Time in Tibet:

Friday, June 4, 2010

Day 4: Arrival in Zedang

We arrived in Zedang after a very long day riding a road (politely optimistic term for this) called 306 Provincial Road. It was ultimately 160km (100 miles) of dirt, gravel, very fine sand and very large rocks. Due to the extremely bumpy terrain we were riding standing up for the majority of the 100 miles, using our legs (and back, ouch!) as shock absorbers. Crossing a major mountain pass at 4910m (16,100 ft) was a highlight of the day. While it wasn't the highest pass (that comes tomorrow at 17,500) it certainly was a thrill. We ended the day at the Tse Dang hotel in the town of 60,000 people. The hotel is used primarily by Chinese central government people so we definitely turned a few heads when we all walked into the lobby with our technical riding gear completely covered in dust and dirt from the day. Today was definitely a great warmup for Everest, in nearly 3 days time. We're all excited for the challenge of that one!

Tomorrow it's all windy paved roads on the the way to Jiangzi.

Photos should be up in a few hours on the flickr page:

http://bit.ly/beq159

And as usual you can track us live on the GPS page:

http://bit.ly/dnLVce