Xingping -> Yangshuo Last night when we went to dinner, we got mauled by mosquito/insect bites and right now they’re ITCHY. I’m going back and forth between writing the trip report and itching. There was rain forecast for the early morning that was supposed to stop by the time we were to start. Unfortunately the rain pushed several hours and didn’t stop until after lunch. We waited out the rain in the hotel cafe/lobby. I even took a nap. It was raining quite hard for about four hours. Fortunately the dirt didn’t get so wet that it turned to mud. The temperature was much more pleasant today too. Once again we took every opportunity to explore any trail or fork we found today. We did more bushwhacking and maybe found as many dead-ends that we had to turn back from than the previous days. It always felt worth it for the scenery though. We also encountered some of the steepest trails of the trip so far - both up and down. One of the longer steep climbs we did, I had the assist all the way up to 5 (out of 5) and it didn’t feel like I was getting any help. I wonder if I would’ve been able to climb it on my own bike? For some reason, about 5 miles in, the meter for the battery level went from 5 (out of 5) segments straight to 3! That was a bit concerning. Luckily it stayed at 3 for a quite a while. When it got down to 1, we started to head straight to the hotel. Overall this replacement bike feels like it’s about to fall apart at any time. The shifting is poor. It creaks. Along with the poor shifting, The chain has been jumping/skipping. One of our explorations was riding by the river on some chunky, roughly grapefruit-sized rocks. In some places it was quite deep and sand-like. I was happy to have the e-assist to keep on plowing through it. It was still pretty hard work though. We eventually dead-ended and had to turn around. On the return, I managed to get what I’m pretty sure was a pinch flat on my front tire. It was pretty low and I forgot to add air today. We also did some very exposed, very narrow single track with a big drop off on our left. When we were on the rocky beach earlier, we ended up on a trail that Emily said she didn’t like because she doesn’t like riding on ledges. We were riding on a rock path maybe? We were on the ground so I was thinking, what ledge? So on the singletrack, I was a bit worried for her. I think she walked it. To be fair, the drop off was on the side that she unclips. After the singletrack, we ended up on a really nice path that seemed well maintained and very smooth. All the paths have been nice in some way, usually the views, but some have been pretty rough because they use large stones, almost like tiles, that are widely spaced apart. We didn’t have enough daylight (and my battery was getting low) to try all the trails planned on today’s route but we also did a bunch of unplanned stuff so it probably evened out. Our hotel ended up being right across the street from where we watched the swimmers during last year’s triathlon. We got some food from the street vendors and went to eat by the water. We were surprised to find row after row of women in traditional dresses on bamboo boats with cormorants getting their photos taken. It was quite the sight. The night life in Yangshuo is crazy. So many people! We missed that last time. For those of you who complain about e-bikers cheating, I’m here to tell you both are legs are feeling pretty tired, especially given how few miles we’ve been doing. Our e-bikes could also be terrible. 🙃