planning on going on my last big ride.
Just like last time, it was a last minute decision made the evening
before the ride.
I packed two apples, four hard boiled eggs, five peanut butter and
jelly on french bread mini-sandwiches, a dried meat roll from Califor
Bakery and two 600 ml bottles of pre-sweetened green tea.
We mustered at the bike shop at approximately 7:00am. Some people were
there early. Others (like the guy who rode in 20 kilometers from
Meilan) were late. We left at approximately 8:00am.
When I arrived I discovered that I'd muzzily left my camera bag behind.
This would prove to be quite a disappoinment when, as the weather
started getting hotter, various shade and sweat solutions started
coming out of the luggage on the truck. Fearless Leader had a pink
(and I mean properly pink, not white washed with reds pink) snoopy hand
towel hanging under his helmet.
Before starting off we got a lecture from our trip leaders. Mostly
dealing with things like what to do in the event of an accident, the
phone number for the sweep truck if you couldn't keep up, had a
breakdown, inexplicably got lost, or had completely run out of water,
stuff like that. Also some stuff about not jockeying for position, and
not getting out in front of the leaders. If you are in doubt as to
whether or not you are a leader then you are not a leader.
There was one bit that particularly amused me. Since I'm translating,
I'll paraphrase:
"Do not get into a pissing match with motorcycles. No matter how good
you are, or how fast, they _will_ win in the end."
This came from Fearless Leader. What he did not make available for
general knowledge (though if asked why he winced when stretching would
admit to) was that he recently had a nasty crash because he was going
too fast while informally racing against a motorcycle.
I, the other leader, the guy from Meilan, and a boy about my age were
on road bikes.
The one with the same bike as my old one was generally bringing up the
rear. Not just because he was riding a road bike on roads that wanted
wider tires. Not just because he was riding a fairly heavy road bike.
Not just because he had less gear options for going up hills. Not just
because he was a skinny little fellow with hardly any meat on him. But
also because HE WOKE UP AT 6AM TO RIDE 20 KILOMETERS TO MEET US AT THE
MUSTER POINT. To further point out his insanity in this matter, our
route went past his home. He could have slept an extra two hours and
simply joined up when we passed by. But ... no ... that would be TOO
EASY!
The rest were riding mountain or hybrid bikes of varying levels of
quality. At first I didn't understand why. But then we got to
Luoniushan. While some of the rural roads in Hainan are of
surprisingly good quality, others leave quite a bit to be desired. In
a climate where the only ice is found in ice cream I find it hard to
understand where all the lumps, bumps, patches, cracks, grooves,
ridges, ruts and potholes came from.
Just before the two hour mark, as we were heading for our first tea
break, I got my first flat tire.
The mechanic driving the sweep truck changed my tube for me and I got a
stern lecture about road quality and speeding. Basically, they only
had one more tube that size and another person riding that size tire.
Someone who planned to go for another two days. If I got a second flat
I would be banished to the truck for the rest of the afternoon.
Not that being banished to the truck would necessarily be an altogether
bad thing. Periodically he would drive up ahead of the group, park,
and take photos of the riders as they came by. Nice camera. Good
lens. If I had ended up on the truck I probably could have talked my
way into getting to play with it.
For our tea break we had Naicha with cookies. This is black tea brewed
very strong and served in a glass with an inch and a half of sweetened
condensed milk at the bottom. You get as many free refills of tea as
you want. But extra sweetened condensed costs another 2 rmb. At some
teashops you can get local coffee served up the same way. Watching the
way the waitress and other customers watched with astonishment as we
chugged down pot after pot of tea I suspect that drinking coffee would
have been an Extra Super Caffeinated Bounce Bounce BOUNCE Bad Idea.
Even if the local coffee is uber-yummy.
We ate lunch on the outskirts of Wenchang. I'm not sure if it was
because of the holiday or simply because we had such a large group but
another cool thing was ordering beer with lunch. This is the way
things should be. Usually at a meal it works out to about one 1 liter
bottle of beer per person, before any drinking games take place. The
twenty two of us got six bottles. Total. Even with a few of the women
not drinking this meant that even the heaviest drinker (our mechanic)
was limited to half a bottle of beer.
I got sick at lunch and the fact that I was leaving in a scant 12
kilometers to board a bus back to Haikou was one of the few things that
kept me from being banished to the truck. After I threw up, and drank
some hot water, I felt a lot better. Having Wenchang chicken and hairy
pork fat on the table probably contributed to the way I felt. But,
since I saw the less than perfectly hygenic kitchen when I was hauled
back there to choose a protein dish (on the grounds that I HAD to eat
something and if I didn't like what had already been ordered, then I
had to choose something) I suspect eating food from there had more to
do with it.
(Banishment to the truck was the general threat levied at everyone for
all offenses ranging from problems with your body through to problems
with your bike. I suspect if someone actually did something really
wrong or bad or dangerous they would get banished from the trip rather
than banished to the truck.)
I've yet to encounter a Hainanese vegetable or tofu dish that I don't
like. I enjoy almost all of the local seafood. I find the majority of
the things that they do with meat and poultry disgusting. Especially
the half raw Wenchang chicken with head and feet.
We arrived in Wenchang. I paid for my tube and my share of water, tea,
and lunch (31 rmb total) and went to the bus station to catch a bus
back to Haikou (16 rmb).
The guy from Meilan and another lady came in with me. Wanted to make
sure I got on the bus alright. I fell in love with quick release
wheels when he popped my front wheel off to make it better fit in the
luggage compartment. Sure he could have tetris'ed it into place with a
bit of fudging and fussing, but why bother when the wheels just come
off. The lady from the bus company's eyes practically jumped out of
her head when she saw him do that.
As if walking around the station wearing gloves, helmets, Giant
Bicycles spandex, me carrying my bike over my shoulder (hugely
difficult with my last bike, totally impossible with a normal Chinese
bike), and my being a foreign blonde wasn't weird enough ... he took
the front wheel off of a bike in less than a minute WITHOUT TOOLS. If
we had then proceeded to sprout wings and fly, it probably couldn't
have surprised her more. Wouldn't have surprised her.
Putting the wheel back on in Haikou took me a while. I've never done
it before and I've only watched it up close once. Less time than it
normally takes with tools from a curbside bike repair stand so I was
still ahead of the game.
Very cool.
Even cooler was watching the guy at the bike shop take my bike apart to
go in the box for the airplane. (Could have had a proper bag for it
for 200 rmb but it wasn't the size bag that one can slip over a bike to
turn it into subway luggage. And if my bike was going to be taken
apart and zip-tied into strange positions then it might as well have a
nice studly cardboard box protecting it.)
-M