As the truck pulled in to the last regroup before the final climb towards Baisha I declared that I wanted to ride. We'd just taken yet another gloriously bikeable descent through groves of slender silver trees, I had a good long nap, and I wanted to play.

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         At least until I got on my bike and started up that climb, at which point I immediately regretted my decision. My knees weren't making the creaky protests they'd done during climbs on the dirt road but the muscles in my thighs immediately started to complain. I ignored them. One of the many silver linings to my accident is a fairly high pain threshold.

         It was tough going. I refused to get off my bike and walk it. The whole point in having a bike is so that one rides up hills. If one were to plan to walk up hills then why bring the bike in the first place? Besides which the muscle ache of biking rather quickly goes away with a hot shower, a bit of massage, and an anti-inflammatory. At least it does on trips of sane duration (which this one definitely wasn't). The achiness and swelling caused by the repeat thud thud thud of walking too long takes a while to show up but, if the weather is just wrong, can take days to go away--longer if I start limping.

         Up we went. And up. Down a bit. Then up. Up some more. Up. Switchbacks going up. Flat with some down followed by a lot of up. It was easily the most intense climb I'd ever done. Even the nasty bits in Vietnam were at least up down up down up down. There was variation. This was up followed by up and then some more up. And, although there was still a good bit of time before sunset the mountains cast long shadows so it was periodically a very cold up.

         On the tail of Wu Ge (who was tired enough that he wasn't singing, not even quietly) I made it to the regroup at the top and collapsed in something vaguely attempting to resemble stretching against a stone wall. I was the last one in. Everyone after me, including Chris, had been swept by the truck.

         The down was well worth the up. Especially since it was done in a pack of my friends whooping at the tops of our lungs, standing up on our pedals, and generally being goofy. The only unpleasant part about the down was that we were still doing it when we hit town and traffic. That was only unpleasant because it meant we had to slow down, sit down, and act serious.

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         We stayed the night at Baisha Post Hotel. Bikes on the balconies and in many cases four people to a room. It wasn't so much a matter of economy (although that was a factor) as a matter of few small hotels in the kind of places we were going having enough empty rooms for the 36 of us. As it was we filled this hotel.

         I stayed with Ah Qiao and two other women whose names I didn't bother to get. I'd fallen half asleep when the bike shop manager came around handing out breakfast and asked me to go translate for him since he wanted to make sure Chris (who had skipped dinner) was alright. I did this then promptly went back to my room and back to sleep. I vaguely recall Ah Qiao pulling the mosquito net over me before turning out the light and crawling into bed next to me.