Chapter 5 - The Wrap Up

An uneventful ride back to Beijing.

After the hills, punctures and disorientation of the past four days, the ride back to Beijing is 60 km of uneventful bliss. The first part of the trip is familiar and a retrace of our route from two days earlier. The last part is new, but a direct ride into Beijing. Most of today’s journey is on dedicated bicycle paths, that only feature the occasional donkey cart, motorcycle and eighty seater bus, oh and lots of corn......

We have encountered a lot of obstacles in five days. We have had to navigate around all manners of transportation device and vehicle. Today a most unusual obstacle appears. The entire corn harvest for Northern China has been piled into our bike lane. It is drying in the sun. In various stages of ears, cobs and kernels, the corn sits in between field and market, and between us and Beijing. I can only advise that if you are getting your corn from China, you should consider changing suppliers.

At the end of 5 days riding the statistics look like this:

Distance Covered 400 km (actually 398.5 and we didn't have the drive to make up the difference)

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Punctures - 5 (All Deryk)
Tubes destroyed - 2 (All Deryk)
Tyres destroyed - 1 (All Deryk)
Wheels buckled - 1 (All Deryk)
Near Misses - 7 (All Karen)
HBC* - 1 (All Karen)

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This has been a great trip. Probably the best 5 days back to back that I have spent in all of my travels. The blend of food (more on this soon), culture, history, scenery and anguish has been just about right. Most importantly - we survived to blog it!!

The Crowne Plaza in Beijing is an oasis at the end of our trip. Massages in the evening have us writhing in pain, much to the consternation of the masseurs who must think us either wimpish or crazy.

Anyway - here is a nice photo of food and travel.

* Hit By Car

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