Craziest bike ride ever...
Sorry about the delay in terms of entries, its been an event packed two weeks with either no time for internet or no free internet. My deepest apologies. So looking back on Xian, it feels like ages ago, there are a few things that really stick out in my mind. The first of these things being the bike ride around the city wall of Xian. This wall is one of the oldest most well preserved city walls in china and what a wall it is. This wall is 9 miles around and 54 feet wide at its base. Us Americans being the idiots that we are decided a ride around the wall would be a relaxing and pleasurable experience here in Xian, of course it was far from what we hoped for. We found a place to rent some beat up old bikes, that's all there are here, and were told that we had an hour or so until we needed to get back on the bus. While I hadn't seriously ridden a bike in more than 4 years and I guess the old standard holds true, you never forget how to ride a bike. We started off at rapid pace and a group of about 15 of us broke away from the pack, some on single bikes others tandem, I rode solo. we got to the first corner of the square course and were still moving at quite a good pace, this pace would not cease until the final stretch of wall. the path was quite bumpy and left its share of riders quite sore. As we continued I found myself leading the pack with a tandem bike and one other solo rider, we went to a straight sprint and after dodging and shouting on the crowded wall could see the finish line, I pulled ahead and won by half a length. We did the loop in 41 minutes and were exhausted. It was hot, humid and smoggy and I was covered in sweat but it was definitely worth it. The wall was quite a site, outside of it is a rapidly growing city while the inside holds onto the small parts of ancient life that it can.
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