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There And Back Again.
An Alcoholic's Tale feat. The G319
By Shem
An Alcoholic's Tale feat. The G319
By Shem
Guess who?
Never one to turn down the opportunity for adventure, my friend and colleague Slash jumped at the chance to cycle across China despite my throw away comment that it would be fun to do. I never really intended to do it. I really didn't give it much thought up until that point. From then on it became a reality and we began planning our trip to our home city of Chongqing from the next major Chinese city of Chengdu. Part of the attraction was that we couldn't use highways so we'd have to trek through the back waters of southern China's wilderness.
Our only source of guidance were these two pics tattooed on my brain
Gonna be honest with you and say part of my reason for doing this was that, because of the Spring Festival, I'd decided I should kick my drinking habit. For those of you familiar with me you will know that last year I almost lost the job I love by being an irresponsible drinker, this time around I stood to alienate the woman I love through the same actions. It was kind of a self-rediscovery voyage in a sense.
Slash and I posing for a pic on top of the mountain.
Give it some thought, if you will - we were looking at ~430km over 4 days of Chinese public holiday when hotels and restaurants would be scares to find open. We also gave ourselves around 3 weeks to prep meaning a lot of our planning was done on the trip itself; no reservations were made, no solid kit requirements and only my memory of the roads I'd researched on Google Maps. I toyed with the idea of taking a friend's mountain bike but decided to take my tried and tested race touring bike despite its narrow, slick tyres and lightweight, fragile frame. The mountain bike went to slash just 2 weeks before departure, not really enough time for him to get in a good training stint. In comparison, I've spent the last 15 or so years of my life riding bicycles, so we were worlds apart in terms of experience.
You may think it'd be a fairly easy jaunt to hop from one major city to another but consider that we had to first get out of Chongqing, which is notoriously mountainous, brave the midsection between the two cities on which can only be described as village roads and then take on the mighty Tibetan Plateau mountains which border the east of Chengdu.
Up at 7am on our first day our initial plan was to take the train to Chengdu and then cycle back homeward. This plan was thwarted when we got to the station and checked in only to be told that our bikes, being sent freight, would be with us within a minimum of 3 days. That was about as uplifting as gravity. Still, not to be discouraged we quickly adapted our plan to cycle to Chengdu from Chongqing reversing our proposed route and meaning I had to remember all the roads backwards. Luckily it was one road spanning between both cities. The G319.
Roadside repairs to the magnificent road which made this all possible.
Never in my dreams did I think that the first day would be so tough. The mountains out of the city were brutal. GeLe Mountain is a hotspot for bikers who travel up it in a car just to speed down its twisting roads several km to the bottom. We went up it on bikes taking us several hours, including cigarette breaks, under the warm morning sun. I was down to shorts and t-shirt by this point. Our aim was to get over and onto our first night's destination; TongLiang, where a friend of ours lived and would put us up for the night.
Our first mountain challenge. GeLeShan
A biker gang we met half way up GeLeShan who gave us some encouragement and cigarettes.
"Gonna meet you at the bottom because these roads are too awesome to ride slow on." said I to Slash once we reached the top. My bike was made for this point in time. Everything on the bike is set up for these conditions, this road, with speed in mind. Slash caught up with me half an hour later where I was sitting by the road side getting my breath back after clearing a 3km tunnel in a matter of minutes.
The roads down the mountain made it impossible to resist trying to break the 70kph speed limit. I tried my best but topped out at 68.4kph.
Let me walk you through our first day dilemmas: first we struggled to find our way to the G319 from the city, the main road taking us on our journey. Next we got several varying directions from locals, police and a GPS we tried to use. When we managed to hit TongLiang country - our first overnight stop for the tour - we didn't realise that our friend lived another 40km from the county line. The mountains subsided into hills and we made good progress towards the town. Slash was starting to feel the burn by this point due to his lack of fitness training.
Not a happy chappy.
You can easily imagine what sort of joy we felt when we did finally reach TongLiang. Slash was tired, his legs stiff, and my brain hurt from tracking road markings which consisted of nothing more than small concrete stumps with the road number on. We'd racked up a fair 101km that day and it was nice to relax at Jason's (our friend) and grab some street BBQ so we could restock on carbs and calories.
A very large head. Random.
A temple we passed on the country roads.
Down the G319 again the next day we had some pretty smooth riding through moderate big town traffic until we reached the outer limits of the town and merged onto country roads where the traffic gave way and the cars per hour could be counted on the hands. The hills rolled on and we aimed from our next port for the night - the city of Anyue midpoint between Chongqing and Chengdu.
Getting lost isn't so bad when it accidentally turns up a place like this.
Never underestimate the abilities of a hungry man! We got lost towards the end of day two and it was a few km along the G319 past where we should have turned off that we noticed we'd gone the wrong way. It wasn't a big deal, except we were starving. We doubled back and cruised another 15km into the city of Anyue just before dark where we were surprised to find a rather large, metropolitan area. We grabbed a hotel, dumped our gear and headed out for dinner. Total distance covered on day two: 124km.
The city of Anyue was a pleasant surprise considering we were expecting a dump site.
]Gonna go back to the beginning for a minute. I had an idea in my mind that we would be taking mostly destroyed, country dirt tracks. Turns out that many of the roads in the rural areas were far better than the city roads. I visited my bike man a few days before we departed and picked up 4 new tubes for my bike running 23mm wide slicks with no tread and one new 26 inch tube for the mountain bike knowing it wouldn't fair too badly on the rough ground. I was astonished by the great condition of most of the roads and don't know why I even considered leaving my bike for a mountain bike.
Run a red light in the city and face death by bus. Run a red light in a village and nobody bats an eyelid because the lights don't mean squat. This made some of the smaller townships a pleasure to ride through because, as long as we were observant, we had no need to stop at crossroads. If you've even heard or seen anything about Chinese traffic laws then you'll know what I mean when I say nobody, including the police, pay them any attention. It's kind of dog eat dog and the only way to avoid certain death is by being very vigilant and riding both aggressively and defensively when it calls for it. Passive cycling will land you in a grave here.
A typical small town in rural China during the holiday.
Around midday on day three we deviated from the G319 into a small town to grab some eats. Being the Spring Festival most places were closed but we managed to find a small restaurant in the town after a while....
This passes from a restaurant in some places.
...And ate like mutha****ers! We were hungry. After getting our fill we headed back to the G319 where we clocked up another 60km before encountering some more Chongqingers on the same route. Things started to get really wild and rural with no houses and no traffic. Nothing but farm land and hills for miles. Once we reached a small town, after having clocked up a good 90km from Anyue, we were informed that our next stop was still 40km ahead. That was a lot further than we planned.
Desert areas appeared and the dispersed. Farms came and went. Hills and mountains blocked our path and still we hadn't reached the town of JianYang - our 3rd night's stop. Our spirits we low and the ride began to take its toll on us; my neck and shoulders had shooting pains from being in the drops and carrying a pack and Slash was as drained as it's possible for a man to be while still remaining on two feet. By the time we saw city lights I was almost crying with joy at the thought of a soft bed and warm meal. We sang and shouted the last few km into the city and I have reason to believe that was the most fantastic feeling I've felt sober since I can remember.
We ran out of road so had to hike over the mountains at this point.
Pissed off and burnt out.
Relief beyond imagination.
You may be thinking that we could rest easy now, but we still had the last day to go. Leaving JianYang in the early morning and getting back onto the G319 we made good progress until the road signs disappeared and I decided to follow my instinct which took us an extra ~50km in the wrong direction but also took us to a place of absolute beauty. A lake at the bottom of the mountains. From there we headed towards Chengdu where we met an unfinished road causing us to walk over a mountain with our bike, 40km of highway without a single bit of traffic and eventually the city of Chengdu itself, the last 40km being the most boring and we also realised that our tour was almost over. Total distance covered upon arrival at the hotel on the last night - upwards of 460km.*
*During the trip my bike computer became dislodged several times and erased our trip distance and ride time but by listening to my voice notes made during smoke breaks and using my bike's total clocked distance on the computer I came up with around 460km and almost 40 hours of saddle time.
Conclusion.
In some way this trip has set me down a new path in life. I think it strengthened my ability to cope with alcohol abuse and go dry despite having to nearly lock myself in the hotel room every night for fear of going out and getting in 'celebratory' beers. My man Slash did a good job of helping out with that.
I'm now focused on my next goals for the year which are the Chongqing half-Marathon (My knees can't handle a full Marathon), a Guinness World Record attempt for the longest motorcycle ride in a single country. The record stands at 18'000 by an Indian guy. we hope to do 20'000 over 3 months starting in July using 50cc scooters. Finally, as my last year in China I will be leaving in style to live in Thailand with a Chongqing - Thailand bicycle trek through Vietnam; over 3'000km under my own steam. Slash, my travelling buddy, will be joining me for all of the above.
(anyone up for a cycle across europe??)
