Tour De Dandong - Day 1

The Tour De Dandong started off with great fanfare and nervous trepidation. Seriously did anyone expect these bikes



to make it all the way to Dandong from Dalian .. a distance of 350 km? Well in truth probably very few believed although most hoped they would.

The structure of the race was simple. 5 teams (Yongjiu, Jin Lu, Hong Qi, Fei Ge and FengHuang) each with 4 to 6 members set off to race from Dalian to Dandong. The teams were named after the brand of bike each team was using. The race was split into 2.5 days where at the end of each day the groups and support crew all stayed in the same town. I was a member of the marshalling crew that was responsible for organizing the mechanics and film crew. There were 2 film crew cars and 1 mechanic truck (with 2 mechanics) that followed the racers through the countryside.

The groups met at Jinshitan beach near our school and posed for a large group photo.





You may notice that Brad from Team Phoenix was not present for the photo as the first mechanical mishap occurred prior to the start of the race. His chain was broken and he was scrambling to get a new one in the town of ManJiaTan.

The groups then took off in a staggered start with each team leaving about 3 minutes apart. Due to the issues Phoenix had they were the last to leave .. and boy was that an omen of the day to come.

There were a few teams that took a wrong turn about 3 km into the race but it was all sorted out pretty quickly.

Team YongJiu encountered the first "on road" mechanical problem when Euan's chain broke but the mechanics were quickly on hand and had the team back on the road within a few minutes.

Mechanical problem #3 occurred with Team Phoenix. Jack's brakes were put to the test and failed as he was drafting a 3 wheeled truck. He was fine but it took 20 to 30 minutes to get his bike repaired which put Team Phoenix a fair bit behind their competitors. It was a sign of things to come for Team Phoenix.




The wind was howling on this first day and really slowed the progress of the cyclists to the point where the last 30 km of the first day (90 km in total) was done in complete darkness with a bit of rain and the aforementioned wind. Some teams were very well prepared for night riding with reflective vests and good bike lamps. Other teams were not and were putting themselves in great danger. There were so many ways it could have gone wrong (pedestrians on the shoulder in completely dark clothing, concrete bridge abuttments jutting out, cars swinging over to drive on the shoulder, high beams blinding the cyclists as they rode) but the fact that nothing serious happened suggested that someone was watching out for the competitors.

The teams rolled into the Cheng Zi Tan bathhouse starting about 8:30 pm or so until the last team .. guess who .. Team Phoenix finally arrived at 11 pm. They had quite a few issues with flat tires and other assorted mechanical problems.

We had some Chinese takeout (seriously what else would it be?) brought in and we put on a DVD of the 1975 USSR-Montreal Canadiens New Year's Eve game. We only got to watch the first period as they shut us down because it was getting late. We all retired to bed in our rooms hoping to rest up for the next day's adventure .. and what an adventure it would become.

Stay tuned.