Uncategorized

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.

I don’t really know where Ellen is right now. When I asked her, she said “Out in the middle of Nowhere.” She’s been staying in little courtyard rooms houses lately. These places operate as a guesthouse and charge anywhere from 20-40 rmb. That’s about $3-$6. It more of a glorified campsite. Anyways, she says this.

I rode with a college student this morning for about 45 minutes. He had a mountain bike. It’s so much easier to keep a fast pace with someone else. We were going at 26km/h but I stopped to take a photo and he went on. I’m also taking photos of all these weird ass rooms I’m staying in. The lady that runs the place gave me a bucket to piss and poo in. Ugh. And I could smell natural gas all night. I’m seriously getting stuck in David Lynch movies and I wake up confused as to where I am.

One of the joys of touring is that you can basically eat whatever you want and not gain any weight. In order to cram in the calories that Ellen needs she’s been eating cheeseburgers every once in awhile. Yes, Ellen is vegetarian, but since it’s not always easy to get vegetarian food in rural China, she’s eating whatever. Plus, most everything in China has a bit of pork in it, be it big chunks of pork or cooked in pork fat. What she has also been eating while on rest breaks is peanut butter. High in sugar and calories, which makes a great pick me up on the road. But peanut butter can be expensive in China. Mostly, she’s been eating Chinese food. You can get a plate of stir fried greens, or a meat dish for 5-8 rmb in small family restaurants. With the current conversion rate of 6.8 rmb to the dollar, that’s less than a dollar a plate if you’re just eating veggies.

Ellen’s has been making pretty good progress lately. She’s heading from YuTai to Liangshan today. She stayed 2 nights in Yutai. Since she’s been steadily doing 150 kms a day, she took 1 day was a recovery day. She explored the city, drank a lot of water, talked with some local women, ate a sandwich with them, and a lot of other random things.

Ellen wanted me to tell you all that it can be difficult to find a good place to pee while riding along the grand canal. Riding will suppress your urge to pee. So all of a sudden, you’ll really need to pee. China is big, but there always seems to be someone around. So Ellen has been hopping into the dried up offshoots of the grand canal. Apparently it’s a 5 foot deep ditch and it provides a bit of privacy. She says that climbing out of it was a bit of a struggle at first, but she now has the technique down

Yesterday night, Ellen was supposed to ride to XuZhou (almost leaving JiangSu Province). She began the day at about 8 am and started following her road atlas. But after half a day or riding, the road ended….. That’s the thing with China, Roads are being torn up and built constantly. Atlases don’t often completely tell the truth. It’s the effect of a rapidly growing economy. Anyway, the road just ended and Ellen had to back track, losing much of the progress she had made. The sun had set, Ellen was on a highway of some sort and was nowhere close to a city. She eventually walked her bike down an on ramp to a normal road. Two fellows on a scooter pulled up to her to do the usual gawk and question. Ellen chatted them up and they led her to a cheap motel to crash at. it was 11 pm… Time to crash and start over in the morning.

I’m not entirely sure where Ellen is right now, but I know that her spirit is high and she is doing well. She called me today to tell me that she will be on her way to Huai An in the morning and that it will be a relatively short day. Today she did about 125 Kms to make it to where she is right now. She found a cheap motel in stay in tonight. On her ride today, she stumbled onto one of the 4 canal locks on the great canal. This is a very fortunate find as there are only about 4 canal locks left of what used to be the great canal. Don’t worry, lots of pictures were taken and we’ll all be able to see them in due time. In other news, Ellen’s Chinese has been progressing at an increasing pace (like the Natural Log function). She’s been ordering up scallion pancakes on her own and talking to random people on the streets about her adventure with ease. Go Ellen!

So far, Ellen has had to repair 2 flat tires. Not too bad for the trip so far. These last few days shes been racking up 100 + Km days. Tomorrow will probably be a rest day and she’ll do a 1/2 day of riding.

Ellen is hunkering down in Chang Zhou right now due to some heavy rain. She send this from the road

“stuck in Chang Zhou at a KTV motel, or am I just in a David Lynch film? Seriously, don’t come here unless you want a mouthful of dirt and a prostitute – those 2 don’t relate to each other, I think?”

Once Ellen parted ways with me, she headed in a north westerly direction. But due to the crazy amount of road construction, progress was slow and many many detours were taken. After a frustrating day of riding, Ellen decided to find a spot to set up camp. She was somewhere outside of WuXi. Off the main road, she found a clear patch of ground that wasn’t too visible. The ground was lumpy. A patch of trees had recently been torn out of the clearing. Camp was set up and she called it an early night.

Day 3, Started with a tube change. There had been a largish puncture in her tire and tube. The tube and tire were both patched up and Ellen was on her way. (FYI: If you ever get a largish tire puncture/gash and just need to make it home or bike shop, after you patch up your tube, you can fold up a dollar bill and stick it between the tube and tire). After a full day of hard riding, Ellen cruised through Chang Shu and then into Chang Zhou. So far she has chocked up about 250 Kilometers.