May 30, 2021
D45: 庆城 → 何家畔
Nine years ago, I hadn't been too terribly impressed by the road from Qingcheng to Qingyang. The climb, while lengthy, didn't provide many chances to see the scenery; and, the plateau at the top of the climb was a jersey barrier divided fast road. Also, while chances were reasonably good that I'd have no problem at all making it to Qingyang in a single day, I didn't want to deal with urban police two lodging attempts in a row.
Rural are just easier.
In this case because they were clearly terrified of me (as much for their now being held responsible for my safety as for the possibility of my being a disease vector) but still, much much easier to deal with.
Attempted visits on the way out of Qingcheng to the cluster of old buildings recommended in the museum and to another cluster that even had a tourism sign pointing at them but was sorely disappointed in both cases as, although one set was still in an older neighborhood, both were basically just monuments and nothing else.
The ride out the city gates and off the plateau that Qingcheng was built on was a bit trippy. The gates themselves look more or less the same as they do in my picture from 9 years ago. It's just that instead of little shops and motorcycle repair places and stuff like that, the whole ramp has been cleared of buildings and the area just outside the gates turned into a massive park with statues and everything.
I've not so far found the specific pictures I'm looking for online but I've confirmed that the not at all old looking in 2012 gate and gate tower were in fact completely rebuilt in 2005.
Once out of the cité, I immediately had a very rough intro to small back roads on terms of a very steep up followed by a "walk down" descent which, to my immense frustration, was the GPS's way of cutting 300m off my total horizontal distance.
Soon enough though I was on the right road and climbing. Managed not to walk the first climb at all but the heat and the steepness and my still ongoing inability to shift one handed¹ eventually had me walking.
Lunch in the town of Gaolou happened to randomly be at a noodle shop owned by a cyclist which both led to me not paying for my meal and my being persuaded to head over to the main road for at least some of the day's distance. He felt that the road I was planning to take was something I'd be walking "easily 80% of the time" and, having seen the way the hills around here are graded, I decided it was worthwhile to trust a fellow biker.
The plains atop the plateau are still uninteresting plains. The bits where the road is suddenly at the edge of the plateau and the mountains are beneath me is still disconcerting.
In Baimapu, which I'm pretty sure is where I had lunch nine years ago, I turn south onto a former county road that's been re-route numbered as a 5XX provincial road². Now, although it's not very much of a slope, I'm going downhill and with the exception of the bit where I need to turn around cause I took the wrong turn³, it was all downhill from here to nightfall.
Confirmed with some locals who wanted a photo with me that, even though Hejiapan wasn't showing lodging on maps, there was lodging available and pointed myself in the direction of the police station as, at this stage of things, it's easier to just treat Gansu like I did Ningxia in 2018 and start all evenings with the police.
Found the police eating a late afternoon snack from a road stall before I got to the police station and they were so anxious over my friendly "I was on my way to the police station cause I figured it would be less trouble that way" that they bolted their food and jumped in the police car like hearing over the radio about a crime in progress.
Masks came out at the station but, by the time of the carefully social distanced photo with me, they'd stopped treating things I'd passed to them (passport, phone) as if these items might bite an ungloved hand. By the time I'd followed them to a guesthouse and they were out of their car walking down an alley with me, they were even joking with me.
And then one guy asked how much my bike costs.
"It's expensive", I replied.
"Yeah, but how much did it cost?"
"A lot", I evaded.
"How much is a lot?"
"A large number."
"What? You mean like 10,000 yuan?" He scoffed.
"Umm... well... more like 30 or 35." I finally said, not wanting to belabor the fact that my bicycle cost about what he probably makes in a year.
And the joking stopped. And the spines got stiff. And they made extra double careful sure that I knew to take my bike inside the guesthouse where I should park it in a safe location not that I had thieves to worry about or anything like that just that it would be very good if I didn't let it get lost.
Which they also made sure to tell the boss. More than once.
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Was thinking over dinner about the way that they'd first tried to convince me that surely I could make the city by night if I pedalled fast⁴ and how now the cops were on high alert over my very very valuable bike and how maybe I should have tried to find a pair of trees that weren't someone's orchard... .... ...when the windstorm started
¹ Covid's effect on supply chains means that the Rohloff distributor could only give me a MTB handlebar shifter after which I could either change my handlebars or shim it. My shop and I both chose to go with a shim which has somehow fallen out.
² At least in terms of National Roads, the 5XX designation is for scenic routes.
³ It looked more interesting than the right turn and I didn't initially realize one of those plateau edge gorges would keep me from meeting back up with the road I wanted.
⁴ It was another 50km away
Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 1,642 km (1,020 miles)
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