Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

After Brother Xiaoma took fifth place in the stage, the news spread like wildfire overnight across all the major Chinese sports websites and forums.

As the first Chinese sprinter to place in the top five at a World Tour race, the fans in China were undoubtedly thrilled.

Who said Chinese cyclists couldn’t compete?

A ton of fans even left comments under the posts, saying how much they regretted not being able to witness this moment in person.

But in reality, for office workers and students, taking time off to go see the World Tour in beautiful Guangxi right after the National Day holiday was a bit unrealistic.

Of course, the Tour of Guangxi was a World Tour event, after all. And having just resumed after a two-year hiatus, the roadsides for this year’s race were still packed with fans and spectators.

Moreover, as Guangxi is a Zhuang Autonomous Region, the local folk culture is incredibly rich.

During the race, the cultural and folk performances lining both sides of the road, both spontaneously organized by locals and officially arranged, were so numerous that cyclists like Huang Chong found it almost overwhelming.

After the second day of racing, all the teams had to transfer from Qinzhou to Nanning that same day.

On the way, the atmosphere inside the National Team’s bus was naturally joyful and lively.

Brother Xiaoma had taken fifth in the stage, an achievement no one would have dared to dream of before the race.

But as members of the team, everyone, including Brother Xiaoma himself, knew very well that while the record-breaking honor was his, the process that led to it had been created with Huang Chong’s help.

If Huang Chong hadn’t helped lead him out on the final leg, given his condition today, he might have been confident in a top-ten finish, but dropping Kooij and Bennett on the far right would have been impossible. He definitely would have lost a few places.

"My man, thanks so much for today. If you hadn’t been there in the final stretch to lead the pace and pull me out, there’s no way I would’ve placed so high.

But then again, your strength right now... isn’t it a little too insane?

I feel like you’ve gotten even stronger since you took down Lutsenko twice at the Asian Games.

Especially in the final kilometer, you actually held an anaerobic power output to ride at over 60 km/h, leading me out for 800 meters. That’s just monstrous.

Anyway, all my gratitude is in this bottle of Minute Maid Pulpy!"

After the race, Brother Xiaoma had deliberately run to a local corner store, bought a three-yuan bottle of Minute Maid Pulpy, and tossed it to Huang Chong.

Seeing this, Huang Chong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

’Damn it,’ he thought. ’I nearly killed myself pulling for him, and all I’m worth is one bottle of Minute Maid Pulpy?’

He turned and handed the juice to Chen Junyi, who was next to him.

Coach Han was also genuinely happy today. His original mission was to bring China’s best cyclists to the World Tour to learn from the top teams.

He never expected his team members to achieve such a great result on just the second day of racing.

For him, this wasn’t just a testament to his personal coaching abilities; it would also certainly be a huge boost to his political achievements.

He said with a smile:

"Xiaoma’s excellent result today is thanks to his usual diligent training and Huang Chong’s perfect cooperation. We’ve managed to show these World Tour Teams the strength of our Chinese cyclists.

I hope everyone will be proactive in showing what you can do in the coming stages.

If any of you have tactical ideas or thoughts, feel free to speak up."

As soon as he said this, all the cyclists understood. Coach Han was giving them free rein to choose their own tactics.

However, the Nanning Qingxiu Mountain circuit race tomorrow was just too difficult, so no one wanted to attack or join a breakaway.

That included Huang Chong.

He’d be counting his blessings if he could just avoid getting dropped on the Qingxiu Mountain climb.

...

「December 14th.」

The third race day of the Tour of Guangxi had arrived.

Today’s stage was a 134.3 km race consisting of five laps around the Qingxiu Mountain scenic area, with each lap being 26.86 km.

The route would cross three bridges: Wuxiang Bridge, Nanning Bridge, and the magnificent Qingshan Bridge.

The entire course had only one climb, the Qingxiu Mountain climb, but its difficulty was outrageous.

It was 1.4 km in total, yet the average gradient was a staggering 12%.

The first 300 meters of the ascent reached a gradient of 9.7%.

The section between 300 and 600 meters was the hardest 300 meters, with the gradient soaring to an absolutely terrifying 17.2%.

Then, from 600 to 900 meters, the gradient dropped slightly to 10.3%.

But from around 900 to 1200 meters, the gradient began to rise again to 14.5%.

Only the final 200 meters to the summit became suddenly easier, with the gradient plummeting to 5.3%.

When Huang Chong had test-ridden this climb before, he’d found it excruciating.

In his opinion, if this was the finish line, its difficulty would be no less than the Nongla Mountain climb; it just wasn’t as long as Nongla.

At 11:30 AM, the race started on time.

The weather today was partly cloudy, not as hot as the direct sun of the previous two days.

But because this course had Category 2 climb points on the first, third, and fifth laps, as well as two intermediate sprint points on the second and fourth laps, riders from various teams began to break away right from the start.

And compared to the previous two race days, two more riders joined the breakaway today, for a total of six.

Among them were De Bondt from Alpecin and Johansson from Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux, who were in the breakaway again today.

As for the other four breakaway riders, they came from the Tudor Team, the Jieke Team, the Bora Team, and the Israel-Premier Tech Team.

It was obvious without even guessing that this group was going for the Green Jersey and the Polka Dot Jersey.