D6: 阳江农场 → 白沙

February 1, 2024

Ordinarily, if there was a day where—for some reason or another—I ended up on a bus (or otherwise hitchhiking) for a portion of my forward motion, I would not consider those kilometers as having been ridden. Today, however, the 16km that I did on a bus were sixteen completely well earned kilometers.

I suppose, in the morning, when—intending to check my tire pressure—I pulled out the awesome little electric pump that Chinese Boyfriend gave me and, after connecting the hoojibobber and hose extension that allow it to smoothly connect to a Presta valve, the hoojibobber broke off the hose in ways that could not be repaired, this was probably the universe telling me I should not go west through the mountains on the small roads south of Songtao Reservoir but should instead go southeast to the center of the island where there is known to be a bike shop.¹

I tried. It actually managed to kind of hold in place so long as the goal was 35 psi or less.

First pig jizz advertisement of the Tour

Even when failed attempts to fix the hoojibobber resulted in me not only not checking my tire pressure, but instead letting all the air out of front tire, I ignored this warning from the universe.

Even when it took three motorcycle repair shops, two hardware stores, one bicycle-shaped-objects shop, and 2km of walking.... I ignored this warning from the universe.

Instead, I bought the flimsy quality (but usable!) floor pump with the dual Presta/Schrader head, found myself a noodle shop to eat breakfast² at, made a round of the older coffee beans³ in my coffee kit, then made a round with the new beans. Which were awesome. And—because I'm not the kind of person whose palate is sufficiently edumacated to be able to specifiy identify notes of mango and incense—which were made even more awesome on account of my being able to compare them to the old beans.

Nice 90s bus shelter outside the main entrance to Yangjiang Plantation⁴.

Surprisingly not vibrating⁵ from the amount of caffeine in three and a half⁶ portions of moka pot espresso, I headed out, first backtracking towards where I entered the main road the previous afternoon, then riding about six or eight kilometers of perfectly lovely country road.

Most of this was the same "perfectly, lovely country road" that had been the very end of the previous day. In fact, I think there was only about a kilometer (or at most two!) of this "perfectly, lovely country road" that was completely new to me by the time I hit the site of the future National Tropical Rainforest Park Circuit Road⁷.

A new to me legal knowledge popularization wall mural seen early yesterday afternoon

The same mural seen today when crossing a bridge

Figuring that my route and the route of the under construction road surely couldn't parallel each other for that long, I did not take this Very Obvious new warning sign from the universe as reason enough to turn back to the main road and head southeast to Qiongzhong.

I'm pretty pleased with how little I got off and walked prior to the appearance on the scene of The Mud. Thick and gloopy enough that it was getting stuck in the admittedly narrow space of my not at all an off-road bicycle's tire and fork and making it so the wheel couldn't really turn, I used my powers of deduction regarding roads with roadworks never really being that terrible for more than a few kilometers and kept going.

Refilling my bidons after using my water to clear the fork

Which is how I ended up on the bus, with a cheery and extraordinarily competent driver⁸ who made up for the lack of an in-vehicle entertainment system by singing whatever bits of whatever songs came to mind. Sometimes with modifications, so "Welcome to Beijing, Welcome to Tiananmen Square" became "Welcome to Danzhou, Welcome to Songtao Reservoir."

If I hadn't been told that the road is "practically finished" as well as being "really, quite flat" after the bus's terminal village, I think I might have finally had the sense to turn around. Maybe I'd have even gone back to that hotel in Yangjiang for the evening before doing something sensible like riding to Qiongzhong. But, I was told that the absolutely not anywhere near finished road was "practically finished" and that the absolutely not anywhere near flat road was .... so, I kept going.

China's mass transit system, and the service which it provides to the middle of nowhere, is absolutely mind blowing

Even if the info on this sign about the bus only running once a day on Monday and Tuesday is wrong

Thirty of the worst kilometers I've ever done. Usually, there wasn't Mud. Sometimes, this was because there was sand. Other times, it was crushed gravel. Still other times, the gravel wasn't crushed.

My poor baby began making weird noises. Enough mud that I couldn't wash out got stuck in the fork gap that I didn't really need to worry too much about slowing down on the ridable downhills as I had Automatically Applied Braking. I made the decision to probably take a bus back to Haikou from Baisha and restart my winter ride using a more suitable bicycle.

The sand was so deep it was easier to pick my bike up and roll it along what will be the lidded drainage ditch once the roadbed is filled in

Stumbling across all seven members⁹ of the Baisha County Bike Club out on an evening ride moments after I crossed into the urban area, some basic issues were diagnosed and fixed, and while I think I'm still going to bus back to Haikou, I've also decided to do at least a few more days (out of the mountains) on this bike.

¹ Not just "known to be" but—as far back as 2006—actively visited by me, usually with something broken or worrisome, on most rides through the area.

² Which, by now, was approaching "very early lunch" hours for a day where I didn't think there would be any restaurants, so I subsequently ate two portions.

Nice little switchback that won't be there anymore after the new Road is finished because it goes around and through the hillside instead of up and over

A mercifully paved section (not that you can tell with how much dirt has been tracked over it)

³ Same microroastery. Bought at the end of October for a week long media event.

⁴ Yangjiang is one of numerous massive, effectively collective farms, owned by the former state-owned enterprise HSF Group (Hainan State Farms). Although I know that some of the villages which make up Production Brigades were natural villages that weren't set up as part of the Plantation's oversight, I often wonder if towns—like where I just spent the night—outside the Gate existed prior to Reform and Opening-up or if they came into being (generally in the area outside the Gate) as part of the economic reforms allowing small businesses. In this particular case, as services like the local hospital† are outside the Gate, it stands to reason that not everything was originally owned by HSF.

† I'm specifically mentioning the hospital as—even though she was young enough to be from the era where former State Owned Enterprises were reorganizing themselves—my previous assistant, Kaylee, was one of the millions of small town Hainanese to be born in an HSF hospital, go to an HSF kindergarten, and effectively not so much as meet anyone who wasn't employed by HSF until after she was already a teenager.

It's notable that some of these pieces of gravel were sharp enough to be felt through the sole of my sneakers

Descending on sand and nearly crashing because of a sudden change in depth and density

⁵ Just need to mention that the GBoard Google Keyboard suggested that this word should be followed by "panties".

⁶ The new Bialetti Mokina pots are considered half portions. I'm carrying two Mokinas and a Bialetti Mini Moka. I somehow fucked up one of the Mokina shots on the old coffee, and 1 + 0.5 + 1 + 0.5 + 0.5 = 3.5.

⁷ On the one hand, if only because the Park insists that their English name has words in the wrong order: like "National Park of Hainan Tropical Rainforest," this probably isn't what the Road will get called when it's finished. On the other hand, my media colleagues and I sufficiently lobbied against whatever the Hainan Coastal Tourism Highway was originally going to be called that we won.

⁸ Never stalling or sliding backwards, he only nearly killed us once. Which has got to be a record for situations involving busses on dirt roads. I expect busses on dirt roads to nearly kill us at least three or four times per time I end up on a bus on a dirt road†.

† Bearing in mind, I think this is only the fourth time in 22 years in China, and, gee, 3 out of 4 of those times involved biking.

⁹ Maybe there were eight of them. In any case, I saw Obvious Cyclists moments after my first traffic light since yesterday morning and pulled over with a "please tell me there's a bike shop in town cause my totally shouldn't be carrying luggage and shouldn't be on these kinds of roads baby is behaving funny" and they were like "bike shop? In Baisha? No. But our mechanic is riding with us."

While waiting for them to figure things the fuck out with regards to my rudely failing to be a Chinese citizen, I reorganized the fake books on the lobby shelves

If they'd had a keycard assignment software which I knew how to use, I'd have found out before the police arrive that my assigned room's door was already open.

Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 317 km (197 miles)

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