I got on the road by 830am the earliest in china i think. It was a beautiful clear day and at last the temperature final got above the 20’s, i was a bit unprepared a got a bit sunburnt. Things started good, the road was ok though it was gravel at times but i made good time once again, that is until about the 45 – 50km mark. I made it to a fork as it were in the road, i had three choices one of which was the motorway but i didn’t want to risk being caught by the police so i opted for the trusty 213, it also seemed the best route in the long run but one thing my GPS didn’t show was the fact that its cobbled stone. Driving over cobble stones is not a huge deal as the suspension will make things more comfortable, but i don’t have suspension, i have a solid steal frame bike with my worldly possessions on board.
The road started with a climb and i thought it cant possible stay like this, but it did. The only thing i could do to make life easier was to stay as close to the edge of the road as possible where there is sometimes gravel and a smooth edge. However the smooth edge isn’t always smooth and this being China it was going up a mountain so a lot of the time if you got to far over and fell at the very least it would be damaged bike and body also the is a large amount of thorny bushes so the risk of a puncture was quite high.
I couldn’t imagine a much worse road to ride along, any speed over 10kmph was just unbearable, i could feel the bike shaking to bits but i didn’t need to imagine, going through a small village the road was flooded with thick mud to make things interesting, it was even more odd as everywhere seemed so dry. I was running low on water and hoped to find a restaurant in which to scrounge some but nothing. I came up to what was the last house in the village and asked for some there, it was filled up from the outside tap and seemed cloudy and fizzy though it did settle to become clear but i dropped a purifying tablet in just to be safe. I was lucky to pick some water up as there were no other opportunities from there on.
Riding along the road just went up and up, i had given up on the fact it would turn to smooth tarmac so i soldiered on, i had enough food and just enough water to camp with. My speed was as slow as it could be, my back wheel kept losing grip on the gravel and for the first time on the Surly i fell off. The front end and the back both skidded and down i went, it felt like i had been dumped by a horse. It was at low speed so no damage was done, but i ended up pushing the bike uphill for stints as my cycling pace wasn’t much faster than walking. The inevitable happen and i got a flat tyre, for the first time it was in the front wheel and as i had feared it was one of those mammoth thorns that had gone through.
I checked the GPS, i had 25km to go and 2.5 hours before dark, normally that wouldn’t be a problem but here i was barely moving, i was low on energy and when darkness was beginning to fall i had done just 15km of those 25km. I found a decent pace to put the tent up sheltered on 3 sides from the wind, but exposed to the road. Checking the GPS i couldn’t believe i was at 2600m to boot.
I feel pretty worn out from today so putting the words together to write this isn’t easy so forgive me for the poor writing.
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