It was an immense sense of accomplishment for actually making it to Fuzhou. The epic loss in 2003 and the two breakdowns with the tire punctures this year time had me rather nervous, almost paranoid, that I wasn't going to make it. But this final stretch, arguably the most difficult, really delivered.
I'd now say this was the best hotel of the trip. Tuke Hotels
There wasn't much climbing to begin with as the road followed the coastline with rolling hills. The first of three passes didn't take long to come up, however.
Starting the first pass. The expressway was always visible below and it took 90% of the traffic off the roads.
These were all quite recent. Some of them worth noting: Beijing to Hainan, and Ningbo to Fuzhou. Most likely they were done with Chinese cycle teams and possibly support vehicles.
Coming off the first pass to pure ugliness. I've been posting some of these pics to my wechat moments, but this one and the next forget about it. It's a predominantly Chinese audience over there, they don't like to see these kind of eyesores.
The third pass was definitely the highlight of the day. It was the highest one of the trip, even more than the one I had the tire puncture on. This came as a surprise as I didn't expect something like it at the very end. Probably more than 1000 meters vertical climbing, by the time I got to the top it was very chilly.
Sure enough, the road dropped like a stone from the final pass and it was freewheeling all the way into Fuzhou. The pollution was not a nice way to end it, and that was thanks to a cold front from the north of China. However, it didn't matter so much, I had conquered this last leg. It was then an easy matter to check into my hotel because I had the pandemic prevention routine down to a science now.
This was not easy cycling to begin with, but the pandemic just made everything that much harder. I got a haircut in Ningde for example and as we got talking, they continuously talked about how nasty America is and their handling of covid. I told them I was from Canada and worked in Shanghai. They said, "If you were from the US we would say sorry and refuse service. Besides though, you shouldn't be traveling out of state"
As usual these people just don't have the information. Any arrivals have to go through a brutal vetting process and an excessive quarantine on arrival, up to a month long for some places. The only expats in China still remaining came in before the border closed last year.
Despite these and other irritations, it was worth it. Now onwards Shenzhen and Guangzhou for some fitness and partying.
