Under Construction 11/9/19
This trip was never advertised as a riding excursion. It is true that riding was one of the four activities I hoped to participate in along with birding, Go and history/language. I spent next to zero time on birding and Go and only a little more on history/language.
I arrived at Skywells Inn Wednesday Sept 11. I had been picked up by a driver with a “Tom” sign at the Wuyuan train station, having just arrived on a fastish, D not G, train from Wuhan. I was hungry, so they fed me lunch and later the owner Ed suggested that he was going on a bike ride and I was welcome to join. He picked out a crossover bike for me. It had flat handlebars, plenty of gears and fatter but not huge tires.
Ed provided a helmet and we took off. Ed kept pointing out the sights but I had to concentrate pretty hard on just operating the new bike in the new environment. Ed did not try to kill me and I was able to accelerate at times. As he pointed out, the roads were in wonderful shape, the cars and motorcycles were very respectful. We stopped for water at a mom and pop village hangout. Ed asked if I was interested in going further but I thought it best to not overdo. When we got back, Ed suggested I lock the bike so that it would be available for me in the morning and gave me the route map he had developed.
Don’t know if you can blow that image up on your screen. Ed has outlined 3 routes. Thursday I signed up for lunch at Skywells and went off to do the Yellow, middle route. I got to what seemed like an end of the road in the village of Huangliangkeng. I have to admit that I did not have the map, I was just always taking lefts after I started my ride. I came back for a wonderful lunch. Ed helped me to understand how to get to Huangliangkeng from this side and in the afternoon I did the loop going clockwise this time. That path starts with a wonderful wide cement path through field after field until one finally arrives at Huangliangkeng.