Day 16 and 17: Done and Done!

Lets start this final China blog off right:

CHEERS!

That's me, post stage 13, in bed, drinking a warm beer. It was probably liquid rice, but who cares, at least the rice has been fermented. 

So, China was a long haul. I think we all had moments that we thought we were going to quit. (See: The Dark Times) and moments we truly were thankful for (See: The Russian Motorcycle). As a team we came away in 5th overall, Chad Beyer finished 8th on GC, Gavin and I both got 5th on a stage, and Taylor sprinted his way to 7th one day. We didnt win, and that was disappointing, but we were Americans navigating China and 10000+ feet of altitude eating only rice and drinking only bottled water. We came together and worked hard against some great teams, and I think we can all be proud of the way we raced. 

Now that I've said that, lets get back to China being China. I think that 5% of the people I saw in China were police, military, or some kind of security force employed by the government. That many people tasked with telling a generally obedient population what to do all the time is probably the reason people dont really care to listen to this dude trying to direct traffic as a bunch of foreign bike racers caravan throuogh Lanzou on their way to the last hotel of the race:

Ok you guys, time to stop now

No! Really! I mean it! There is a bus directly behind me!

YOURE GOING TO HIT THE BUS YOU INSANE PERSON!!!

Oh dear, someone did away with the cop...

 For the first time all race I finally found some good Chinese seasoning:

In case you cant read it: "MSG"

Mike Woods and I had spent the second half of the race rooming together, bleeding on our beds in some sort of missing skin quarantine enacted by the team management (Real reason: Bruno was sick and Dave was happily back in America). Before the last stage we got to our hotel room and, before even unpacking, sat at the window in awe at the craziest roundabout in the world, a true metaphor for the way China operates:

Priceless.

We did the last stage, which was easy peasy, and then we were FINISHED!!! Instead of doing whatever we wanted, however, it was back on the buses for the closing ceremony! Here is what I figure the planner sounded like in the organizing of this hour long presentation of cheese to the winners:

OK FIRST we will have that one group of moms who dance do the one song they know on repeat until the ceremony is ready to start:

THEN, to signal to everyone we are ready to blow their minds, we will have cheek-syncing professionals pretend to play annunciation trumpets before every different event!

Ahhhh yes, the sweet sounds of auditorium speakers playing the sweet sounds of trumpets. THEN we will spell our own language wrong in the program:

CHIESE! ITS ART! WONDERFUL IDEA! Oh im on a roll now! THEN get those singers, the ones who dont sing, and have them stand in front of the group of talented dancing children and blow smoke on all of them!

Oh they will all be on the edge of their seats!

Edge of their seats alright....

They must have fallen off they were so excited!

MAGNIFICENT!! NOW, THE FAKE SEE THOUGH UPRIGHT VIOLINISTS!! NOW!!!

BRAVO FAKE PLAYERS!!! MORE SMOKE!!!

Sam was so excited he melted. Taylor is.... amused.

 I CAN NEARLY ALMOST FAKE CONTAIN MYSELF. What do you mean we cant fake drumming? Ok fine, real drummers, but im sure they wont be as good as fake ones....

The girl 3rd from the right was very concerned about getting her hair in the air.

OHHHH MY GOODNESS WE ARE DONE IM SURE THEY CANNOT HANDLE ANOTHER MOMENT!

Yea, that was probably it.

Finished with the race, and the ceremony, we were free to roam. The guys found a pizza hut and I found some domesticated pigeons that the children in the square were playing with. We ate. We packed up. And I went straight to bed because, as i have always said: "If i go to sleep now, tomorrow will come faster."

It did. At 4am I woke up, too excited to sleep, and went and sat in front of the breakfast room door until it opened at 5am, ate an egg and some toast, was the first one on the transfer bus, and peaced out to America where I was then offered $600 to take a flight that would have gotten me home 1 hour later and I refused it.

China was amazing, for sure a highlight in my career, but as I write this more than a month after it ended, I am sure the nostalgia is high and the memory of the Yak In My Hip has waned. Reguardless, the race was amazing, well run, and we got to race against some great guys (despite us all trying to kill each other on the last 2 stages).

In closing, I give you Gavin's carry on bag:

Thanks for reading! Off to Alberta next week!

Day 14 and 15 (Stages 11 and 12): Things Just Got Real

WHERE TO START?! Oh I know. UHC's Director got stabbed with a screwdriver! Apparently he cut a Chinese director off in the transfer caravan (don't know what that is? It doesn't matter!) and when we stopped for gas and snacks.....

Interruption: What do you do with 198 (ok, by this point in the race it was more like 120) cyclists, all their staff, and all the race vehicles on a 400k transfer? You let them pee for heaven's sake! Those gas stations will never be the same.

....HE STABBED HIM WITH A SCREWDRIVER. Like this:

"You cut me off to be with your other team car? Ok, I stab you with... what do we have? No, a pencil is lame, what else? Who has a pencil? Honestly? Use a pen. OH PERFECT WE HAVE A SCREWDRIVER!"

I would say that was a bit of an embellishment to an equal and fair response, but we are in China, some stuff is different here. Luckily, the screwdriver was dull, but it left a nasty bruise and, in addition to a staff member getting hit with a suitcase in the elevator and a rider being held to a wall and nearly punched, its safe to say tensions were running a bit high.

So, here is what was going on at the race at this time. We had 3 stages to go, all circuit races, all a far cry from the +200k climby stages we had become accustomed to. Over all those mountains, and through all those cities, and after sleeping on all those hard beds, only 12 seconds seperated 2nd place (La Pomme) and 3rd place (Kolss super team... i added the super team part). On these circuit races there were time bonus sprints, and Kolss super team was better at sprinting than La Pomme soon to be sad team. In the prize breakdown, 2nd place overall got TWELVE THOUSAND more dollars than 3rd. So begins the entire peloton watching Kolss super team steal a $12,000.00 piece of candy from La Pomme getting robbed team.

In stage 11, Kolss did a leadout for the first time bonus that was honestly harder than the finish leadout. I countered that insanity, ended up solo for a bit, then a large group of guys not willing to work together caught me, some team missed it, and our minute gap was zilch in pretty fast order. Taylor countered that and bought himself a ticket to the pain cave all day, the field let him and one other guy go, just so Kolss could continue to ruin La Pomme's day one second at a time. Ultimately, Taylor was caught, and a man with eyebrows plucked into the surprised expression won the stage. It is important to note that, as the heaviest guy in the race, he spent a SIGNIFICANT amount of time hanging on to cars to make time cuts. This was stupid.

After the Kolss shinanigans, Stage 12 started off with a crosswind climb, but everyone knew what was going to happen, Kolss was going to ride a team time trial and then laugh at La Pomme as they emptied their pockets. So, for the first time at the Tour of Qinghai lake on a climb, nobody attacked. In fact, the only person TO attack on this day was Chad Beyer. Why? Because this race is stupid now. That's why. Chad did not make it.

Now, I was in a bad mood because I was missing a very important wedding on this day, a wedding I had waited 14 years to see. With barely enough internet to even find out where I was on the planet, I felt terrible that I was unable to be witness to such an important and exciting day. As i grumbled my way into my kit, I saw an old man wield his camera, aim at my buttox, and snap the shutter with a grin on his face. I chased after this man with the intent to throw him in the river, but with my pants half way around my legs, I was no match for his limber, perverted, stupid self. I hope he tripped and fell in the river.

Tomorrow marks the last stage of Qinghai lake. Tune in for Mike Woods and I pontificating on a traffic circle, a closing ceremony featuring a plethora of people not playing the music that they were playing us, and other things hopefully wrapping up what was an unbelievable trip!

Day 14 (Stage 10): Breakaway Pee Break

I advise you to get caught up on the Tour of Qinghai Lake so far, here is the first post.

OK. Before we get into the day, lets first talk about how China seems to feel about all the ice in the world:

Silly Rabbit, Ice is for melting!

And yes, I'm talking about the Polar Ice Caps. I write this on a patio in Boulder, CO where I saw what seemed like a picnic, only with weed and nothing else. AT LEAST WE PUT THE ICE IN A DRINK FIRST (or bongs, apparently).

Ok, with that out of my system, on to stage 10!

Blurry. Just as I remember it.

Another day, another stage profile that underestimated just how hard the climbs would be. We started out on that not-a-climb-in-chinese climb, attacks flying, dudes wishing attacks would be done flying, and the yellow jersey decidedly marking me. No, seriously, we had a talk about it after the stage, and a few times could have been a coincidence, but of the maybe 7 times I attacked or followed a move, 6 of those were accompanied by the yellow jersey "HELLO JIM IM ON YOUR WHEEL" but in Kazakh so it sounded different. We determined he thought I was Chad. I evaded him all the same, because that's what I do. IN THE BREAK was I, other things that I was:

- Hot
- Hydrated, too hydrated....
- Still sick of rice
- Eating rice cakes (gag)
- Peeved at the level of work-together-ness in this group (that being equal to none)

We hit a tunnel at the top of a climb, and suddenly we were in a vacuum where there was no draft and we constantly accelerated until being shot out of the other side like sweaty princess cannonballs, 2 sweaty princesses got dropped, sitting on is a bitch! You got what you deserved.

Later on in this slog to end all slogs, we still had 4 minutes on the field, however nobody seemed to be trying to hard to keep that gap, nor did the field seem to care that there was a bike race happening, so we got to the top of a fake climb and, as well hydrated hot cyclists sometimes do, decided to take a pee break, IN THE BREAK. Unprecedented. Unbelievable. Un... lucky!

At the same time we decided to empty our bladders, the field decided to empty our hopes and dreams. I guess guys started to attack on the climb, which in conjunction with our pee break, caused the gap to go from well over 4 minutes to 36 seconds, all in about 3 minutes. BALDERDASH. And, wouldnt you know it, A guy from Kolss came across the gap! Standard.

At this point I was used to insane things happening at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, but this seemed to put me over the edge. The break immediately started attacking itself, literally with our man parts still out, and all hell was most certainly breaking from being unloose. Tight. Hell was no longer tight.

Hell was breaking loose.

You know what? Screw it. I went back to the field. In time to go up the next categorized climb, nearly getting dropped, and at the top I decided that I was over this race. We teamed up to do a leadout at the end, had the front with 1k to go, but then the Yellow Jersey decided he was bored and won the damn stage. I. Well. I was flabbergasted. I feel like I need to post a picture now.

Only one pair of feet in the air?! I cant believe it, normally there were more feet than heads visible on the transfer bus.

Ok, back to my feelings about the yellow jersey. In an email to Bobby Sweeting that night, in response to the question "Hows China?" I replied (among other, rather censored, things):

The yellow jersey is Vinokorov's Chernobyl baby that we are pretty sure, much like rookie of the year, slipped on a bike at some point and broke his body into being the best biker of all time. The only difference being he will not be throwing any slow balls in the world series, he will just cover every move until 3rd on gc goes up the road, Chase him down, and win the field Sprint by a bike length with his mouth closed. Then punch an Iranian through a tree just because they attacked too much.

So, all is normal here. Glad to hear fatherhood is awesome. Stay away from sea slugs and the "pulled face" they were serving last night.

Sincerely,

Jim, the tired.

That would be that for the day. 

Tomorrow (a two stager): A director gets stabbed, Kolss begins to slowly take $12k from La Pomme, Taylor rolls the break because "why not, this race is now stupid", I chase an old man off for laughing at my butt, and nobody attacks but Chad!

Day 13 (Stage 9): Nothing Day

Rested, happy, full of rice, and off the antibiotics, I started the last 5 stages a new man. After some 900 miles of racing in the first 8 days, the last 5 seemed kind of like an easy week. I made an early break but Astana decided that the beak wasnt dangerous enough for them, so they chased it back and let a move go with a guy only a minute down on GC in it (and with Taylor, who is absolutely flying at this point of the race). The thing is, if you didn't succumb to China in the first week, you were probably going super good the last 5 days, which contributed to some of the speeds we achieved each stage. So with the break doomed with a GC guy in it, we settled in and made sure Chad was safe and Sam was protected for the sprint. Thats pretty much how every circuit went, so how about some fun stuff instead?!

Gavin: "Hey guys, do you think I can have granola and milk out of this plastic bag?"
Taylor: "I dont see why not"

Thankfully Taylor had a bowl, which he failed to mention before Gavin poured a whole box of warm apple milk into a bag with a hole.

This immaculate, unnecessary, and shockingly clean hotel lobby acts as a nice metaphor for many of the buildings in China: Big, Vacant, and Lacking Purpose.

Cleanest floor in the world?

The floor was so clean I am surprised we were not asked to wear cotton booties while on it. But then I realized that would not be necessary because this lady was ON IT:

Then there was this boutique, which...

Pretty un-Boutique-y

Relic-ery? Stone-greens? Im pretty sure there wasn't a door to get in there, much to the chagrin of many a hotel patron who forgot their dusty strange rocks at home.

Taylor is the Zen master. Ive said this before, and I continue to believe it to be true. He brought with him on this trip a large plastic clear teddy bear filled with frosted animal cookies and on the top had written in sharpie "do not open until stage 10!" Half of those cookies were gone by stage 10, but I believe it is because we were all stealing them one at a time (and one counts as "as many cookies stuck together as possible")

Ball of frosting and cookies

 We were driving and saw this, and then played the game "what the hell could that possibly be?!"

Believe it or not, nobody got it right. Its a 60-foot tall metal flower. Because YOLO?

 Finally, at dinner, we were treated to some of the chairs that the Olympians sat in!!

We need 38,000 custom chair covers STAT

Ill admit, this was kind of a nothing day. But stay tuned for pee breaks IN THE BREAK, a director getting stabbed with a screwdriver, a man that tweezers his eyebrows into the "surprised" expression, trumpeters cheek-syncing, totally fake musical instruments, and a dancing group of middle aged women with the one song they know on repeat!