Many of our days of riding in China seem to run into one another. Most riding days have involved busy roads, blaring horns, flat terrain, rice and filthy industry. The towns dotting our route are generally grey cement expanses filled with cyclists and kamikaze taxis. Exiting Shouzhou was little different than leaving any other huge town. There were kilometers and kilometers of bike lanes full of cyclists some carting absurdly bulky loads on their bikes-cum-pickup trucks. All seemed to be impeding our hasty departure from the dusty and grey burgh. Once on the cement two-lane highway I quit into a coma of pedaling and introspection blotting out the doppler-effected blurry moan of the horns on the on-coming trucks.
Suddenly I came awake. I wasn't simply avoiding a fellow cyclist this time it was a motorcycle. Bicyclists come in a few different flavors: into traffic staring only at their front wheel, have no concern for who or what may be in a collision course with them. path or road with no rhyme or reason. with us or pass us until they tire and careen off the road to catch their breath. (Andy's least favorite) consideration to all around them at an appropriate speed. ride a straight line while looking back over their shoulder at us. The motorcycle whizzed by me, pulled in front and slammed on his brakes in order to make a right turn.
I grabbed both brakes as hard as I could slowing only a little before smashing into the back of the bike and flipping up into the rider's mom on the back of the bike. Mom wouldn't have any of this so she began screaming at me in her unintelligible dialect while I was still in a daze. When I finally found my bearings I leapt to my feet and started screaming at the driver just as Andy arrived and joined in with Chinese to complement my English expletives. To our surprise (not) a crowd formed. As I started to take stock of the damage to my bike and me a whorey looking woman started to giggle.
I asked her to get lost in rather impolite Chinese. I was remarkably lucky to be whole and virtually unscratched. Andy made mention of getting the *Gong An* (police) and the motorcyclist apologized and disappeared down the road. I ached and thought I might have to stop riding. Somehow I rode through the pain. A few short hours later we were at near destination, so we thought. We could see lake Taihu but couldn't figure out how to get to the hotels across it. After trying all our options around the lake we decided to head back towards Wuxi and find the lake from there.
As we retreated two white guys on bikes appeared. Middle-aged Jacques and Louis work for a French company and live in the Taihu Venice Gardens (a nasty 70s-ish styled apartment and condo complex with an Italian theme). It is the only place that foreigners can buy near Wuxi. They invited us up to their high-rise apartment to get a bird's eye view of the lake and find our bearings. Had we rode around the lake it would have taken less time, for J&L insisted on escorting us at a snail's pace. All the time Jacques narrated our tour while Louis remained silent.
We finally ended up at a fun 50's hotel on the lakefront, electing to skip the more luxurious and expensive newer models. Andy went for a ride around the lake while I slept-off my accident. That night we dined with John and Carl vacationing here from the States. John, a San Francisco native living in New York City, is an artist and his travelling companion Carl a German living in John's home town. We ate together and laughed about our respective observations of China and the Chinese.