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<\/a>Compared to cycling with the young Burmese children I befriended in Thailand, the experience was vastly different but similar in some ways. \u00a0Cycling is a skill that is learned experientially — learning how to ride a bicycle involves body language — not something that can be picked up from a book or by staring at a teacher. \u00a0The saying, “experience is the best teacher” definitely applies here. \u00a0The group that left Chengdu early this Saturday morning was larger than average and the usual caravan of cars stretched a long ways back on the highway as they followed the two mini-buses that had been rented to carry the rest of us.\u00a0 There was also a small truck for the bicycles. \u00a0The ride along the freeway and then through the rural countryside was a total of almost 200 kilometers. \u00a0So, we arrived in Niujiang Township for a planned group lunch at a local restaurant and then set off on the drive up Mt. Yuping. \u00a0The resort at the top of this mountain nestles among the forest except for one hillside cleared for a typical park for people to walk around on — not that different from a park back in the city. \u00a0Some things never change and ‘appropriate eco-tourism’ has yet to take hold in China. \u00a0So, there we were on the mountain top with the families’ cars parked along the road and stretching back into the distance like a long snake. \u00a0We slowly collected our bicycles and the kids who would try to ride through the 40 kilometers of forest road we had planned. \u00a0There were four adults on this trip but most of the cyclists were kids with city bikes who had no idea of what to expect from riding on a mountain road. \u00a0Everyone begins somewhere I guess. \u00a0In that respect, the kids were no different from the Burmese children that I bought bicycles for — mostly Thai built pieces of junks that only lasted for a few rides through the countryside before we were repairing them or throwing them away.<\/p>\nSoon, we had left the cars and parents behind and set off on the road that winds its way along the ridge line of Mt. Yuping towards Cao Yu Tan Township where the group had reserved rooms at the local hotel and where some families camped out on the extensive grounds. \u00a0It was a beautiful day for once and we began riding at nearly 4 p.m. in the afternoon. \u00a0We would have to push hard to make it to the hotel before dark. \u00a0The road climbed gently in places but mostly curved around through the forest and the remarkably attractive scenery. \u00a0The views down into the valley below were reminiscent of looking down on the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia from the Blue Ridge Parkway and at about the same elevation. \u00a0Only here the sky was more cloudy and the views less clear. \u00a0Photos don’t do the view justice but most of the kids didn’t stop to take photos anyway. \u00a0I was cycling with my namesake, Dane, from New York City and with Roland, who is a German married to a local Chinese and who has lived in Chengdu for the past 12 years. \u00a0He often arranges tours for visitors from Europe who want to get up into the mountains of Sichuan.<\/p>\n
No matter, we continued on until about an hour after we had started out, the caravan of cars with the childrens’ parents materialized behind us and slowly overtook us. \u00a0Many of the kids decided to abandon the ride at this stage and hop in their mom’s or dad’s car for the rest of the ride. \u00a0The rest of us pressed on and upwards for the next couple of hours. \u00a0We finally reached a stage where the rest of the ride would be downhill. \u00a0 Here, I was following one girl aged about eight or nine who continued to amaze me with the speedy way she went down the hill. \u00a0She often dragged her feet around corners to slow her perilous descent but didn’t crash. \u00a0I never did catch up with her because I was too busy stopping to take photos of the scenery. \u00a0There was one place where we started downhill that the local stream made contact with the road and followed it all the rest of the way down through the villages on the way and to the main village at the bottom of the valley. \u00a0I had to take a firm grip on my brakes and trust them to stop me from going over the edge and off a steep drop to the rocks below.<\/p>\n<\/a>Because most of the kids raced away in front of us and didn’t stop to wait for stragglers Dane, Roland and myself found ourselves bringing up the rear — helping the slower cyclists on their city bikes get up the hills. \u00a0Dodo, whose father Litiegang is the organizer of DD007 struggled up the hills, often hopping off his little bike and pushing it up the hills. \u00a0I would encourage him to continue until the next level stretch or until we could coast down the next hill. \u00a0He had a better, newer bike at home but could not be persuaded to ride that one. \u00a0His bike was a lot like one of those I bought for a Burmese child back in 2006 — okay for tooling around the mostly flat Thai countryside but no fun when coming to a hill.<\/p>\n