Month: May 2014

We have completed the first section of our trip. One rider is leaving (but will return to ride the last section in Turkey), and a few more have joined us. On our rest day in Xi’an we went on a bus tour to see the Terracotta Warriors. First, our tour bus stopped at a place…

On our rest day today, we went to the Longmen Grottoes here in Luoyang. There were tons of caves, big and small, filled with carvings of Buddha. Continue Reading ››

Two days ago, we rode from Yanling to Dengfeng, a small town up in the hills. That was our first time riding up any significant hills – we climbed about 800m that day. Because we had covered more than the originally planned distance on two recent days, yesterday we had a very short 60km ride…

This morning it was raining a lot. But it was still pretty warm, so the rain was not unpleasant. One of the guys I was riding with got a flat, so we took shelter in the garage of a nearby house to work on the bike. The family who lived there was very nice and…

Today was really great – the weather was perfect (sunny and not too hot), and the roads were good. There was a 13km section of construction with very rough pavement and dirt, but the mountain bikers among us (myself included) enjoyed the extra challenge. We saw a giant statue of Confucius that was pretty impressive.…

I am starting to get used to the heat. It’s a good thing because today we biked 160km from Mingguang to Mengcheng. At the lunch stop, we were informed that our hotel had changed and was now just slightly further down the same road. Later on, the lunch truck drove past and told us that…

Early on in our ride from Nanjing to Mingguang, we crossed the Yangtze River. Unfortunately the visibility here is really bad, so our view of the river wasn’t very good. The bad visibility is caused by a combination of humidity and pollution, although we don’t know how much there is of each. It was very…

This morning a few of us went to see the Nanjing city wall. Continue Reading ››

Today we arrived in Nanjing for our first rest day. We had a short ride of 120km, and finished early around 1pm. I spent most of the rest of the day eating. Two Magnum ice cream bars, and two full dinners. Continue Reading ››