Well its just too cold up in the mointains, so I took the shortest route to Chengdu. Arrived yesterday (the 25th).

5/1/2011 Day off in Tongren, Shopping, Shave

6/1/2011 Tongren visit monistory

7/1/2011 62 km, 4:01

Down valley, went 10 km past turnoff, down spectacular valley, and 10 km back. Camp with towering cliffs around.

8/1 26 km, 3:36

15km of climbing, camped on grass next to river (frozen)

9/1 4km

Snow over night, and very cold in morning. Stopped at house, by Sunam who was visiting his family and was a tour guide in Tibet. Mutton stew with fat and butter is good for the cold.

10/1 45km

Snow again over night, but warmer and no head wind. Riding in open grass land with snow around, good riding.

Down valley into Labrang.

11/1 Day visiting Monistory.

12/1 67km

An hour teaching english in the morning. Then to Henzou, which has a replica of one of Milerpa’s towers. Henzou was a big town, back into China.

13/1 88km 5:24

Luqu, Need China ID to access Internet.

14/1 89km 5:40

20 km of Climbing to start. Stopped in Monistory town, many western tea hoses and hostels closed. Tail wind most of the day, cold spectacular passes.

15/1 67km 4:15

Through tunnel onto flat Zoige plan. Camp on hill side. Given Tsampa for baby photos (how do I send them)

16/1 20km

Asked for ID by police in internet bar. Smelly hotel.

17/1 Snow overnight, meet Dorjee and speak some english in afternoon.

18/1 67km

Excellent days riding, snow around, blue skies and sunshine. Dropped bike and broke mirror. Saw pilgrims prostrating themselves along road, sliding on the snow covered road.

19/1 87km

Easy flat riding to HongYuan. Dog got hold of rear panier and had to kick it off.

20/1 66km 4:19

Cold day with some sunshine. River camp, setup camp on snow.

21/1 71km

6km to pass then easy down hill. Stopped at checkpoint and talked my way to a store room as accomodation.

22/1 67km

4km climb then 4km tunnel at least this one had the lights on.
Resort town Xuecheng.

23/1 53km

Heavy fall on ice, very sore leg.

24/1 83km

Cycing day from hell. Head wind, trucks, major works on road from earth quake in 2008, and tunnels from hell. One 2.3 km long with just two lanes, no lighting and trucks doing 60-80 km/h

Found resterant/hotel over night. Dayu peope area.

25/1 119 km

Good start on alternate road and up over pass. Once out of the mountains flat 60km to Chengdu. Arrived about dark and managed to navigate to hostel.

Just a quick update to say I arrived in Zoige after doing some long days.

Zoige Location

Does this map work?

View Larger Map

Managed to upload all the digital photos so far to,

Photo Album

Still cold, and it snowed over night, although its clearing, so will see if it warms up by lunch time before heading out. Its about 60 km to the next town to the south west now.

Pete

Trip so far,

well its been cold, very cold, riding most days in two layers of thermals, long pants, jacket, and beenie and neck warmer. I also forgot about the short days, so its dary from 7 pm until about 8.00 am, and generall I can only get going around 10.00 am because its too cold to do any thing else. So I have only been managing 30 km per day because of the cold.

That said, its spectacular though, many of the Tibetan herders are in their winter houses, mud brick places, and take their yak and goat herds out for the day.

Some photos

Photos

21/12 Deptart Xining, for Ta’er Monistory, 33 km in 2:43.

Nice cycling day, slightly warm, some traffic out of Xining, stopped for lunch at a school where two men were selling bread rolls with veiges inside to the school kids, very nice.

Visited the Ta’er Monistory, a large monistory that the Chinese are promoting as a tourist place.

22/12 29 km 3:36 stopped short of a pass and camped on the side of the road.

23/12 30 km,

over the pass, 3820m, and into a very cold head wind, it was down hill but all I could manage was 15 kph as otherwise my fingers would freeze. I found in a small town a Chinese motel and stopped there for the night, the owners family gave me diner, very nice Chinese food.

24/12 37 km, 2:15

Slight snow in morning, but good day cycling down hill into GuiDe, which as a cross street town mixed Tibetan/Han/Hui people. All the Tibetan herders come into these towns for supplies so its quite offten kaos when them shopping.

25/12 33km 3:24,

Headed further south along S101 road toward Zekog, spectacular sceanary, back to climbing a pass.

26/12 9.7 km 1:17, almost into open grass planes now, stopped to visit a Monstory and stayed the night, trying to teach some english to the monks who wanted english practice.

27/12 Sick day in monistory, some stomach problem, Tinidazonal is a wonder drug.

28/12 34 km 2:39

Good days cycling and feeling much better. Camped by side of road again.

29/12 36km 2:21

Started as a good days cycling quite flat, but ended in a massive dust storm, which lasted several hours. I found a well house and setup camp inside. The water was flowing out of the ground and freezing once it got to the surface.

30/12 40 km, 3:00 a record

Cold but good camp in well house, good day cycling, starting to get into the cycling again. Found a town for lunch and stopped in the next town for a hotel.

31/12 38km

Good days cycling, into open grass land, with mountain range in the back ground. Camped in a grass field in the sun for a change.

1/1 Stayed put in tent it never got warm enough to head out.

2/1 35km 2:33

Cold start but saw enough sun to try and head out, the next town was 35 km away, Cycled into town with a very cold cross/tail wind.

3/1 56 km 3:16

now thats a record for the trip, cycled with tail wind on the mostly flat and over a pass into the valley which leads to Tongren. Was given Tsampa for lunch by some local Tibetan people. Tsampa is a bit plane here, as there is no Yogert around and without sugar. They use dried kurd for flavour, which gives it a slightly cheese taste and lumpy.

4/1 44 km into Tongern

So all along the valley is Monistorys and Tongren is a big monistory town, which Ill visit tomorrow, as its overcast today and some cleaning needs doing. Most cloths I have been waring all the time with no chance of washing as its been so cold.

Heading to Labrang in the next few days, about 100 km away.

Well after some unknown hours in flights and airports (leaving Syndey at 10am) and arriving in Xining the next day at 1 pm I was a bit over flights.

I rode from Xining airport into the city ~30 km, when we got off the plane they said we might need a jacket, as it was -13 C outside, this made cycling a bit cold.

Its been a bit cloudy and dusty here today (and yesterday) buy very dry and clear. There is nothing green around, all the hills are brown as all the trees have lost there leaves.

I thought I might escape xmas, but the school children were singing carols when a walked passed a school yesterday.

Xining looks like it has every thing though, nice food, its a large booming Chineese city. Might try and head out on Monday to Qinhai lake, and experience cold weather cycling.

I have a digital camera, so might try and upload some photos to the next post.

Wednesday Hobart-Sydney
Thursday Sydney-Shanghai-Beijing
Friday Beijing-Xining

Returning
12 February Chengdu-Shanghai-Sydney-Hobart

Trip planning kml file, and scanned china road maps

Map [maptype=G_SATELLITE_3D_MAP]