Blog / From Green Spring to Big Black Mountain

21 November 2011

We've got just under 100km on the slate for today, and after the climbing efforts of the last couple of days, we're silently hoping for some kind of reprieve. Luchun's a classic linear settlement, strung out along a mountain ridge along which the road runs. We trundle out to the west, stopping to wolf down a couple of longs of baozi and a bowl each of doujiang.

The road drops us off the end of the ridge and straight into a mess of road construction. It does not look good. Fortunately, the dustbowl terror is shortlived and we get back out onto steadily descending road alongside a river. It's intermittently broken, but very rideable.

Today the map seems to know its stuff: descend along river, turn into a new river valley and ascend, descend to finish. And that's pretty much what went down. There was a moment of deja vu when at 48km we made the turn into the uphill segment to see a sign saying 'continuous ascent, 20km'. We climbed for two hours straight, grinding up in a steady rhythm with occasional stops for photos and chatting. The climb teased us at the top with several false summits and even a short descent before the final climb. We top out at 1750m before barrelling downhill forever on good surface. We put on fleeces to stay warm - the altitude makes it chilly. It's enough descending to become boring. My hands start to numb from the road buzz. We bottom out over a bridge which takes us onto a more gradual riverside descent. One final short climb and we round the corner to see Daheishan below us. We descend into the small town and catch the last of the day's sun coming through a cleft in the hills while sipping on a cold one.

104km, 18.1km/h, 5h44min, elevation gain 1370m, total so far 553km

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