In the morning, I convince myself that I'm not going to ride up and over the mountain. I convince myself that I'm going to take a bus. I'm already this tired and this sore and this achy from just what I did yesterday. It's just not worth it. 

Having gone to sleep very early, even though I sleep 13 hours, I still wake up early enough that I am able to get some work done before starting to pack up. I'm half dressed but able to use a towel for modesty when the knock comes at the door at 10:30 to ask if I'm planning on spending another night. Since he keeps knocking even after I acknowledge that I'm on my way to the door I don't know why he seems so shocked that I answer the door half dressed but, hey, China. At least, so far this trip, I've only had one person from a hotel just barge into my room. (I'd say I need to get more into the habit of using the safety lock but I don't think that hotel had one.)

I'm dressed for going up the mountain in this weather but it's less that I'm dressed for going up than I am for going down. While the switchbacks on the south side aren't quite as white knuckle fear inducing as they are on the north side, I have every intention of riding down.

Slight problem though, the hotel staff tells me that buses no longer go over the mountain to Pipa. Ever since the expressway was built, they only go through it. (Now, from what I saw while I was biking up the mountain, it seems that they were ignorant of at least one bus that goes up to the top but, to be completely fair, that bus wasn't going to Pipa, it was going to Sancang which is over the same pass but down in a different direction and I hadn't told them I was willing to ride once I got to the top.) There's no expressway interchange in Sanhe and that means, if I want to take the bus, I'll have to go all the way back to the bus station at Longnan.

I guess I'm biking over the mountain after all.

It's a cold, blustery day. Cold enough that for much of the climb, when I don't even have to deal with things like windchill, I've got my silk glove liners on.

Possibly because I slept well last night but just as possibly because I decided that today was a good day for something a little stronger than an Aleve, I manage to keep my average moving speed up to something like 6 kilometers per hour. I never get off and push and my stops to take photographs are honest to goodness stops to take photographs not tricksy redefinitions of needing to rest. 

Since the cold weather means I'm not sweating, I take a piss break every 5km when I stop to goggle at my GPS and do the math and realize that the uphill sections between the flatter parts are mostly ranging between 8% and 14% until the last bit where it hits a consistent 16%. 

Six years ago, when I last came this way, the road was so newly paved it probably had never seen a single winter. It was a glorious stretch of pure perfect black asphalt. It's still nice but it's not as nice as it was then. Also, although the trickling stream which runs alongside the road most of the way and which keeps telling me I should pee more often than once every 5km, for all it's gentle appearance, it clearly packs a punch when the rains fall. There are numerous wash outs and undercuts where the road narrows to a single lane or less.

Early on in the climb, if I get to one of these narrow spots around the same time a motor vehicle does (either going up or going down) they are clearly frustrated with my taking dozens of seconds out of their day by slowly going through a place where they simply cannot pass me.

As I get higher though, there's less impatient crowding behind me and more waiting.

By the time I'm at the really nasty switchbacks, even when the road is obstacle free with plenty of room to pass, they all wait for me to indicate that they can go and many of them wave out windows and cheer me along.

I wore the same jersey today as the one I'm wearing in the photo from six years ago. My intention was to try to take the exact same photo. However, that shirt is underneath three other layers and it's windy at the top. A rough approximation will have to do.

The paving on the other side of the mountain has aged better in terms of subsiding or potholes or general surface irregularities but there are more landslides and more washouts. Even if I wanted to go fast (which I don't) I can't. Not a lot of traffic to be seen until I start getting into villages and townlets and even then, it's still not much.

Six years hasn't improved Pipa very much. I think there might be more places to stay but the restaurant options are basically all noodle shops. If people want a nice meal somewhere they can just get on the expressway and be in Longnan in less than an hour. When I was here last, that was probably a two or three hour trip. The year before that when they hadn't yet started paving the S206, it might have been six or even eight hours.

As the road does give so too does the road take away.