Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

After their discussion over dinner, Dewey had originally wanted to pay for the meal, but Zhou Ming wouldn’t allow it, so he didn’t push the matter.

Afterward, the three returned to the bike shop. Liu Chaoyang had just about finished assembling the new bike.

Li Zifan, accustomed to riding downhill mountain bikes, took the SL8 out for a test ride. His first impression was how light it was.

For one, road bikes are inherently light.

The fully assembled Lightning Bora Team edition S-Works SL8 weighed only around 7 kg (UCI regulations stipulate that competition bikes cannot be lighter than 6.8 kg).

This was a world away from the downhill mountain bikes at his home, which weighed nearly 20 kg—brands like Santa Cruz, Yeti, and Trek.

Next was the vast difference in pedaling efficiency and gear ratios.

Full-suspension mountain bikes, with their front forks and rear shocks, still absorbed some of the rider’s pedaling power, even when locked out.

With a road bike, however, the power from every pedal stroke translated directly into speed.

As for the transmission, downhill mountain bikes primarily use a 1x12 single-chainring setup. In contrast, a road bike’s gear ratio is larger than a mountain bike’s, even when using the small chainring.

This meant the two were in completely different leagues when it came to generating speed.

On a road bike, the riding posture requires tucking the upper body as low as possible to drastically reduce wind resistance. Mountain biking, on the other hand, is done mostly while standing, which also contributes to the vast difference in speed.

You could say that while road bikes and mountain bikes are both bicycles, they offer two completely different kinds of thrills.

When Li Zifan returned from his loop, he remarked with feeling:

"No wonder more people ride road bikes than mountain bikes worldwide.

"The barrier to entry isn’t just low—anyone who can ride a bike can handle it—it’s also easy to maintain an average speed of 30 km/h.

"On a downhill bike, you’d have to pedal hard enough to make the cranks smoke just to average 30 km/h on a flat road."

Dewey and Zhou Ming’s expressions soured when they heard this.

For them, hitting an average speed of 30 km/h had taken a good month of riding.

But Li Zifan exercised a lot, and as a long-time downhill rider, he was incredibly fit. He basically skipped the newbie phase entirely.

In fact, forgetting about climbs, with a physique like that, they probably couldn’t even outpace him on the flats.

"General Manager Li, you’ve got a great foundation. You must work out a lot, right? Road biking really doesn’t require any technical skill. As long as your legs are strong enough, you can be a master!"

Seeing that Dewey wasn’t jumping in, Zhou Ming internally cursed the bastard for deliberately putting him on the spot. He had no choice but to force a smile and reply.

However, the words had barely left his mouth when Li Zifan, approaching a curb, suddenly shifted his weight back. He pulled up the handlebars, instantly bent his legs, then pushed the high-flying front wheel forward, bringing the rear wheel off the ground with it. He cleared the curb with a flawless and stylish bunny hop (also known as a Dolphin Jump).

This, of course, left Zhou Ming and Dewey utterly speechless.

’Fuck, so this is how awful it feels to get shown up right to your face!’

But they had to hand it to him. If it had been either of them, they would’ve had to dismount and walk their bikes over the curb.

Only a mountain biking expert like Li Zifan could navigate tricky terrain with such an unorthodox technique.

Li Zifan rode back to the shop, not even flushed or out of breath, and added with a smile,

"I take back what I just said. Turns out, even on a road bike, you still need some serious bike-handling skills to really ride with style!"

When Zhou Ming and Dewey heard this, their expressions were absolutely foul.

...

After they parted ways, Dewey immediately told his good friend, Huang Chong, about the two rich kids’ plan to start a business and make money in the cycling world.

He also made sure to emphasize their intention to invest in Huang Chong.

Of course, he also didn’t forget to ask Huang Chong if he should join in.

Huang Chong, who had just left a banquet hosted by the event organizers in South Australia, was taken aback by Dewey’s message.

He was completely clueless about things like business plans or his own commercial value.

This was the kind of thing he’d need a real professional agent for, someone who could determine his actual market value.

After all, despite achieving so many great results in the domestic leagues last year, his commercial value hadn’t budged an inch.

He had earned his three million or so entirely from prize money.

Come to think of it, he’d won a ton of championships last year, even nabbing two gold medals at the Asian Games.

Yet afterward, not a single domestic cycling brand had come knocking to discuss endorsements.

It just went to show how niche professional road cycling really was in the country.

Huang Chong had a rough idea of how major domestic road bike brands handled endorsements: they almost always hired huge pop stars, never actual Professional Cyclists.

The only exception was Ruibao Bicycle, which partnered with the National Team and the Huaxing Team, and would run some minor ads using the National Team’s promotional photos.

Without a second thought, he showed the messages from Dewey to Chen Junyi, asking for her take on it.

Compared to a simple-minded jock like him who only knew how to ride, the worldly and experienced Chen Junyi could certainly analyze the situation from a much broader perspective.

But after reading the messages, she gave Huang Chong a meaningful look and teased,

"I never knew you were so well-connected. Friends with the sons of two of Hangcheng’s biggest tycoons, are we?"

At her teasing, Huang Chong suddenly felt a pang of guilt and sheepishly rubbed his nose.