Missed

Desert Camp to Desert Camp
October 13th
130km (897m vertical)

It wasn't cold enough to use my new insulated pants last night. Perhaps tonight.

Tough morning as we rode along a rough secondary road, slightly uphill and into a headwind. Yet another day of grinding slowly to lunch without any interesting scenery for distraction. After 10km, Nicole and I decided to hop on the main highway, which was more direct and had a much smoother surface. (Nice wide shoulder too.) We had to crawl under a barbwire fence and up a steep embankment to get to the road...but it was worth it.

All was well until we realized that the highway and secondary road had diverged...and we couldn't see the secondary road (that we were supposed to be on) anymore. They rejoined again 10km down the road, however, we managed to miss the lunch truck. We weren't alone: 8 of 14 riders missed lunch today, not including Max and Trene, who rode all the way to Jiayuguan...intentionally. Everyone had taken the main highway and lunch was set up at 70km instead of 75km...so we all missed it.

Nicole and I did manage to flag down the lunch truck on its way past, so we got some food. Would have been a really long day on an empty stomach, but apparently 6 riders got no lunch at all.

After lunch, the “official route” was changed to the main highway. Ben was sweeping (i.e. last rider) and we rode with him to camp. Directions were off though, so even with Ben we missed the exit back onto the secondary road and had to crawl back down the embankment and under the barbed wire.

Lumps of sand...a fascinating departure from flat sand. (Also, not the barbed wire fence that lines the highway, that I climbed under/around 3 times today!)

Wind farm...evidence that all of our headwinds are not a freak occurrence: