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         I don't have the gears or the legs for a mountain like this. Soon enough I'm alternating walking with relatively shallow sections where I can get up to five or even six kilometers an hour, especially if I stand up on my pedals.

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         I can periodically hear the echoes of Wu Ge somewhere ahead of me (or behind me maybe) singing loudly. I briefly hate him for having the breath leftover for singing.

         The truck is waiting at the top. There's a good resting place a few kilometers past the bottom and the road down is a safe one. I'm handed a couple slices of bread which I devour like I haven't eaten in days before shoving a few more slices in a jersey pocket.

         It's a rush. It's more than a rush. It's a drug. But even drugs aren't like this. At least not the ones I've used. Though I suppose the extreme range of things I've gotten for pre-op or for pain have been more of the "calm you down" sort than the "excite you" sort. I know better than to even think about looking at my odometer as the down just keeps going on and on and on. Somewhere near the end there is a longish shortish bit (probably about a kilometer) of valley that is still in shadow and I get very cold.

         Then sunlight again. And rolling hills. And I'm still coasting. And still coasting. And still coasting. When I finally get slow enough to start pedalling again I look down and I'm in the high 30s. The countryside went by so quickly and came so far into a non-stop deluge of beautiful that I just have a vague impression of sun drenched fields, alternating rice with small orchards.

         Some very long time after the end of the top I come to a crowd of people watching us stretch. I'm handed a hard boiled egg and eat it wrapped in the sweat damp bread from my jersey pocket. When everyone has arrived and eaten and refilled water we leave taking with us every single soda and most of the available munchies this small store had. I kind of want a coke but since I hadn't the time to get to an ATM before leaving Haikou and am already running a tab on hotels and meals it doesn't happen.