D21: 惠州 → 杨桥

June 12, 2023

The vast, vast majority of today's time spent riding is absolute misery¹, with no choice available to me other than the truck route and a not-very-wide bike lane that's closer to being an emergency shoulder than anything else.

This misery is, however, alleviated by a wonderful morning that begins with two documents for the Foreign Language Press, continues through perfect cups of rich black espresso made from the new beans, and is topped off by a visit to a commercial bakery whose boss considers six cinnamon rolls, 12 assorted brownies, five donuts, and five cookies (basically, all the empty space in my panniers) a minor rounding error in the grand scheme of things and who are just as excited to have a Customer² track them down and visit them as I am to be visiting them.

Possibly because I describe them as "known to every foreigner living in China," the comments section on the version of the video that makes it onto WeChat Channels is roughly divided into "omg, you are so lucky, you got to visit MarySweets" and "who the hell are MarySweets?"

Despite grinding out scary hours of overly utilized³ high-speed road interspersed with roadworks⁴, the close call that leaves me panting in fear and needing to take a stop for dejangling of nerves (and a donut) is in the process of leaving the truck route and is a fairly small box truck (that would have left me permanently handicapped) rather than the 18-wheelers or cement trucks (that would have smushed me to paste) which have been bothering me all day.

Bridge replacement after I got off the main road

If I recall correctly, this bridge with the China Unicom knots is named China Unicom Bridge

Calmed down and calorie'd up, the rest of the day is a beautiful back road made that much more beautiful by not having the constant looming fear of death.

¹ Throughout much of the day, I find myself thinking of Mr. Huang from LKLM⁵ asking me my opinion on pedal assist bikes and, now that supply chain restoration means that he'll soon enough have bikes in stock again, whether or not he should consider working with one of OEM manufacturers of pedal assists and adding a nice one to his range of available bikes.

Got to find out what a Protected Mud Brick Building is

The idea that they help you get from the interesting stuff to the other interesting stuff more quickly is certainly alluring, but - for all that today is really unpleasant - the contrast between bleurgh days like this and the nice days is part of what makes the nice days nice. Also, on roads like this, I rather enjoy the scavenger hunt for interesting things in uninteresting places.

² My last three birthday cakes came from them

³ It's not the volume of traffic that's the problem. It's the volume of traffic in combination with the speed of the traffic and the width of the road.

⁴ Other than the dust and bumps and sudden narrowing, the roadworks are generally an improvement over the non roadworks areas as everything slows down.

I don't like being on such a highway shaped road

Obviously, he feels it's okay to use this road

⁵ Speaking of LKLM, that frankensteined hack I was so proud of where I added their pannier hooks to my Vaude bags' pannier rails, despite them not being the same size, and how this managed to both remove flex and make my bags more stable ........ it lasted until today's first big "it looks like a curb cut, but it isn't really" at which point the added pannier hooks stayed attached to my bike but not to the bags!

It was also at this time that the lower hook that's been stuck in one place for a while decided it was done with even being attached to the bag.

At least it happened someplace shady and while I've got donuts

Petrol Station water break and a sign that they don't refill vehicles that don't have number plates or motorcycles who are unhelmeted or unwilling to show a driver's license

At the same gas station, the money transport services guards cosplaying people with guns that have triggers

At least he's holding the weapon correctly

Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 1,206 km (749 miles)

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