Cycle & Travel

2011 12 Hainan

Posted by pedal on Dec 1, 2011 in 2011 | Comments Off

Hainan 4 days cycling in some warm weather. Middle of month.

Hainan

Day 2. Mengzi to Lao Cai

Posted by pedal on Apr 28, 2012 in 2012 04 Kunming Hanoi | Comments Off

Mengzi to Lao Cai (Vietnam)

170km lots of downs, quite a bit of ups. Nice ride.

Nice hot pot dinner in Mengzi the night before. Woke up to a nice breakfast of “Over the bridge” noodles. Hot broth, add pork, 20 other little thing, wait 5 minutes, nice. Good start to the day but found one of my spokes broke so my wheel is all out of whack and not sure what to do. Not where to repair so just push on.

Long 60km which feels mostly uphill to Pingbian. Horrible lunch. Then a little climb and then 30km or so directly downhill. Then updown, updown to the border. Good roads for most of the day which saved my wheel and my hands. The natural forest seems to have gone and been replaced with eroding banana lands. Sad. The old train was still there and freight was moving which was kind of cool. You could see them cutting through for the new high speed one and I guess a high way as well. That will bring the tourist hoards but I guess nothing much for them to see due to the banana lands.

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2013 Lijiang to Zhongdian (Shangri-La)

Posted by pedal on Oct 20, 2013 in 2013, Cycle & Travel | Comments Off

Well planned to be a 2 day cycle on the back road from Lijiang to Shangri-la with a short hike with my students on in between. Nice idea but stupidly i did not come prepared with cold weather rain gear and nearly froze.

Day 1

Plan was to ride about 100km from downtown Lijiang to Botanical Garden, walk up that, then cycle on north to the old ferry at Daju. Cross over the river there and cycle to a Inn on Tiger Leaping Gorge (HutiaoXia). Morning went well and then started to rain.

Lijiang to Botanical Garden-Original2

Misty walk 1000m up the botanical garden and down

Then cycled to about 3000m, well out of breath. Started to head down the hill and got seriously cold and shivering so hard i had to stop and find shelter in a workmans cafe.

My students picked me up in the mini bus and too wet and cold to carry on so drove the rest of the way. Missed a good cobble stone uphill and nice downhill to the ferry.

Lijiang Botanical Garden to Tina’s Tiger Leaping Gorge2

Day 2

Nice hike along the gorge.

3 hike

Day 3

Thunderstorms forecasted for the day so gave up on the 150km up-down up-down back route and went for the easy 110km climb up to Shangrila. All going well till i hit the top and then the rains started, temperature dropped, winds picked up and i got seriously cold again.

Could not feel my feet (waterproof socks just kept in water that had rolled down my leg) or my fingers. Just kept pushing on till i got there. Seriously happy to be off the bike at the end of it.

10:17:13 7:25:46 AM GMT

Anyway plan to do the back route again in May of next year when less rain and the flowers full out in bloom. Anyone interested, will rent a car / driver to take the gear as well. From airplan looked like some seriously interesting rides west of Shangrila going down into a valley 2000m below (guess Yangtze river). Nice 5 day trip. Will also bring the proper gear as well as not interested in being seriously cold.