D19: 陵水 → 神州 - I'm freeee - CycleBlaze

February 5, 2025

D19: 陵水 → 神州

In one pocket park that's less than one kilometer long, five copies of a bronze statue of a Li ethnicity man with some improbably well defined muscles playing music for a Li woman
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Given the extent to which I dipped into my remaining oatmeal and fixings both the night before and for breakfast, I should have taken the opportunity of my being in a county seat and gone looking for both a Yummy Market and a Super Ming¹, maybe even a quick stop at one of the brands that's slightly less common than those two² just to see what they have.

I did not do this. Although I would later supplement with some surprisingly not over priced halal dumplings, I then ended up staying someplace where oatmeal for dinner and again for breakfast was an inevitability rather than an intentional choice.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I love it when they get creative with the suspension bridges
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Been a while since I've seen a cat meat restaurant
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The cute crocodile probably isn't food
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Left Lingshui the way I came in so that I could go find the building referenced in the historic site marker from the night before. Didn't find it, but—now that I'm not only on the Coastal Tourism Highway once again but am also on one of the Classic Routes promoted by 517—gazowie at the number of cyclists I passed or was passed by.

The first pair of boys on bikes waved me to a stop and invited me for a coconut. While drinking that, we were passed by four groups of two and three riders, with only one being made up entirely of people who hadn't rented their bikes. 

Getting back on my bike a bit after they left, I had stopped to take a picture of some prime Lingshui Chinglish when the first set of girls showed up. As my friend the Tourism Professor has noted in her research on the Riyue Bay Surf Girls, safe but "adventurous" sports tourism is very, very popular among young Chinese women. Even if they aren't out here to the extent that the men are, and even if they are far more likely to be in groups (which may have met up on the road, possibly while staying at a 517 hostel), and far less likely to go "off route"³, their numbers are still pretty impressive.

Lingshui Chinglish - Camera Enforced Speed Limits
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Lingshui Chinglish - Polite drivers yield to pedestrians. Safe pedestrians yield to cars. Orderly traffic is based on the concept of yielding.
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Lingshui Chinglish - no license, no license plate, no safe way to be on the road
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Although I've been a guest lecturer on the topic, I'm not a researcher, and I'm terrible at keeping rigorous data so I can't say for sure, but I think the girls (along with the half dead guys on 517 bikes or completely unsuitable non-rentals) are more likely to wave at riders on the other side of the road and call encouragement to everyone they pass or are passed by. 

I'm dropped at the next excuse to take a photo which leads to my riding as fast as I can just so I can prove myself in better shape than them, only to have the detour for my nonexistent historic building cause them to get ahead of me for good. 

As today is the first day back at work, a quick lunch in the town of Lingmen turns long with me talking to Shawn about how damn pissed off I am over the responses I've gotten from the Sanya Police regarding my complaint⁴ and what I'd like her to do to escalate.

Coconuts with the first group of boys
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First group of girls
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At the Niuling Ridge pass
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On the way up Niuling (the only thing on the east line that vaguely begins to resemble a mountain), there are more bicycles and motorcycles than there are four wheeled vehicles.

Again with the failing to record accurate data, but even before the supported group ride arrives with a van and driver who has a drone up to take video of everyone as they finish the last little bit before the pass, I figure the impromptu convocation of people sharing road info and helping each other take photos of themselves in front of the unofficial marker naming this as Haohan Pass (Good Brave Person) gets up to around fifteen or twenty people. 

View on the way up
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Last year, instead of the weird zombie lady, I photographed one of the other sets of "have you ever seen a human" farmers painted by this truly talented artist
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Last year, I was coming down rather than going up so although this was also last year's first illegal gun advertisement of the Tour, I didn't get a photo that time
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Memorable encounters include the solo woman who incorrectly tells me that the Riyue Bay road is impassable; a Brit who biked here from Shenzhen; and a group of four male roadies in duck shoes, with those blade shaped bikepacker seatpost bags on their own road bikes, and who are really really reallllly impressed that I'm wearing WZS 1867 gloves⁵.

They are then even more impressed when I tell them that the team owner's very first bike race, a hill climb at Tongguling in April 2007, is because I took him.

They're already sufficiently wowed by my existence as a Chinese speaking foreigner who knows things and people and that I decide not to tell them that I'm also wanghong.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED, first time this Tour running into another foreigner on a bike⁶
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Excellent place to put a bougie organic coffee shop
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They tried....
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Even if it has been abandoned by all through traffic that is capable of taking the expressway, I have a limited tolerance for how much time in a row I can spend on a trunk route, and I ignore the advice to not go to Riyue Bay just because the road can't possibly be that bad (especially not when compared to the Fanyang to Maodao section of road on my way in to Wuzhishan). It's no worse than it's ever been, and still only about a kilometer and a half that's unpaved. 

However, even with large sections closed off to anything with a motor⁷, and one way routing, the tourist related traffic jam is absolutely mental.

I'll run into another traffic jam at Shimei Bay.

This is supposed to be a major road
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But Hainan's expressways don't charge tolls
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So its pretty much local traffic, bicycles, and motorcycles
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By now, the only way I'm making it to Wanning is by riding at night, so I find the only place on the coast that has dropped their prices back down to something resembling normal and check in to this bizarre motel-like place that, anywhere else in China, would seem to be converted from factory dorms except that coastal Wanning never had factories.

--

¹ So far Super Ming has been the only place where I've found individual packets of instant oatmeal that don't already have sugar and flavorings added to them, but Yummy Market has a better selection on both yogurt and dried fruits.

Autonomous delivery vehicle
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Watch out for vehicles
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Cycling infrastructure built by non cyclists, sign reads "steep downhill, dismount and walk" (it's about 2.5%)
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² Yummy Market has something like 3,000 locations across China, whereas Super Ming is up to over 10,000.

³ The 19 year old girl I met back before Lingshui who was both riding her own bike and who had ended up off the Coastal Tourism Highway because her GPS told her to turn left is a freakish exception to the rule 

⁴ "We will make sure something like this will not happen again" is an answer that cannot be questioned or faulted. Instead, they went with calling me a liar†.

Heading in to Riyue Bay
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Very reasonably priced coffee and coconuts at the scenic overlook on the way in to Riyue
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Waterfall that used to be set up as a swimming hole but is now fenced off after some prominent drownings
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† They didn't use those exact words but they did say that none of their police told the hotel owner that he didn't have the necessary qualifications of that I couldn't stay, because, sure, I'm supposed to believe he just voluntarily decided to offer to upgrade me to a more expensive hotel on his own dime after I was already in my room for over an hour.

⁵ Bearing in mind that I did not pay for these gloves, and I have no idea how much they cost, they are a for sale product which can be bought.

⁶ And about two hours later, maybe three, the second foreigner on a bike will be "first time unexpectedly running into someone I know"

What does she mean "impassable"?
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It's barely even bumpy
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This shit, however...
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⁷ Despite the efforts of some guys on motorcycles to loudly convince the security guards otherwise, although the local rental ebikes are considered "non motorized vehicles," their motorcycles have to go the long way around.

Cycling infrastructure built by non cyclists, why yes those are stylized bicycles imprinted in the pavement
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Haaaaate these paint stripes. They're like 2cm thick and painful
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Leaving Riyue for Shimei
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Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 1,288 km (800 miles)

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