All posts by WanderCyclist

The sun rises very early in the north of China. Ellen says that sunrise starts at 3 am and has been setting lately at around 8. She usually starts riding around 4-5 am, stops when she can no longer see her shadow and takes a break for lunch and a nap under a tree or somewhere else suitable. Then continues on to her destination, often not arriving until just after sunset. This does not leave a lot of time for sleeping at night, after you budget in the time it takes to look for a place to sleep and finding something to eat. But last night she successfully got 7.5 hours of sleep, which is was really excited about. She’s taking it easy in Chichihar until Sunday, got a hotel room with only a small window (little light to come into the room, which is a plus for Ellen), and is eating some junk food. Ed is right, Ellen does deserve some downtime.

Prior to getting to Chichihar, Ellen says that just before the sun started to set, there were dragon flys everywhere. It was the most she’s ever seen. But the at dusk, the dragon flys were replaced by mosquitoes. Ellen stopped for a second to drink some water and the next thing she knew, there were 20 mosquitoes on her shirt. She proceeded to ride fast the rest of the way to Chichihar to keep the bugs off.

For those who don’t know, Ellen just had a birthday. When I asked her if she was going to take it easy that day, she said “No, I’m riding. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” That’s Ellen for you.

She rode about 90 kms today in the blazing hot heat of Inner Mongolia. She said the heat was brutal, but thankfully the road was flat as a pancake and there was a bit of a tailwind. She is now in Song Yuan.

Ellen says that the people of ChiFeng are wonderful. Everyone has been more than willing to help her from telling her where get the best things to eat, to helping her adjust her derailleur. Everyone should stop by the Giant store in ChiFeng.

After logging in a grueling day of 225 kms through the mountains and the rain, Ellen is taking 2 days rest in Chi Feng, Inner Mongolia.

Big thank you to all the sponsors for help making this happen! Soma, Mountain Hardware, Nikon, Swerve, Roll:, Chian’s Sprocket, SimpleMap, Wren, and to all the individuals as well. You guys are all awesome.

Ellen Says:
“I’ve conquered China’s natural line of defense. Been riding with Lao Jiang who is from Inner Mongolia for the past 2 days – through the rain and northwestern mountains. Lao Zhang doesn’t speak a word of English and has a very thick Beijing accent. Now in Chengde.”

Ellen met Lao Zhang while climbing up a torturous climb. What made it worse was that she felt her chain “slipping.” So she started walking her bike because something was wrong. all of a sudden, a man on a mountain bike with plastic bags bungeed to the rear rack is riding besides her. He motions for her to ride with him and Ellen does. But 5 minutes later, Ellen’s chain snaps! Ellen and Lao Zhang spends the next 15 minutes fixing her bike in the rain and getting it in working condition. Ellen forgot to bring a chain breaker, so it was very serendipitous that Lao Zhang came when he did.

“Lao Zhang was my little Buddha for 3-4 days.  We were also riding in the rain for 2 of those days.”

The bracket that holds Ellen’s bar bag broke a few days ago. She got it tig welded up at an auto-body shop for free with the help of a new friend. But 2 days later the bracket snapped again. So goodbye bar bag. But she says she likes riding without the bar bag since she can see more of the road.

Ellen left Tianjin yesterday and headed northeast. She was out in the middle of nowhere, but rolled into a little town at 8 pm. After negotiations with the owner of a little hotel, she was able to get a room. But she was told she had to leave at 11:30 pm! Apparently this hotel wasn’t allowed to let foreigners stay and they were going to get in trouble or something. So Ellen left and basically had nowhere to go. She road to the next town (which the hotel people told her to go to), but couldn’t’ find and hotels there. So at 1:30 am, she found a patch of grass to lay down on and slept for an hour and a half. Needless to say, she took today easy and rode for half a day and got a hotel for some much needed sleep.

Ellen has these rules of the road to share.

Stay out of brown frown towns. In doubt – are there abandoned blue trucks – if so, keep moving. Don’t talk to men unless they look to have a western influence, know some English, or are accompanied by a woman. Stop your bike when drunk motorcycle men are following and harassing you.

Ellen says

I think it’s funny that the town last night is called “really old town,” I’ll stay away from places with “really old” in the name. I rode away from that place faster than I rode in.