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 MiaoFengShan Scenic Area My friend Mark and I decided that we needed to do a ride this weekend. So I went onto bikemap.net in order to see what might be interesting. We had already gone north of Beijing so I looked to the west. To the south and East of Beijing is almost completely flat, and we wanted some mountains.
The route I decided on has an almost 20 mile uphill section that looked to get pretty steep near the top. The route is inside the MiaoFengShan Scenic Reserve (妙峰山风景石胜区） so we hoped the views would be nice plus the cars would be few. Continue reading The MiaoFengShan Scenic Reserve
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My friend Kate bicycled across the US a few years ago and followed much of the same route that I will be going on. Not exactly sure where she is now, but pretty sure fairly unreachable from her blog. While looking at her current blog, I saw that she had posted her previous blog’s entries on the cross country trip.
I was looking for time lines and any other useful information. From her entries of California to Colorado, my one month time line for getting across the continental divide seems like a good estimate. She also did it mostly alone like I plan to do.
I was also pleased to read that after getting across the continental divide she made good time being able to easily do 100+ miles a day.
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 My bicycle and me on the Marco Polo Bridge. When I belated realized I have to start training for riding from San Francisco to Boston, I ended up buying a bike that I can’t use for the trip. It was too good a deal to pass on despite it not being the right kind of bike. I bought a two year old, used Trek SL1000 from one of the local Trek stores in Beijing. It was one of their rental bikes so it had a fair number of dings and maybe was not in perfect condition. But I felt for 2000 RMB (about $300) it would do well for the several months I had before going back to the US for the trip.
A few of the Chinese customers were shocked that I would buy a used bicycle. People are wary of buying used things here whether they are bicycles, apartments, or cars. Considering buying things new is tricky enough (notorious ‘Made in China’ quality) many assume that buying something used you will just get cheated. The only problem that I see is that the wheels will have to be replaced. The wear strips on the wheels are almost gone. I figure that can be done when I return to China after my trip. Even replacing the wheels, it will be cheaper than the most expensive road bike at the local Decathlon store that is nowhere as good a bicycle.
It is not designed to take a rack so I can’t use it for that. I have been taking it for two-day trips up into the hills north of Beijing. Anything that doesn’t fit into my hydration backpack doesn’t come. I have started putting small stuff sacks into the water bottle holders. That seems to do well since I use the bladder instead of water bottles. Continue reading My Beijing Road Bike
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I was thinking about not bringing camping gear for the first week or two of the trip since there would be lots of mountains, I probably wouldn’t be in the greatest shape, and it would save about 10+ lbs. Saving weight it always a bonus. Continue reading To camp or not to camp?
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I had gotten an iPhone 4 and was hoping to use it as sort of an all around electronics device on this trip, but the evil people at AT&T had locked it to their system. Luckily, the Chinese, being very good at this sort of thing, have found a way around it. I bought a new SIM card tray for 150 RMB ($22) from some guy working out of his apartment. Like many apartment buildings in Beijing, the paint was falling off the walls, not too clean, the lights in the halls were broken, and half the elevators didn’t work. Other parts of the world that would be somewhat sketchy and I might be hesitant venturing in, but in China, that is par for the course. Our office secretary had bought one of the same things from these guys so if she could get out of there alive, I thought I could as well. Continue reading All Around Electronic Device
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