Winter Wait Part Two - The Great Wall

Chinese New Year is a crazy holiday here.  This city essentially shuts down for 7 days.  Most of its population return to their families' homes in various provinces throughout China.  Many expats do the same or take the opportunity to go on vacation.  Those few Beijingers that actually stay in the city are presented with a weeklong fireworks demonstration.  Firecrackers, rockets, Roman candles, and mortars are lit, fired, and launched all day with seemingly little regard for safety or people's sleep schedules.  Thankfully I'm a pretty sound sleeper and managed to snooze through the percussive pyrotechnics displays bursting literally right outside the window of my 8th floor apartment.  Despite the omnipresent explosions and streets littered with the smoldering remains of celebratory munitions, the Beijing population is significantly pared down during CNY.  It becomes as close to a ghost town as one can imagine for a bustling city with a population of 12+ million.  The simple fact that I didn't have to elbow anyone out of my way (unless I wanted to) was a novelty to me after over 6 months of MMA-style pedestrian travel.  CNY is a family holiday after all.  It's a combination of Thanksgiving and (Gregorian) New Year celebrations.  People spend time with the relatives, eat lots, and go on family outings to temple fairs.  Being that I'm here without family, I spent the first half of last week drinking in the whole Beijing-style New Year celebration.  I went to a few random parties and spent a fair amount of time at the handful of bars and restaurants that were actually open during the holiday.  Unwilling to lose my finely honed "crowd management" skills, I ventured into a handful of traditional miaohui's (or temple fairs) to battle my way through the hordes of Chinese tourists.  I successfully elbowed, stomped, and wedged my way through the craziness to "chuan'r"  (kabob-style street food) stalls, performance stages, and festival games.  I even managed to snap a few pictures as well.  But you can only do so much celebrating and binge drinking in one week, so I made other plans to carry me through the holiday.

Wednesday morning, I packed my giant Chrome bag with (too much) stuff and rode my bike to the Great Wall at a village called Mutianyu.  Here are a few highlights:

My shit was heavy

It's winter and as such, one must prepare accordingly if one expects to be comfortable (and alive) at the end of a 100km slog through the mountains.  Unfortunately, if you're this Idiot you would overpack for every possible contingency imaginable in the mountains.  This was mostly because only Idiots ride by themselves in the middle of the winter on unfamiliar mountain roads.  I packed enough to survive sleeping on the side of the road for a few days.  I packed enough to fend off a Mongol horde when I reached the Great Wall (i.e. I had a big knife and was practicing my "angry" face).  I packed 2 cameras, extra batteries, a spare lens, a giant flash, n+1 pairs of underwear and socks (where n=# of days spent in mountains) and enough anti-bonk ride fuel to bring the late Fausto Coppi back from the dead then give him a near-lethal food coma.  And don't get me started on spare tools and bike parts, because I cursed every extra ounce of spare tubes, tools, Gorilla tape, toe straps and zip ties that I lugged up those damn mountains.

My ass was slow

By now, you've realized that Idiots like to make things hard for themselves.  Whether its weighing themselves down with unnecessary weight or just downright choosing the wrong equipment for the ride, I stood unified with fellow Idiots both far and near and rode an obnoxiously slow pace to my mountain retreat.  Obviously being that it's the "off-season" here [ed - it's always the off-season here] my fatass didn't have the fitness to push a big gear, which was made even steeper by the 700x35c cyclocross tires I threw on before my trip.  Did I mention my shit was heavy?  Grinding up a small mountain road with a 30lb pack and a 30lb bike on fat, knobby tires isn't going to help me break any cycling land speed records.  But thankfully that wasn't my intention in the first place.  One of the best things about riding by yourself is that you can just ride your own pace.  If you want to putz along uphill in your 34x27, you can (and I definitely did).  If you want to little ring it on the flats and spend your time vegging out in the saddle you can (and you better believe I did that too).  All in all despite being crazy slow and ridiculously overpacked, I didn't really regret my decisions despite the vulgarities spewing out of my mouth on some of the climbs.  Obviously I'll pack smarter/lighter (and have some semblance of athleticism and legs) the next time, but I used everything I packed and wasn't stressed to make it anywhere quickly.  I did start worrying a bit when the sun started setting and I was in the bone-chilling shadow of the Yan mountain range, but this Idiot was ready for just about anything, plus I was on vacation dammit!

I  like mountains

I haven't been on a vacation in a long time.  Excluding a brief weekend trip to Xiamen a few weeks ago, I haven't planned any trips for myself in years that didn't involve some kind of bike racing agenda.  So even though the temperatures averaged -4* C last week, nothing sounded better to me than escaping the urban jungle and biking to a eco-retreat in the mountains next to the Great Wall.  The Brickyard was built in 2009 from a reclaimed tile factory that was shut down due to increased pollution regulations.  The new owners renovated the compound and turned it into a 16-room lodge with a small restaurant, spa, and garden all designed and committed to environmental sustainability.  The simple luxuries of fresh air, clear skies, and a remote location had been lost to me since I got to Beijing, but I finally got out of the city and really enjoyed a couple days in the mountains.  In the simplest words: It was nice.

The Great Wall is epic

Even simpler still is using the word "epic" to describe the Great Wall.  A lot of people rag on the local sectors of the Wall as being touristy, crowded, or fake.  Since Mutianyu is so close to the city, it's probably one of the more traversed parts, but thankfully not in the winter, when it's too cold for most tourists to make the trip out to the mountains.  It gets even better when you wake up early in the morning and beat the crowds.  I got up before sunrise to take the short 40-minute hike from my room to the base of the Wall.  Getting there before most of the village residents had even woken up, I was the first one there and had the entire thing to myself.  I watched the sun rise over the hills and just sat around taking pictures as the light worked its way over the sleepy villages below.  Touristy?  Nah.  I'll take a quiet morning hike along the Great Wall anywhere anytime and I'm definitely planning to go back.

The view from The Brickyard