July 2, 2022
Day R9: Bikes, Boats, and Barbeque
Shanghai City to Dishui Lake
Today ended up being quite significant. This was the first major post-lockdown intercity ride as well as a sooner than expected recovery ride after the massive injury on Wednesday.
The plan was to bike straight into the headwinds from a far-off typhoon and head to a man-made lake which is famous for boating. Friends would later be joining via car.
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The bike of choice would be the Montague. It's really a tale of two bikes. This one has seldom been in any serious accidents and every time I ride this one I end up with good luck. That's a major contrast to the black Cannondale deathtrap. One of these days I'll name both of the bikes.
After pumping up the tires to max, the bike ended up running very smoothly. So imagine how I felt when that dreaded pffffftttt sound of air leaking happened at the beginning of the ride going through this underpass.
Fortunately, the puncture happened directly across the street from a repair shop and it was a quick and easy fix. Then it was more slogging through the headwinds on suburban streets before arriving at the ferry crossing.
This is where I noticed an oddity on my app that is used for scanning QR codes. While scanning the location code for the boats, it said my last covid test was 14 days ago but I had done one just yesterday.
Apparently the system fails to work if your name registered on the software is different from that on your passport. I solved the problem by logging into a second account where the names were the same, and presto it worked.
The bike riding is amazing because the active rest provides constructive thinking time where you can solve these sorts of problems. I came to realize that most of the systems in Western countries work on a hybrid model of names. Let's say your name is Joe Marty McBride. Most times you fill it out this way, but some official systems (such as a passport) enter it as McBride Joe Marty. It's not hard to figure out these two names are the same.
Not so in China. It absolutely must be Surname + Given Names which happens to match your passport. If you use a different order, the health code system literally thinks it is a different person and your covid test results are fucked which makes it nearly impossible to enter buildings.
The riding was going remarkably smoothly despite the headwinds. The friends leaving Shanghai kept getting delayed and so it looked like, astonishingly, I might end up arriving first on the bicycle.
That's basically what happened. I locked the bike up in front of the hotel and realized that I got there before anyone else. They were just not in a hurry to leave the city and would end up rolling in around 5pm, around two hours after I got there.
Had I known this I could have left later or taken a slower pace. That's one of the main difficulties of trying to schedule time and meeting people on bicycle tours, it's not a mode of travel conducive for doing so. Most of the times you could be hours later than planned because people who don't ride bikes generally get to places faster. But the converse is also true as I found out today.
The highlight would be renting these paddle boats and going up and down these man-made rivers. The coach explained the basics and none of us were really clear on what to do but learned fast. It was super easy paddling with the wind going down the river, but coming back was an insane struggle fest. All my friends were exhausted but you can you imagine I was doubly so with the bike riding first.
After that, barbecues and partying at the main site. This is where you basically bring your own food and cook it on the grills you can rent. It was a really relaxed and chilled atmosphere and the times were good.
Later we tried to check into the hotel, but that ended up being a shitshow. Due to two recent covid cases that happened at the Pudong airport nearby, they were being extra strict. I was missing a few of the made-up documents they insisted on, and basically refused into the hotel. Thankfully one of the friends we were with had a car and was driving back into Shanghai and not staying overnight. We were able to arrange a ride with him, and I folded up the Montague and headed back with a few others.
The booking agency (trip.com) contacted the hotel successfully and all the money was refunded. Traveling by bicycle in China is a shitshow in general. I don't know how people manage it, which is why I opt for every chance to do trips somewhere else, namely Thailand where it's actually easy to roll up to hotels. Unfortunately with this covid nightmare there is no end in sight and it's not possible for the borders to open yet so it's the 3rd summer in a row where I'm stuck here.
At least we can do short fun local trips like this, and maybe that's all we need right now for lockdown recovery.
Today's ride: 78 km (48 miles)
Total: 467 km (290 miles)
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