I3-1: Gaojiecun to Suide 高杰村镇→绥德县

October 1, 2018

I really want to hate what's been done to this area. I really really really want to hate it. In point of fact, I do hate it. But, at the same time, I realize that my hate is completely irrational and unjustified and wrong. Who am I with my thousand dollar laptop and my two thousand dollar bicycle to complain about poverty alleviation?

So what if it isn't the kind of scenic I like as much as there was six years ago. That's on me. Not them.

And again in 2018 with the new main road visible off to the left

I'll grant you, since the current road is a truck route and a fairly major one at that, the ancillary services provided to the road are not as unique or interesting as they were six years ago but, so what. They gave that up in favor of a road that didn't curve and swerve and roll. A road that has shoulders. A road with safety barriers instead of sudden cliffside drop offs. And I have absolutely no right to complain.

For the past few days, I've been having an absolutely lovely time on absolutely lovely and seemingly overbuilt roads that were incredibly traffic free. Unfortunately in terms of ever revisiting this area in the future (at least until an expressway is built) it turns out that all of those roads were truck routes that were temporarily on hiatus during roadworks being done just pass the bridge over the Yellow River. Now that the road has been re-opened to traffic, the trucks are coming back. They haven't gotten too scary, not yet, but with the way my freewheel is acting, I have a feeling from even before I get out of bed that today is going to feature a bus.

In 2012, everyone stayed as far from the edge as possible, no matter which direction they were going

Now the road is straighter and has safety barriers

The woman at breakfast tells me that the only bus of the day to come through will be coming through in about an hour so I wait for the bus rather than waiting to hail it at some point on the side of the road. The bus station, when I get there, has other buses that are clearly marked as going to where I came from so it seems that I didn't need to wait for this particularly bus, but I did. Besides which, today is National Day, and I never did check if there's a holiday schedule or something meaning that those buses weren't going to be running.

AMap thinks that Qingjian has a bike shop. However, I can't find it and I don't see hardly anyone riding bikes so, after a quick and fruitless circuit of town, I'm back at the bus station buying a ticket to Suode. Suode definitely has a bike shop and I've already confirmed that, despite the holiday, its open today.

Old road seen blurrily out the window from the new road

It's so pretty around here, I kind of want to come back to this region and see if there are any roads that weren't upgraded and which still look like they did in 2012

The road from Qingjian to Suode is a National Road and it's so heavy with trucks—many of which are clearly heading to the recently truck free route I've been on the past few days—that I know I'll not be coming back this way by bike. Maybe coming back by bus or maybe by some other route but definitely not this way by bike. I've got an alternate route which I talk over with the Suode bike shop but even though there are two 镇 towns on the route, they agree with AMap about there being no lodging and I'm not really sure I'll want to do a definitely 80km mountainous day.

Also, it is only once I am in Suode that the courier company calls to let me know that my package from Haikou—the one with my warm clothes in it—has arrived in Qingjian. And no, they won't forward it on to Suode.

Honestly, even with the truck traffic, this road is eminently rideable as it is

That undiagnosable kerthlunk noise that's been going on at least since Vietnam and which rudely refuses to be repeatable or to exist in front of mechanics has finally been diagnosed. I cracked my freehub. I also broke my axle. And some other damage. Not exactly sure why the cassette sometimes spins without spinning the wheel but it's been getting significantly worse since I first noticed it doing that two days ago and even though neither of the really obvious bad problems with the hub seem to specifically be the cause of this issue, my hub is rather like the parrot pining for the fjords: very very obviously very very dead.

Unlike the 'bike shop' in Shilou (which said that the way my freewheel sometimes chooses not to engage is the fault of my over-oiling the chain), the bike shop in Suode is competent. Unfortunately, they are also mostly a mountain bike shop and they mostly sell complete bikes. They can build wheels, they know how. They just don't keep any parts for wheelbuilding in stock. And even if they did, a 36 hole hub is definitely not one of the parts they'd be keeping.

Calling around to other shops, they manage to find someone with a 32 hole hub but no one has any 32 hole 700c rims and they aren't wiling to experiment with lacing a 32 hole hub to a 36 hole rim. I'm going to have to order parts. From somewhere else. During one of the Golden Week Holidays.

I guess I wanted to get more work done anyways.

Here a truck, there a truck, everywhere a truck truck

After I'm checked in to the hotel next door to the bike shop, I go out for a pleasant massage at a place round the corner which I noticed on my way to the bike shop. There is nothing especially strenuous about what she does to me, however, something is loosened up in a way that causes something else to unhappily spasm and become very very tight. By the time I make it back to my hotel my back is radiating pain into my thighs and hips and I can barely walk up the stairs.

I break into the sealed box that holds my stash for one of the compound dissolvable codeine pills. I get the foil slightly open and just drop the whole thing, foil wrapper and all, into a water bottle. If it weren't for the fact that my back once spasmed into pain like this a little over two years ago, I'd be very very worried. If I force myself to stretch past the pain and take a bunch of hot showers, it should be back to normal by tomorrow or the day after.

Your guess is as good as mine as to why there is a horse outside the pet shop.

I'm pretty responsible with my prescription painkillers. I always have been. I left Intensive Care somewhat temporarily an addict and going through withdrawal once was more than enough for me. However, because I've rightfully had easy access to narcotics my entire adult life, I'm used to being able to take them whenever I feel the slightest need to do so.

Having my stash reduced to its current state means that I've been stricter than I've ever been. This pill is the first actual narcotic I've had since March. I can't be certain but I'm pretty sure this might be the first time in 18 years that I've gone more than three or four months without a single narcotic painkiller. It's been almost seven months since the last pill. No percoset, no vicodin, no morphine sulfate, no tramadol.

No surprise but the codeine hits me like one of the big red trucks I didn't want to deal with this morning and I find myself slipping into wild and fascinating dreams that lead to my finally, for the first time ever, understanding why people would want to take this stuff for fun.

Today's ride: 7 km (4 miles)
Total: 1,345 km (835 miles)

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