D32: 石桥 → 熊背

July 7, 2022

Sometimes when you stare at the Void, it bites back

Given the way the weather has been recently, I really need to work on my "going to sleep at a reasonable hour" and "waking up early" skills. Given that I'm 41 and I still haven't gotten myself trained at any of that, or that I have video editing and Mike talking to to do at night, I don't think this is going to ever happen. It's just, I really ought to...

When the hotel owner knocks on my door at 11:30 to let me know that I will be charged an additional half day if I stay past noon, I'm actually almost ready to go. Not actually "ready to go" but "almost ready".

All I've got left really is cleaning out my coffee cups.

Don't think they really need to be quite that long though. (Also, Achievement Unlocked: First wall gecko of the Tour)

A halal restaurant (in green) with the Arabic for "halal" removed from the sign. On the roof of the building a sign which reads "Listen to and follow the Party". Construction materials, placement of the roof sign, and lack of similar signs in the vicinity indicate that it was likely put there by the restaurant.

Gee, WeChat, thanks for deciding to just not work with no warning and without telling me what I need to do to fix this (reupload my passport info) or how long it will take (48 hours). Thankfully, I have other methods of accessing my money.

I hadn't really been in an oatmeal kind of mood today and, while looking for breakfast, I find a pair of old men sitting underneath sunbrellas doing shoe and bag repair so I pull out the VeloChina jersey with the broken zip to see if they can do anything about it¹. The one guy gives it a try and 40 minutes of trying to fit various zipperheads later, as well as some impressive tool usage, and the help of friends, it's done.

All it took was his time—which is otherwise worth nothing—so he only charges me 2y for this. I spend much of the wait checking out the combination handcycle and wheelchair belonging to his neighbor. Complete with a lever actuated drumbrake, it's in astonishingly good condition for something that's been used daily for the past 24 years and, even if it came with the help of charitable donations², it must have been considerably not cheap when it was new.

Mended jersey in hand, I get myself an almost cold vanilla Coke Zero from a nearby supermarket and go for what is now an ordinary lunch rather than a late breakfast. As meals go, it's generally nothing special except for the random other patron who gets my check on the way out the door.

It's not super unusual to have someone treat me, what makes it unusual though is that this person barely spoke to me and didn't so much as ask for a photo.

From here to the other side of Lushan County, I'll get basically nothing but a mostly truckless truck route. Unlike some truckless truck routes I've been on, this is less of a dead route littered with the corpses of restaurants and repair places that once were and more of a never alive route with great wide lanes and shoulders and hardly a speck of traffic.

In fairness to the person who accidentally wrote 犯 for 反 (both of which are pronounced "fan"), the latter is used later in the same Document Name

Chinese people using Chinese incorrectly makes me happy

A sign announcing a Lumber Inspection Station that, judging by the urban area this street passes through, hasn't existed for at least 15 years

Achievement Unlocked: First 两学一做 slogan of the Tour (about 5 years old)

After Lushan, around the time that my speaker dies and I stop having music, I finally begin to get scenery. Since the speaker is also my headlight, this means I also get into a race against sunset.

Being as I can't resist the lure of trying to find some way over to oxbowed off buildings that must have been something quite grand back in the 80s, sunset very nearly wins. However, I manage to make it to my "I called ahead and they knew I was coming" hotel with minutes of visibility left to me.

Interesting wall paintings outside a hospital

Not entirely sure what they're about and I had the advantage of literacy and captions

Favorite wall painting of the day is probably this Fire Safety one outside a natural gas depot

I don't think this non-existent historical site of interest was on my list of places to visit, but, if it was, it's all underground

Once again, no idea until I arrived that the arriving cyclist was going to be a foreigner. Once again, no actual problem with me being a foreigner. I rather suspect, given how chill countryside folk usually are and how chatty happy³ they are to have me sit with them after dinner that they never would have had a problem, but, you just don't know and now that I know that calling ahead can sometimes be helpful⁴, I figure I'll stick with it for at least a while.

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¹ Marcus, who had originally been planning on meeting me anyways was going to solve my problem of temporarily only having two wearable jerseys by delivering to me a hot pink Shaanxi Hillriders International Team (S.H.I.T.) club jersey but Xi'an has Covid cases and is in soft lockdown.

This really isn't a good place to be drying corn

The only advantage I see to a road like this is that it gets you from A to B

But it does so with nowhere to escape from the sun

² Deng Xiaoping's son Deng Pufang has been wheelchair bound since the Cultural Revolution. As a result, given how much of a social welfare safety net China does not have, the country pays considerably more attention than you would think to the plight of the severely physically handicapped.

³ There was some expressly noticeable moving to sit farther away from me on the part of one person in response to my talking about quarantine but that was about it.

⁴ Other times, its completely useless

Should be an under construction temple up the top of those missing stairs

This place must have been something special 30 years ago. I wonder how long it's been since this place was last open?

Can somebody please explain to me why places like this have no problem with foreigners and nice places are the epitome of trouble

Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 1,908 km (1,185 miles)

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