The first half of today was driving to our starting point about 3 1/2 hours. Along the way, the magnitude and scale of growth, infrastructure building, high-rise residences, new roads, tunnels, high-speed trains, it is incredible how much stuff is being built here! Mind boggling!!

We finally met our bikes at lunchtime, had a bowl of noodle soup and hopped on after that around 1 PM. 42K on the bikes today, but it felt more like 60, lots of uphill!! Only 740k to go! We ended today in Leishang. It is a much newer city of about 30,000 with a very aesthetically pleasing look, unusual for most Chinese towns. At night, all of the newer buildings are lit with the intention of pleasing lighting. There is a lake that meanders ( can a lake meander?) through the middle of town, and a huge square and plaza where much activity occurs in the evening. The Chinese tradition of large groups of women dancing in the Square in the evening was very apparent here, very interesting to watch and clearly the sense of community here is very strong. My observation is that China is a very cohesive culture, much different than the melting pot the US prides itself on…

Our dinner tonight was very tasty, including fried greens, shredded potatoes, spicy beef, bamboo shoots, and two kinds of tofu. All very tasty!

Regarding the riding today, with five of us in the group, everybody is in pretty good shape, and I think we will be reasonably well matched and generally travel pretty quickly each day. Of course who knows who will still be pedaling well after three or four consecutive days…

Tomorrow is 58K, plenty more hills as well… I hope it warms up a bit, walking around in the evening was long pants, and three layers on top. We are on early start tomorrow, 7 AM breakfast and 8 a.m. on the bikes.

Sorry few pics, China Wi-Fi problematic for uploading them…