D22: 琼中 → 儋州

February 8, 2025

If I thought yesterday's ride was boring, I'm not sure what words to use to describe today's.

Starting the morning off with a visit to Feng Kaishi's bike shop for the, by now traditional, "I'm in Qiongzhong and I've broken something" that—from the very first time I met him (in 2005!)—has almost always been a tire, but was just a lost bolt this time.

Three of the four nuts and bolts that hold my coffee bag to the rack mount that was designed for a completely different bag¹ are still in place, and I was already supplementing with snap connect bungee straps, so this is probably a non-issue but it's still a non-issue that I'd like to fix before it gets any worse.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED, first "ankle breaker" type shower/toilet combo of the Tour

More rural surrealist trompe l'oeil, on the wall of last night's hotel

I must have taken this photo in tonight's hotel cause I know last night's doesn't have an elevator. Gambling ads masquerading as "no littering" signs

Considering that they don't have a wrench small enough² to allow me to do more than finger tightening, I'm pretty impressed at the speed with which the guy opening up the shop manages to find an appropriately sized bolt in the Random Stuff Container³.

I'd gotten in early enough last night that I could have done it before going to my hotel, but I wanted a small simple meal⁴, and I don't really have anything to chat about with the shop owner, and I wasn't up for trying to fight over the bill only to have him—once again—insist that being older and having Y chromosomes meant that it was his right to never let me pay.

This is the new shop. It is over twice the size of the old shop.

I guess since scheduled vehicles are more likely to show up on time than 15 years ago, they don't need the waiting room anymore. Most of the Qiongzhong Coach Station has been turned into a night club.

Life Pro Tip: if you have incomprehensible decorations, you aren't limited to using them at specific holidays

This should be a collage with the previous photo but photo upload has been wonky and I just want to get everything uploaded

Bag fixedish, I had about 20km on the National Road between Qiongzhong and Wushi Plantation⁵. While continued gray weather plays a part in the non-interesting of this road, I mostly find myself looking at it through the eyes of someone who was once gobsmacked by how pretty it is and wondering "did one of the rounds of widening and straightening steal it's charm?" Or, "have I just been so many amazing places that this no longer ranks?"

The only thing I stop for is the bridge over the Dabian River on account of the current (2015, concrete T-truss) bridge having acquired a sign indicating that there should be an "ordinary class" immovable cultural relic at this site.

That bridge over the Dabian River was listed in 2013 but failed to get posted until last year, and the immediate assumption is that it was the bridge which the modern bridge replaced.... except you would think that the people including it on the county's Cultural Heritage Preservation List would have noticed it not being there when they made up or posted the sign.

End result, I can't find anything up or downstream of the current bridge, and a video which doesn't even get 7,000 views ends up with the Qiongzhong County Antiquities Bureau contacting me⁶ and letting me know they'll look into it.

I definitely rode the whole of the Wushi/Danzhou Road at the end of 2015 with Myf. I also may have ridden it in 2007 with Giant Bikes on their winter Round the Island Ride back when it was still a bunch of serious nutters getting together and paying for a support vehicle and not a caravan of people on holiday with a core of bicycles acting as an excuse somewhere at the middle of the group⁷.

I also rode parts of it (possibly all of it) in 2009 when going to a friend's home village near Songtao Reservoir and then riding back to Haikou, and about half of it when I first stumbled across the under construction Rainforest Road last year.

I appreciate a lawyer who is willing to dress like this

So, it's not unfamiliar to me.

But, it's still a gray drippy day, it's still been widened (if not entirely graded) to National Road standards, and it's still an empty road designed to be a trunk route for an area that didn't need a trunk route and which then had all it's limited traffic stolen by the even newer expressway not too many years later.

As with the G223 in the corner near Lingshui, I see almost as many bicycles and motorcycles as I do cars. Except that I don't see very many of either. In fact, I only see two roadies (who call out hello to a mangled version of my name as they whizz past on the other side of the road) and five bike tourers who have first, decided to challenge themselves to the Rainforest Road, and second, decided it was too hilly after they got on it and are now heading south.

The constant honking and exhaust fumes of the trucks don't help

On the final approach to Danzhou, this abandoned gas station illustrates just how much they've regraded the road

As none of them are 517ers and all of them are people who have gone off Route because "it looked more interesting," they are all my kind of people and I spend enough time chatting with the first pair and giving them detailed road info that will be useful for them that the second pair catches up, and I meet the last guy barely fifteen minutes later.

That, and figuring out exactly where I can stay in Danzhou that I won't recross my previous route either on the way in or tomorrow morning, was the highlight of my day.

¹ Designed to carry six liters, it is likely that my coffee bag doesn't come anywhere near the hardware weight limit, but it sticks out farther and has more flex on bad paving or speed bumps.

² Although the hardware and repairs shop that I paid to help me put the mounting hardware on my bag had nuts and bolts in this size, I'm rather uncertain as to why or what bike related things would ever use one this tiny

³ Being female in bike shops in China means that I'm never fast enough or efficient enough at doing something which I am capable of doing on my own before someone male drops what he's doing to do it for me.

⁴ The yogurt from Yummy Market and a bowl of oatmeal in the room† was a bit simpler than I'd been hoping for, but I got to eat it only once I was hungry instead of at the specific time that I was being a guest.

I love the fireworks bans most places have

† Bearing in mind that I have yet to have a check-in this Tour that required my calling the police, the absolute best thing about the Ozempic is that I don't get hangry anymore. Which means I don't have to eat before check-in "just in case" something happens. Which means I can shower and change my clothing before going out to eat. Which, in towns like Qiongzhong, ends up meaning I eat oatmeal for dinner.

⁵ This isn't the name of the town. However, as with many of the towns where the HSF Plantation is so much bigger than the town that's merely the government, it's generally called by the plantation name.

⁶ Whether or not I'm deliberately being critical when pointing something out, I love having enough influencer cred that government departments increasingly go beyond quietly fixing whatever it is, to proactively contacting me to tell me they have taken note of my concerns.

New coffee garden in a plantation town I stayed in last year

Seeing this spray painted ad for kindergarten toys, I realize it's been years since those ads were common. I wonder why they were common and why they've gone away

⁷ As my first two Round the Islands included both a luggage truck and a photographer on a motorcycle, I have less than zero right to say anything critical about the supported 517 rides who have a guy waiting at a pass to get drone video of everyone as they crest the hill. That having been said, it's been a decade plus since large group rides in China tended to be majoratively bicycles and people on bicycles, and I know guys want their wife and kid and parents to also enjoy the weekend in the countryside, but I don't especially enjoy that atmosphere.

Today's ride: 81 km (50 miles)
Total: 1,522 km (945 miles)

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