I'm back in Portland after a long couple of flights. But I lucked out and got a first-class upgrade from SFO to PDX, which made the last leg of the trip much better.

Now that I'm back, it seems like a good time to make a general announcement of some big plans that have been in the works for a little while now. This is going to be my last season as a professional road cyclist. I've made the decision to return to school to pursue my Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, and I'll be enrolling in a joint program at Georgia Tech and Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Adrienne and I will be setting out on the move to Atlanta in just a few days, with the plan being for an August 1^st arrival. She'll be searching for an elementary education position while I finish out the racing season from there.

Though this decision was not arrived at easily, I'm confident it's the right time to move on in life. At 28, there's no doubt I could have kept riding for a number of years yet, but I was always determined to move on when I felt that I'd stopped markedly improving. Plus, it seems best to leave while I'm still having fun, as opposed to staying to the point where it just becomes a job. I was able to make a living as a cyclist for four years (plus a couple years of unpaid apprenticeship), during which time I saw both the US and the world, got to compete in some incredible races, and had the honor of being teammates with some of the best athletes in the world. It's been a great experience.

Just as difficult as the decision to leave bike racing, and perhaps more so, is the choice to leave Portland. Hopefully it's just temporary. We're having a small get together tomorrow night, July 24^th, at the Northwest Portland Lucky Lab (1945 NW Quimby) at 7ish. Anyone's invited who'd like to stop by and say goodbye. It'd be great to see as many people as possible. But everyone cannot buy us a beer. That'd be a bad idea. I'll also be back on August 8th for the Portland Twilight Criterium (thanks Brad!), so that'll be one more opportunity to catch up with everyone in the local bike community.

There're still a couple months of bike racing season left, so I'll save the full farewell until then. If anyone has any tips on training in Atlanta, drop me an email.

The final circuit race here in China finished up a couple hours ago and Tyler managed to hold onto his lead. As we hoped, there were enough teams interested in the sprint that we didn't have to work all that hard to keep things under control. Alex Rasmussen of Denmark won his fourth stage, and all five of us finished without incident. That was a long ten days.

Now we get to celebrate here in Xining before flying to Beijing tomorrow. I'll have about 24 hours there before flying home late Tuesday. I'm hoping to make it to the Great Wall, but I'm not sure if it'll work out. I'll get the better of the pictures posted here after I get back. Thanks for the comments and emails since this thing started.

We're back in Xining tonight and Tyler managed to hold on to his lead on today's final mountain day. That means we have only a 110km flat circuit race remaining tomorrow before this thing's over. Tyler's lead over second place is only ten seconds and there are time bonuses available midway through the race, as well as at the finish, so the lead certainly isn't sealed up. We're hoping that the sprinters will be fighting amongst themselves and we won't have to worry too much about the Polish climber, Rutkiewicz, gaining time. But nothing's being taken for granted.

Otherwise, there's not much to report. A couple of the teams got to their hotels last night and found that they had neither hot water nor electricity, so they ended up driving back here to Xining to spend the night. The race started two hours late to give them time to drive back to Menyuan in the morning. Sleeping in was a welcome change, but after 170 kilometers of racing, plus the hour and a half transfer back to Xining, there wasn't much day left. So that's all for tonight. Win or lose, I'll get something posted tomorrow.

Rapeseed, that is. In the most confusing and frightening translation snafu yet, a local student today showed me an essay he’d written in English about his hometown, the town in which we finished today, which contained the quote in the title of this post. Appalled, I asked him what he though that word meant. He pointed to the yellow flowers on the hill and said, ‘rapeseed.’ Otherwise, his essay was very good.

Beyond that, the big news of the day is that Tyler won the stage and took over the GC lead. That follows his second place finish two days ago. He’s been having a good run. It’s been tough racing, though. On the day he got second, he also flatted before the main climb of the day, then broke a spoke. Kayle and I gave up wheels, while Fred and Sergio came back to help him catch the field. Tyler obviously made it, but the other four of us didn’t. Fred and Kayle ultimately dropped out of the race, while Sergio and I chased uphill for the better part of two hours before finally catching the back of the race. It was a long day.

Yesterday too was long. 214km and basically flat. The Iranian team, Tabriz Petrochemical they’re called, held the lead but they refused to defend it. That meant we had to help keep things in check. It was hot, flat, and fast.

Today’s stage had a nasty climb late in the day, and I found myself in the early break along with one of the dangerous Iranian guys. I sat on and refused to work, which made everyone mad. Meanwhile, Mike and Sergio chased in the field to try to bring it back before the climb. They caught us just before the climb started, which meant that Tyler and Oscar were back in contention just as the race got difficult. As I mentioned above, things worked out well. Now we have two days left to defend Tyler’s lead. There’s one more hard mountain day tomorrow, then a flat circuit race back in Xining on Sunday. With only four of us to defend, it won’t be easy, but we’ll give it our best shot. I’m pretty confident we can pull it off.

The highlight of today’s stage for me came at the top of the KOM. Mike had started the climb a little in front of me, but the group I was in was slowly catching up to him as we went up. Just inside of 1k to the top, we lost sight of him as he turned a bend to the right. After I came around the bend, he was nowhere in sight, but there was a crowd of people on the left. After looking closer, I saw Mike’s bike laying in the road and Mike seated on a stool in the middle of the crowd playing one of the local’s drums. Classic Mike Creed.

But back to Menyuan. This is a relatively small town in a high mountain valley north of Xining. The streets are packed with people, and we’ve gotten by far our best reception yet. We can’t walk down the street without swarms of children asking us to autograph their notebooks, their hats, and their arms. One kid even had an autograph on her forehead. I think one of the Danish guys was responsible for that, but I’m not certain. Many of the kids speak English too, which explains the story at the beginning of this post. Mike Creed, Mike Lange from Jelly Belly, and myself were mobbed by the eager group containing the essay author (to my right here) while wandering around and looking in some of the shops. All of the kids were very excited to speak English with us, and one of them made me promise he could visit me if he ever comes to the US. I'm not sure how he thinks he’ll find me, but it made him very happy when I agreed.

That’s about enough for now. More pictures are up on Flickr.

One more day down in China, and it was the first time we’ve seen blue sky in a few days. It was treat getting to start without the rain jacket on. But the course itself was brutal. There was really just one climb, but it was predominantly uphill for about 50km. The climb topped out at over 12,000ft, which from what I’m told is the highest point that any UCI road race reaches. Not fun. I’d gotten in a break on the lower slopes of the climb, then Oscar and Tyler bridged up to me. In theory at least, I should have been able to help out for awhile at that point, but I actually only managed about 3 minutes of effort on the front before Oscar got impatient and left me behind, along with just about everyone else.

After finally making it over the top, the descent to the finish was incredible, and from the little I could take the time to check out, quite beautiful. At one point early on, I had to dodge a mountain goat that was standing in the road. Seriously. After that, it was 70km, almost all downhill, to the town of Guide, where we’re staying tonight. The hotel here is a little bit isolated, so I haven’t been able to see any of the town. That’s alright though, I’m pretty tired and content just to hang out here.

Tomorrow’s another big mountain day and should be a great opportunity for Oscar. The course profile is ridiculous, 55km up, then 55km back down. It’s shaped like a triangle. I’ll be looking out for more mountain goats.

More photos are up on Flickr. I've been having a good time documenting the poorly translated English over here, especially in the buffet lines. Here are some of my favorites:

"cooked in soy bean sauce West the Bacon mushroom juice spaghetti evnies"
"the vanilla mutton leg volume"
"The juice chicken to dig up"
"West on the soup radish silk"
"The white bean swallows takes the fish salad"
"The foie gras approves Envies"
"Law Juice"

Needless to say, I've been eating lots of rice. Law Juice makes me nervous.

Things here in China have been interesting. We’ve finished four stages now, including the prologue. The first road stage climbed to almost 12,000ft before dropping into the Qinghai Lake basin at just over 10,000ft. We’ve done two road stages now on our way around the lake, and for those that have never experienced it, racing at this altitude is unbelievably difficult. The slightest bit of overexertion leads to panicked hyperventilating. At least for me. The rain and crosswinds only add to the misery. But some of these guys seem to deal with it just fine.

One of those guys is Oscar. He had a nasty crash at the end of stage 1 when a spectator stepped onto the course to photograph the sprint. But though it initially looked like he’d broken both wrists, he’s been able to keep going. And he looks strong. He’s currently sitting fifth, but there should be some opportunities to move up in the coming days. My only goal for the remaining week will be to help him and the rest of the team. And not to black out from lack of oxygen.

I’ve also been doing my best to take in as much of the local culture as possible. The area around this lake is incredible. We’ve had people in traditional Mongolian dress on horseback cheering us from the side of the road, and I’ve spotted a number of tent communities out in the grasslands that look like they belong to nomadic shepherds. The little towns are also full of great people who seem incredibly excited to see us. It’s been a great experience so far.

More pictures are up now on the Flickr page. Thanks for the tips on linking to this site. My internet usage is on a time limit now, so I’ll wait to experiment with it, but go check them out over there for now.

Today's prologue did not go terribly well for me, but Oscar and Mike both put in great rides to get third and fifth, respectively. After getting the afternoon off, we rode across town this evening to an absurdly choreographed team presentation that was supposedly broadcast live across all of China. After spending an hour waiting around, each team road across a stage, up a ramp, around a statue, then back off. The stage was basically a narrow pathway with water on both sides. I was convinced I was going to slip and fall in.

And I finally figured out how to upload pictures. Plus, I took the time to create a flickr account. It's about time. So, all of the photos thus far are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougollerenshaw

Most of the photos are bad, and a few are alright. If anyone knows of a convenient way to link individual photos with Blogger, let me know. It seems tedious to cut and past each URL individually. There must be a better way.

That's all for tonight. We'll be in new hotels for the next three nights, so internet may not be available. I'll post if possible.

Again, I’ve left this blog without an update for far too long. And though I failed to even mention the fact that I was going, I’m writing this update from China. Or more precisely, Xining, where we’ll be doing the Tour of Qinghai Lake. I flew from the US on Monday morning, and arrived in Beijing late Tuesday night, local time. Freddy Rodriguez joined me on the flight from San Francisco, and five more members of the team had already arrived on an earlier flight. We have Tyler Hamilton, Oscar Sevilla, Mike Creed, Kayle Leogrande, and Sergio Hernandez here. It's a strong group and we should be able to do quite well.

The flight to Beijing was long, but fortunately we had almost twenty four hours to relax before we covered the final two hour leg here to Xining. A few of us took advantage of our long morning in Beijing to do a little exploring. We took a cab to Tiananmen Square and explored part of the old city by foot. They’re clearly getting geared up for the Olympics, and workers were busy building risers or scaffolding throughout the square. There were no tanks to be seen. Across from the square is a huge walled compound called The Forbidden City. Entering the compound requires passing under a large portrait of Chairman Mao. Orwell would be impressed. The architecture inside was amazing. I took lots of pictures, but I’m having a little trouble making my camera agree with Adrienne’s Macintosh (which she so kindly let me travel with, considering that it’s about 1/3 the size and weight of my own laptop). But it was great to see these places that I've only read about or seen in photos and on television. It's all quite impressive in person.

Next, we took another cab to the Silk Market, which is basically a combination department store/flea market. It’s five or so stories tall and divided into sections for each type of ware, with individual vendors manning their own booths. There’s just about every type of consumer good imaginable, and I’d imagine that most of it is counterfeit. Plus, every price is subject to negotiation. The vendor types a number on a calculator, and the buyer is free to erase it and type his own number in. Saying “no, I think I’ll keep looking,” is a guaranteed way to halve the asking price. I think shopping in the US should be set up that way too. But the downside is that the vendors are incredibly aggressive. We all probably appeared to be very easy marks. I had people literally grabbing me by the wrist trying to pull me into their booth.

Having survived that experience with all but our pocketbooks intact, we’re now in Xining waiting for tomorrow’s prologue stage. We did a short ride today, my first in four days, and I enjoyed getting to see a bit of the countryside. This town is very close to the Tibetan border, and things change quickly upon leaving the city limits. The high-rise apartments are replaced by small brick and stone buildings, and the quality of life appears markedly lower. Beyond that, the appearance of the people themselves changes dramatically too. Inside the city, one sees primarily Chinese. Outside the city, the people appear to be primarily of Tibetan descent. They are, however, amazingly friendly. We were passing people on various types of tractors and bikes, plus a number of people on the sides of the roads. Almost all were quick to smile and wave, though they did seem understandably perplexed by the sight of all of us in our crazy green costumes. We even made a short stop in a park and quickly developed a small crowd around us. Tyler, always quick to make friends, had one of the locals trying out his DeRosa. We couldn’t communicate verbally, but it was great to see the smiles on everyone’s faces.

That’s about all for now. Hopefully I can manage to work out the camera issue so I can post some of my photos. It’s probably just a matter of downloading some software, but the internet speed makes that a daunting proposition. Regardless, I’ll try to get more postings up here throughout the week, with or without photos. It’s too interesting not to write about.