Although it will be a while yet before dark it is clear that most of the pack is facing another night ride. I switch from Ah Jian's truck back to Ah Zhi's truck as the slow riders and their bikes are bundled onto the vehicles to be delivered to Qionghai. The quicker we get there and get ourselves and the luggage off the truck the quicker he can get back to play headlights and, if necessary sweep still more riders.

         We get on the expressway and really get some speed going. I suspect the reason the bike shop manager races bicycles is because no one ever suggested to him that he could race other kinds of vehicles. Or maybe it just feels like we're going crazy fast because I've gone so long without using any kind of vehicle except one that was either human powered or accompanying human powered vehicles.

         We have to slow down for a back-up and someone in the rear of the truck grouses "why are they doing construction at this time of night?" since that's the most likely reason for a slow-down on the highway. Until we see the flashing lights. And the remains of a pedestrian being scraped off the pavement. There is no question about whether or not it was fatal. It isn't a body so much as a smear.

         I'm not a big fan of car culture and I think it a shame that there are places in American suburbia where you literally can't survive if you don't have a car but this isn't America and this isn't suburbia. This isn't even exurbia. This is an expressway through the far countryside in the middle of nowhere. And there was no reason for that pedestrian to be there. Especially not with underpasses approximately every kilometer or so. This was someone who, for some reason or another, decided to cut across the fields and cross the highway to save a few minutes walk in the sort of stupid shortsightedness that doesn't see that walking on the dirt road and using the underpass is easier than footpaths and a climb and safer than dodging cars whose drivers have no reason to expect your presence. Call me cold. Call me heartless. But I feel more sympathy for the driver and passengers than I do for the victim.

         The conversation gets particularly frivolous as we try not to talk about or think about what we just saw.

         Ah Qiao asks me who I think is the sexiest man in the bike club and I have to weasel my way out answering on the grounds that there are men present and if I answer one of them will almost certainly tell that man. (One of the men present is that man.)