JJ reports in from western China

NEWS RELEASE

ALGOMA'S WATER TOWER INN

************************* JJ has pedaled 6,900 kilometres

Only 4,100 kilometres left to his finish in Beijing

After the sometimes searing heat encountered in parts of the “stans” (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan), mountainous western China has turned out to be a mite chilly for the Sault’s JJ Hilsinger.

JJ [shown climbing the Taldyk Pass], known for the 12,000 km cycling trek he made from Cairo to Cape Town in 2005, left on his recent mega-marathon August 4.

He’s following the ancient Silk Route from Istanbul, Turkey to Beijing China and will arrive at his destination November 18 - after 11,000 km and 108 days.

The following entries from his journal are indicative of the weather and terrain he has been pitted against since entering China.

Day 64

Korla to Desert Camp 120 km

Good breakfast at hotel and off to what immediately became a 10 km climb over a mountain ridge to travel northward from Korla.

Crossing the ridge, we passed through high rock walls that gave me the feeling I was entering box canyons.

However, after several cuts in the road I emerged on the other side of the ridge to explode into a wide valley with distant towns and many tall chimneys.

Then we began experiencing a lot of construction on our road that paralleled the new motorway, which was closed to bicycles, and just prior to lunch some snow-capped mountains emerged out of the haze to the north.

At one point in the afternoon I passed what had to be at least five km of red peppers, laid out to dry in the sun.

Passed many small villages and overall the day was interesting and quite fast although there was some head wind in the afternoon.

The Tien Shan mountains to the north will remain with us all the way to Turpan.

Day 65

Agricultural desert camp to Rocky mountain desert camp 125 km Departed in the cold and it took awhile to warm up.

Had both a very shallow continuous climb to deal with and a head wind, causing me to project a seven- to eight-hour day on the bike.

It was a difficult morning until just prior to lunch at the 60 km point.

After getting to lunch, I learned that we had climbed 350 meters over a distance of 40 km.

Then something special happened and for those in the group that gave up at lunch because of the tough morning, they missed a gem of an afternoon which spiced the entire day’s experience.

Our morning briefing had not included that coming out of lunch we were to enjoy a 20 km downhill through a rocky mountain pass, which got us to the other side of the ridge and into a sun-drenched valley.

Winds were more moderate and became more directional with our travel, and I ended the day beginning a climb back out of the valley with the wind at my back.

We still have two km more of this uphill after breakfast tomorrow, after which I am told to expect a steady downhill throughout the day into Turpan, which is located in a depression at minus 150 metres, one of the lowest land elevations in the world.

Day 66

Rocky mountain desert camp to Hotel Turpan 160 km It was about 5 degrees C. at wake-up and I had another shivering breakfast within our rocky nest in this Tien Shan mountain ridge.

The climb out was not 2 km, it was 12 km.

However, once there, it was down through the most inspired rounded mountain terrain ... a scenic, flowing highway descent ... a whopping 45 km down ... into a wide stone-topped plateau with distant ridges.

Then, there was the hard 40 km across the valley into wind and imperceptible ascents, which kept my speed below 20 km.

The length of the day was looking bleak, before joining the main highway to Turpan heading east.

My speed doubled even though it was into the wind, I was heading down to the second lowest place on earth.

I arrived quite tired from the distance ... perhaps not as tired as it would have been without the awesome descent through the mountains.

Hilsinger, proprietor of Algoma’s Water Tower Inn and an avid cyclist, is riding to bring attention to global warming and is asking fellow Saultites to visit this website to find out how they can make small changes in their own lives to reduce their carbon footprint.

People will find a calculator tool on the website that allows them to choose actions to take, and calculates the tonnes of C02 emissions they will save.

Each pledge is tallied with other all other pledges for a grand total.

He hopes to see Sault Ste. Marie save 11,000 tonnes - one tonne for every kilometre he pedals.

That is the equivalent of taking 2,200 cars off the road for a year.

You can read JJ’s journal entries from Day 1 by clicking here.

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