Foshan Stage

The morning brought another long transfer to the next stage. When we arrived, it was at the parking lot of a huge, modern sports complex, and again there was no one around. Oddly, the stage’s sponsor, which appeared to be a folding bike company (Qi Le Duo), had a big booth with lots of sample bikes. I don’t know who was supposed to test ride or look at them. There were some BMX riders who were there to add some excitement (for the nonexistent spectators, I guess), and some of them got hold of the folding bikes and put them through some pretty serious paces, jumping the plywood ramps and pallet piles.

This was a longer circuit of 9K, so I got a ride in the media van to the second pit, located halfway around the course. There Pollo and I hung out and listened to scraps of information coming over the race radio. Eugene was again in an early break (with a Russian and another guy), but they were reeled in by the relentless controlling pressure of the race leader’s Hong Kong Pro Cycling team.

I even napped a little in the warm sun, but when the race had less than 2 laps to go, and mechanical support was no longer allowed (with a free lap), Pollo took off on the spare bike back to the start, and I started walking. I trotted along, passing policemen every 200 yards or so; some of them were sitting on the sidewalk or the curb, and many of them smiled in return to my nodded greeting. The course was almost entirely deserted besides them; so it was unclear what /who the police were keeping the course clear of.

I passed one group of spectators; they looked like construction workers, and there was a group of about 15 of them leaning on a barricade on one corner of the course. I was all the way on the opposite corner, and I had almost turned the corner when one of the guys shouted, “Hello!” I slowed my trot down enough to raise a hand slightly in greeting, and the whole crowd of them erupted into (what I interpreted as) happy laughter. So I raised my hand higher and waved as I disappeared around the corner, which elicited another round of merriment. I reflected on the fact that this was the first time in China that I’d been greeted in this way by a group of men, and how much more polite they seemed than their catcalling US counterparts!

I took a shortcut across a park to get back to the sports complex to watch the finish, and I was sweating by the time I jogged to the finish line banner. I was there just in time to see Amaurys sprint across the line in 3rd place! So the post-race scene was very different today as Amaurys attended the awards ceremony (as did I as semi-official team photogtrapher). The M.C. wanted to interview him about the finish, so it was a three-way translation (English to Spanish to English to Chinese) to get Amaurys’ comments to the assembled media. Unfortunately, there weren’t any spectators, even at the finish.

The hotel was a bit too far to ride, so the buses were loaded and we all piled in once again. It was about 3 p.m. when we arrived; just in time for a late lunch. Pollo and I decided to ride, and as Fassi wanted to ride as well, we waited for him so we could all go together. While we waited at the front entrance of the hotel, the bellhops stared with interest at the bikes. They shyly gestured that they’d like to pick them up (to see how much they weighed, presumably). We handed them over and made signals that they should try them out. They jumped on and did a few turns around the valet parking area, grinning like crazy. The responsiveness surprised them, but for all the differences between our bikes and the standard, heavy steel rigs they were probably used to, they rode the racing bikes with facility.

Fassi joined us, and we took off in the direction recommended by the bellhops. It was a huge, heavily-trafficked boulevard, with trucks and scooters (lots of those) screaming past with piercing honks and choking exhaust. The people riding the scooters turned their heads and stared as they went past, and I was reminded of my experience on the Autopista Duarte in the Dominican Republic. I asked Fassi why there weren’t more bikes here; although we’ve seen quite a few, carrying loads unbelievable in bulk and weight, it’s nothing like I expected after hearing Pollo’s impressions of his last trip to Shanghai and Hong Kong 2 years ago. Fassi replied that here in the South, bikes aren’t so popular anymore; partly because of the influence that Hong Kong culture has on South China, and the view that bicycles are for the poor. Now, it seems that motorized scooters are replacing bikes as the mass mode of transportation.

We rode for perhaps as hour or so through streets with incredibly heavy pollution. It was like a fog we pushed through; a haze of particulates turning everything brownish gray. We turned off onto a quieter side street, but the dust and smog was just as thick. At the end of the road, we came to a gate, with workers trickling out. The sign on the wall said it was an aluminum products factory.

The ride back to the hotel was even crazier, since dusk had fallen. Now, the scooters, bikes, and pedestrians on the cycle path paralleling the highway weaved in the same complicated ballet, but with the additional element of surprise as shapes appeared, zooming, out of the smoggy dark.

Our hotel faced this busy highway, so all night long there was the honking and braking of an L.A. freeway at rush hour. Also, our beds were incredibly hard: a Chinese phenomenon that actually agrees well with me when not taken quite to the extreme. (At the Guangzhou University hotel, the “mattresses” were actually box springs, and if I dared to turn onto my side, the springs dug into my shoulder!) Anyway, I think I slept decently, if not wonderfully. Somehow these days of bus travel and hanging around race venues make me almost as tired as if I were racing myself…