I have just found out that my website must have been infected with some nasty virus as my sister told me that she got a warning that it was ‘malware’ when she tried to log on. Thanks to my webmaster and friend Richard Bull, the site is up and running again and I can inform you about my latest shenanigans.
I have been biking in Yunnan Province in China for the past 12 days and it has been amazing. I am here with a tour organised by my friend David Walker, who runs Painted Roads Cycling, a biking company offering tours in Asia. I am feeling extremely blessed that I got the chance to join this David on one of his tours and I am very impressed with his services, knowledge and humour. And the group of people he got together for this trip is also extraordinary and very inspiring. For once, I am actually the second youngest of the group.
From left: Arthur, Frank, Marko and Keith waiting for lunch
There is Arthur from the UK, who is as strong as a horse, especially on the uphills. However, he can’t quite keep up with Keith from Dudley near Birmingham in the UK, who at 71 outrides us all (apart from David, of course). The next magnificent person in this group is Keith’s amazing wife Pat, who at 68 years outbikes me by far on the flats and downhills, and then there are Marko from Slovenia as well as Frank from Belgian and his Partner Zaraka from Hongkong, whose performance is equally impressive.
In his latest Facebook entry David worked out that the combined age of Arthur and Keith was 144 years and that they would certainly humiliate most of us on a bike. “Keith is a world wonder,” Frank from Belgium said when we arrived in Jizu Shan after 100km in the saddle. “I feel very humbled and I tried hard to keep up with him but it was impossible.”
And of course there are Echo, David’s girlfriend and his right hand on the trip as well as Cathy, her husband Lee and yet another Lee, who are our local guides and look after us amazingly well. Cathy bikes with us and it is either her or David in the front and the back. “What I really like about Painted Road Cycling trips is the fact that there is always someone at the back. I never feel left alone,” Pat told me when she was coming up our 1,000m climb yesterday. She is simply amazing!
David, the great leader!
Unfortunately we only have one more day of cycling before we arrive in Dali, where the tour officially ends. I will stay one extra day in Dali and then go back to Kathmandu, where I guess I am urgently needed as dozens of people have summited Everest and other 8,000m peaks. So far, the season has panned out to be a very good one on Mount Everest, which is wonderful news and I keep my fingers crossed that it will stay like this.
Good luck to everyone, who is still on the high mountains attempting to summit on or around 20th May – this is the day when a lot of team are heading for the top.
But for the time being, I apologise for not having been able to update my website, however, you can check out my Facebook site for more pics and a bit more info about the trip.
Thanks for visiting again and I promise, I will do a more detailed write-up on this amazing bike tour in China as soon as I have done my job for the Himalayan Database and interviewed all the teams coming back from the big mountains!
