This is now a three part combined series of bicycle trips done in China during covid pandemic, mainly during 2021.  The original thinking was that China's zero-covid strategy and the introduction of vaccines would gradually end the pandemic and bring life back to normal.  The vaccine was the hope to that effect.

As we all know, things turned out very, very differently.  The original thinking was flawed.  While they say hindsight is 2020 vision, a more critical thinker at the time would have recognized the vaccine strategy as hopelessly ridiculous.   Well such thinkers existed, they were called 'conspiracy theorists' who actually got the whole thing right.  Go figure.

The vaccines were full of promise but they failed stop the spread of the virus.  Zero covid policy went on to produce diminished returns as the virus got more and more contagious over time, while also less pathogenic.  Restrictions became increasingly more severe and my vaccine records were not checked even once.

But throughout 2021 the rest of the world was still suffering very badly from covid while China was enjoying relatively so-called normal life.  Unfortunately they got proud and squandered this valuable time and opportunity they could have used for international cooperation to seek a multi-pronged scientific approach to ending covid.  They started covid, so logically you'd think China would take responsibility to end it.    But they didn't.  The tables would turn for them around the beginning of 2022 when Omicron entered the scene.

Now, knowing how things turned out, the intent of this combined journal trilogy is to revisit those experiences from the point of view that reflects what actually happened while preserving the cycle trips themselves.