D15: 武夷山→武夷山

October 20, 2019

Wuyishan to Wuyishan by way of Wuyishan

Great Propaganda regarding building a moderately prosperous society in all respects

Despite starting my day and ending my day in a place with the same name I actually went somewhere. I'm not exactly sure why the town of Wuyishan in Jiangxi province just to the north of the Wuyishan National Forest Preserve at Wuyishan Mountain is named the same as the city of Wuyishan in Fujian province just to the south of the Wuyishan National Forest Preserve at Wuyishan Mountain (which, by the way, is a completely different place than Wuyishan Park) but hey, China does as China does.
Because China.

I've groused before that I'm not getting enough granny out of my Alfine-11 and, with today being my first actual mountain of the trip, I'm definitely not getting enough granny. When I get the opportunity, I'm going to try buying one of the larger Nexus-8 chainrings that apparently can be forced to fit onto Alfine "without too much trouble" but that's probably going to be after I finish this trip.

The 6 NO's you should know for safe driving

No overloading of passengers or goods
No speeding
No illegal overtaking of other vehicles
No driving while tired
No driving drunk
No driving without a license

It's bad enough that I had to go all creative with my handlebars, I really don't want to be getting into excessive mechanicking while I'm on the road.

(Other than the now reversed flared angle that makes my handlebars so great when they are mounted the correct way, I'm actually finding that I really like the upside down bars and I may end up doing something similar with a less fancy set of drop bars once I get my correct fork.)

I'm very pleased with myself that despite my general lack of exercise between tours, I only walked 1km of the whole trip up the mountain but even with National Road level grading and smoothness, it was a tough trip up the mountain and I would have preferred it if I could have pedaled a bit faster.

The highlight of today's biking came about two thirds of the way up to the top when a small red van that looked domestically made stopped on their way down, pulled out his phone, took a photo of me, then jumped out to say "hi" only instead came up alongside me and gave me a running push like a spectator on one of the cols in the Tour de France. He got me going faster long enough that it even showed up on my GPS that I suddenly went from a pitiful 4kph to over 15kph.

Looking down at the expressway which is actually new enough that my map book (purchased in 2017) shows it as still being under construction

A swimming pool at a tea themed B&B about halfway up the mountain

It was a gloriously sunny day with all sorts of nice mountain scenery but it wasn't really interesting scenery, just nice. Good enough to distract me from the pain in my thighs but never fascinating enough to justify the idea of stopping. That or I was aware in my deepest of hearts that if I did stop it was too steep to start again and I just didn't want to walk.

Had lunch in a lackluster and somewhat cleaned up Olde Town once I'd crossed the other side of the mountain and found myself in Fujian.

To protect the paving of "Red Army Street", it is strictly forbidden for buses with more than 18 passenger seats or vehicles with a gross weight above 2 tons to come this way.

14 seconds later according to my timestamps, I had to move out of the way so a county bus (that had more than 18 seats and was more than 2 tons) could drive down Red Army Street.

Once I got into Fujian, I don't know if the Road was uninteresting because it was the main road or if it was uninteresting because I was worn out tired. It wasn't boring or ugly or anything like that. It just wasn't interesting or exciting either.

Also, perhaps related to my posture when I was climbing the mountain, or even the bike shorts I was currently wearing, the little pressure sores which have almost completely healed but which are still in the habit of reforming by the end of the day and being healed again by morning were worn raw particularly early and I was finding it hard to find a good position from which to enjoy my glorious blue sky sunny day with lovely mountains.

And now the Sinopecs are Esso instead of BP

The Merida which Gaode Maps thinks exists in Wuyishan City was like the Merida which Gaode Maps thought existed in Changshan - nonexistent. The Giant was real though and was able to tell and show me how to adjust my Alfine if it started really acting up again (which it did a few times on the mountain though not many).

Certain that I was going to face a huge hassle with finding a place to stay as the Wuyishan in Fujian is not only a real city but is also a real city near a real tourism site, I booked the cheapest room I could find in downtown Wuyishan via the English language trip.com app... ... ... and it worked! I had no problems at all.

Sure, I had to go behind the desk and register myself because they didn't know how to do it. But they knew they didn't know how to do it. It wasn't that they thought they couldn't do it. It was that they knew they possessed the ability to do something they'd never done, were cautiously willing to try and were happy to let me do it for them.

Image not found :( — The only shrine I stopped at all day.

It feels a bit like cheating but I think I'm going to make a point of looking for rooms on Trip again the next time I'm in a city.

Today's ride: 54 km (34 miles)
Total: 994 km (617 miles)

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