Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

"Coach Li, you can rest assured. I’ll give it my all in the next two races. I’ll definitely hold onto this Red Jersey until the end of the season!"

...

October 21st.

The sixth stage of the domestic professional league, Shitai Station, began.

The stage was 175 kilometers long. Although it wound through valleys, the course was entirely flat.

The race started from the Shitai Grand Canyon Rafting Scenic Area. After riding 12.8 kilometers along the river, the riders reached the Shitai County Qiupu River Bridge, where they made a right turn into the downtown area.

Then began a circuit of nine laps around the city, with each lap measuring 9.54 kilometers, for a total of 85.86 kilometers.

Once the circuit was complete, they rode 5.8 kilometers down Binhe Avenue, made a right onto Jinqianshan Road, and then continued along the river for 34.74 kilometers to the turnaround point at the Xianyu Scenic Area visitor center.

Finally, they would ride another 35.18 kilometers, returning to the finish line arch set up in front of the GreenTree Inn Hotel in the city.

Without a doubt, this race was a dedicated cycling route designed purely to promote local tourism.

After the race started, Huang Chong, wearing the Red Jersey, drafted in the main group, in no hurry to attack. Instead, he was busy admiring the beautiful autumn scenery of Shitai.

He had to admit, the natural scenery here was absolutely breathtaking.

The lush mountains and clear waters, combined with roads that had almost no gradient, made it a perfect cruising route for cycling enthusiasts.

For Huang Chong, even on a completely flat stage like this, winning wouldn’t be difficult at all.

For the first 100 kilometers of the race, he made no moves, just drafting behind his teammates.

But as soon as the city circuit laps were over, he launched a solo attack. He maintained a cruising power of 380W, pushing his speed to around 55 km/h all the way to the Xianyu Scenic Area visitor center.

As a result, the rivals who had desperately tried to follow him all began to get dropped around the 140-kilometer mark. They could no longer keep up with Huang Chong as he started the return trip toward the city.

Although breaking away while wearing the Red Jersey was a bit unsportsmanlike, a breakaway on a flat road was perfectly suited for an ITT expert like Huang Chong.

Even on a standard road bike, his riding posture was still extremely aerodynamic.

Plus, his endurance at threshold pace was already in a league of its own, so once he broke away, it was impossible for the domestic riders behind to form a chase group and catch him.

In the end, after establishing a significant lead in his breakaway, Huang Chong intentionally lowered his power for the last 30 kilometers to avoid creating too large a gap with the other domestic riders, which would have been embarrassing for them.

After a 70-kilometer solo breakaway, he was the first to cross the finish line with a total time of 3:53:19 and an average speed of 45 km/h.

The rider who finished in second place was Niu Yikui, the same rider who was second to him in the general classification.

But Niu Yikui’s average speed was only around 43.5 km/h, with his total time coming in at 4 hours and 1 minute.

This meant Huang Chong had mercilessly put another gap of nearly seven minutes on him.

In other words, after six stages, Niu Yikui was now trailing Huang Chong by almost 16 minutes in the general classification.

But this was reality, and he had to accept it.

Compared to Huang Chong’s current strength, Niu Yikui felt that perhaps at the start of the year, they could still have been competitive, with races coming down to a battle of team tactics and strategy.

But by the end of the year, the gap between them was night and day.

In fact, Niu Yikui knew perfectly well that Huang Chong had been deliberately holding back today to save face for the other domestic riders.

After all, during the final stage of the Tour of Guangxi—a circuit race in Guilin that included a combination of a Second and First Category Climb—Huang Chong and the other World Tour Cyclists had maintained an average speed of 47 km/h.

If he could do that on a stage with climbs, one could only imagine what he was capable of on a perfectly flat stage with beautiful weather like today if he had gone all out.

"Huang Chong, your strength right now is truly terrifying.

It’s a good thing you’re about to join a World Tour Team and go race in Europe.

Otherwise, if you stayed and kept racing in China, I’d never see the light of day.

It looks like those three months of high-altitude training really paid off, huh? How did you improve so much!

Next summer, after the Tour of Qinghai Lake is over, I’m definitely staying at the Doba National High Altitude Training Base for a training camp of my own."

After the race, Niu Yikui came over to shake hands and hug Huang Chong, speaking with a helpless, wry smile.

Although they were on different Intercontinental Teams, after racing together so many times as part of the National Team, their relationship was already almost like that of teammates.

But Huang Chong’s strength wasn’t just a result of high-altitude training. He had also earned over 1200 UCI points on a path that took him from the Asian Championships to becoming the overall champion of the Tour of Guangxi.

In fact, because he alone had secured over a thousand points, the nation had definitively locked in two spots for the road cycling event at next year’s Paris Olympic Games.

He smiled and said:

"Brother Niu, doing more aerobic training at high altitude definitely has a significant effect on improving endurance. I’d definitely recommend you train at Doba."

...

「October 29th.」

The last stage of the domestic professional league, the Yunnan Xichou Grand Final, kicked off.

Already leading the general classification by a full 16 minutes, Huang Chong was really just there to go through the motions.

For this stage, Coach Li didn’t even bother laying out any tactics, simply letting Huang Chong ride as he pleased.

When a rider is that overwhelmingly strong, any tactic is really just for show.

Although the grand final in Xichou was a city circuit race—with laps of just 11.02 km for a total of 165.3 kilometers (15 laps)—each lap contained about 150 meters of climbing.

Races with climbs were Huang Chong’s specialty.

The other riders were getting brutally dropped by him on completely flat stages, so what chance did they have in a difficult climbing race like this?

The race route in Xichou started from the County People’s Government, followed Renmin Road, Pulan Road, passed the Xichou County Statistics Bureau and Tangfang Street, before returning to the finish line at the County People’s Government.

The start and finish points were exactly the same.

After the race started, the peloton set a blistering pace.

Since this was the last race of the year, the riders didn’t need to conserve energy or worry about recovering for the next event.

Wearing the Red Jersey, Huang Chong was even more considerate of the domestic riders’ pride today. For the first 13 laps, he stayed tucked safely in the peloton, conserving his energy.

It wasn’t until the final two laps that he suddenly launched his attack on an undulating, inclined section of the road, beginning his solo breakaway.

However, when the peloton saw him finally launch his attack after holding back for so long, nobody even tried to follow. They simply let him ride away.

You couldn’t blame the other riders for being too passive, not even attempting a chase.

Knowing they had no chance of catching him, they preferred to maintain their own pace, hoping to avoid any last-minute shakeups in the general classification in the final 20 kilometers.

Huang Chong crossed the finish line with about a one-minute lead. Having finished early, he was able to watch as the main group sprinted furiously toward the finish arch.

At 150 meters from the arch, the sprinters from the various teams all launched their final sprint simultaneously.

In the end, the foreign rider from the Li Ning Star Team, Shnyrko Aliaksei, successfully took second place in the grand final.

And as the last rider crossed the line, the 2023 road cycling season officially came to a close.

After the seven races in the domestic professional league, Huang Chong had effortlessly swept the three jerseys: the general classification Red Jersey, the King of the Mountains Polka Dot Jersey, and the best young rider White Jersey.

But these achievements clearly paled in comparison to his other, more prestigious event titles.

The good news was that by winning five of the eight one-day races in the domestic professional league, he had personally taken home over three hundred thousand from the million-plus prize pool.

Combined with his prize money from other competitions, his earnings for the year came to over two million, approaching nearly three million.

The biggest chunk of that was the prize money from the Tour of Qinghai Lake, followed by the prize money for his two gold medals at the Asian Games.

However, Huang Chong didn’t have time to rejoice over earning so much money. At the awards ceremony after the professional league’s grand final, Coach Han, who was presenting an award, smilingly brought him a piece of news that was an even bigger surprise than the money.

The professional that Coach Han had arranged to help him had already finished negotiating contract terms with all the World Tour Teams that had shown interest.

Among the teams they had shortlisted for offering the best contract terms was the one he had his heart set on all along:

The German Bora Team!