I swear, this is the last time this Trip that I'll enter Shaanxi.

I'm not sure where I would have ended up today if my original road hadn't been closed to traffic. Although it took me the whole day and got me very nearly to my preferred 50km minimum, the place the detour took me was only a bit over 10km from my start.

Inconveniently located for going farther than I'd already gone and still having important things like food and lodging, I suppose (being as I camped the next night) that camping may have actually happened. Don't know.

What ended up happening instead was an old mansion guesthouse where I paid for the cheapest room and got upgraded on the basis of no one having gotten around to cleaning it since the last guests had checked out.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As the road closure was shown on Maps but also shown as passable for a bike, I assumed  I'd have roadworks to deal with and I started the day pumping my tires hard and oiling my chain. Then, I ignored the "no thru traffic" signs and merrily made my way along the nice flat river road. 

A scooter with a local on it, clearly had a similar idea about going through this way, passed me, and then passed me coming back. But scooters aren't bicycles and Marian is stubborn.

Marian is not, however, so stubborn as to argue with the Traffic Policeman¹ who has been stationed at the final barrier for the express purpose of telling people like Marian (or the scooter driver) that "closed" means "closed".

This let's me know that it actually was possible for me to get through. If it hadn't been possible, they wouldn't have bothered with putting someone there to tell people "go the fuck away and take the route over the mountains".

The first part of the route over and through the mountains is a national road. I can see on the map the route this route used to take and it was a lot less straight with a lot more up and no tunnels. The second part, however, whooooof. That's all farm roads and they're not just the "walk your bike" variety of uphill, they're the walk in zigzags cause otherwise it's too steep variety.

For the downhill at least, I'm on to a numbered route (an X road but a Route nonetheless) so things are generally well paved and safe. This is when I start noticing that my front brake really isn't gripping anymore and that I've got to figure out how it's supposed to adjust.

By the time I arrive in the core historic area, everything that's supposedly worth seeing has shut for the night so I circle the town a few times, find food, find a tolerable massage from a masseuse whose inability to listen with regards to my asking her "stop doing [thing]²" actually had me sitting up on the table and yelling, and my making the decision to stay overnight so I can check the interesting places out in the morning.

¹ I only argue with policemen when I think I have a reasonable chance of winning the argument

² It's not that I mind the slap slap slap slap motion. It's that doing it anywhere near my bad leg as I person I don't know and trust will cause me to massively tense up and undo all the benefits of getting the massage.