D23: 毛阳 → 琼中

March 5, 2024

I didn't see any other cyclists today, but I did see a guy in monk's robes sitting down on a skateboard that was going very fast down a steep hill

Starting from my first big Tour on the mainland in 2008, my riding in Hainan dropped off and kept dropping. First, my bad leg got really bad. Like, literally unable to walk without crutches bad. Then, I was supposed to "walk more and ride less" as the whole reason I'd been able to progress as far as I had towards total disability was the bike filling in for my inability to walk.

Come 2012 (and the second big Tour), the allure of exploring places I hadn't previously been, especially in a time before maps were good enough to get me rambling down the kind of trails I often use now, won out and I effectively only went biking when I was doing my big annual ride. Not only only. But definitely mostly only.

Usually, I really dislike these kind of slightly raised paint 'bumps' that warn drivers of curves and stuff like that. However, after the other day's speed bumps, these are totally fine

Also, if you remember what I previously said about Wuzhishan's cycling facilities having input from a cyclist? The green line is carved into the paint (bringing it back to nearly level with the road surface) and is an anti-slip surface.

Apparently, it's a bit faster wearing than the white paint, but it effectively provides all two wheelers with a "ride here" guideline for comfortably traversing the speed warnings without swerving either onto the shoulder or into the oncoming lane

Coinciding with what I refer to as "the Bike Shop Wars¹," and a lack of biking friends whose level of athleticism matches mine², I went from going out practically every weekend to once a month to either riding in the city or doing a big Tour. In fact, between the ride from Haikou to Riyue Bay in fall of 2016 (when I took part in a Provincial Tourism Board project to secretly evaluate the internationalization level of tourist facilities) and the decision in September 2022 to do more riding on the island, I can't think of a single overnight ride I did on Hainan.

Since then, I've had three 5-day trips (all fall 2022) and two round the Islands (last Chinese New Year, and this one).

The earliest beginnings of the oft mentioned "Bridge Game" to correctly guess the age of a bridge before I find a sign with that information started from information packed signs like this letting drivers know of a bridge about to be reconstructed and how they could detour to avoid it

Speaking of the Bridge Game, this was one of many 50s era bridges I got wrong today (I'm assuming the railings and sidewalk must be newer concrete). It was interesting primarily on account of the kapok trees planted at each corner.

Which is my way of saying, no matter how many times I took the G224 between Wuzhishan to Qiongzhong between 2006 and 2009, it's been a very long time since I've done this road and I'm pretty sure that even when I did have luggage, it was at most a single pannier. Furthermore, the me who was traveling then not only wasn't carrying coffee or food, a laptop or enough clothing that daily laundry wasn't a thing, she also weighed at least 10kg less.

The only time I got off and walked the bike was when I dropped the chain shifting into the granny gear, but that doesn't mean the road didn't kick my ass. It just means that I'm stubborn enough to accept an ass kicking and keep going.

It gets right jammed in there when it comes off

A lot less traffic since they built the expressway

Worst part of having the road beat me up is the knowledge that, even though no particularly intensive regrading projects have happened since back when I regularly went up and down the G224, there have been a lot of little improvements, and I'm getting my ass kicked by something that's nowhere near as fierce as it used to be.

Also, this is a really boring road. I mean, sure, it's pretty. But that's really all it has going for it. Everyone from the local ethnic groups has at least one grandparent that, if they didn't actually live in thatch roofed huts, remembers them. Sure brick and stone structures existed around here as early as the 1950s, but existed isn't the same as common and there is basically nothing historic for me to go wandering off to look at.

70s building with Very Big Windows. Whatever this was used for wanted lots of light pre-cheap electricity

Government sponsored beautification as a way of encouraging development has been ongoing for a while now. This wall painting of two Li women is maybe 10 or 15 years old.

Not even abandoned schools³ as the places where the population is small enough that improved transportation has dramatically changed the educational landscape are also the places where they if they even had formal schooling it was in buildings too shabby to have survived. A really, really old building will be one from the 80s, and while there are a few of those still lurking around the small market towns, they're gone everywhere else.

I'll have to make it all the way to Qiongzhong (with it's three traffic lights) before I get to buildings tall enough to have elevators⁴ but even if the majority of the countryside homes aren't big, garish Chinese-style McMansions, they're still uniformly all new construction.

I'd hoped to see the Shanlan⁵ Winery⁶ guy while in Qiongzhong but he's on a business trip to the Mainland. As things would then have it though, I rock on up to Feng Kaishi's bike shaped object shop⁷ just as he's getting back from a training ride, so I get an amazing dinner of goose and some kind of cooked flower that is officially my new favorite vegetable. Then, I go check in at a formerly swank hotel that tickles my brain with such familiarity that I wonder if I stayed here on the 2007 Round the Island or during the hill climb race in Qiongzhong that was one of my last major Events with the bike club before the behaviors of the people in cars joining us on rides got too much on my nerves.

¹ Bad management practices (including handing much of the running of the family business over to a recent college graduate and then letting him run roughshod over people who had known him since he was in diapers) led to extreme market fragmentation and the local Scene went from The Bike Shop and The Bike Club to literally dozens of shops, clubs, groups, and organizations.

The first of the twee "motivational" signs I felt obligated to photograph, I couldn't figure out why someone would say someone else couldn't have "Sudan Red⁸" or what the connection was to the other "Red" (read: patriotic) signs it was clustered with.

Take care when harvesting from the tall betel palm, brush against electric wires and everything will be gone in a flash

The brightest moments in life come from refusing temptation to do wrong

² Mostly, they're all stronger than me

³ Were I to go up into the mountains, along one of the dead end roads that leads to a former logging camp of the absolutely huge variety, there's a late 70s/early 80s primary school for workers' children that has been turned into a resort hotel that looks stunning in the photos and which I keep meaning to visit.

⁴ This is notable as my once upon a time very swanky hotel—which does not have an elevator—has, among other pamphlets and guidebooks that have accumulated in the rooms during the twenty years they've been in business, an illustrated guide on how to use† elevators and escalators.

Every time you turn back, it's not defeat but an opportunity for new beginnings. Every time you stop, you are resting and gathering your strength.

Being tired simply indicates that the road you are traveling goes uphill⁹

It is all of society's responsibility to help prevent children from drowning

† Not just the etiquette of using elevators and escalators but the actual using of them. Which might seem a bit silly except that, shortly before the 2007 Tour of Hainan, an unrelated agricultural conference going on in the staff hotel had a number of attendees who had never been in elevators before.

⁵ A local, dry-grown heritage rice varietal which is used to make a specific type of ethnic rice wine.

So, he still hasn't sent me the photo he took with me, but someone who knew my username stopped me and asked for a photo together!

First "ghost sign" of the Tour. These are either used as markers to help spirits or as a way of doing unspecified good deeds for the community in thanks for a child's recovery from illness

I really like the exuberant Science is Cool public art of the 90s

⁶ They do not make the local, ethnic rice wine. They make something completely different that's equally awesome, and which is carefully tailored to hit every single marketing point for very high-end gifts†.

† Heritage crop varietal being grown using historic all-organic methods by local villagers taking part in a poverty alleviation project; meticulous intangible cultural heritage brewing methods; artist designed bottles and packaging that reference a local highly endangered animal; and money going to conservation efforts

He's all "stop being so polite with mostly eating the vegetable" and I'm like "dude, have you tried this vegetable? It's the most awesome vegetable I've ever nommed."

I think, by the time I was pouring vegetable dregs over my rice and basically doing everything short of licking the plate, my opinion of the vegetable's awesomeness had been made clear

⁷ The bikes that people in Qiongzhong want to buy being of a very different quality than the bikes he and his friends ride, ever since I was first introduced to him on account of a flat tire in December 2005, his shop has always been an eclectic mix of spares for people passing through and complete bicycles that cost less than a folding tire.

⁸ It's a carcinogenic dye sometimes fed to chickens to improve yolk coloration

⁹ Not going to lie, this one was my favorite

Oddly enough, the reason I know that Qiongzhong used to also have one of these at the north end of town is cause I once peed behind it

Back in the day, a single room (with COLOR TV, telephone, and hot water) was 200y! I paid 65.

This nightstand not only has power switches for the lights and tv, it could also change channels and volume

Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 1,400 km (869 miles)

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