Tuesday 1st October National Holiday in China celebrating 70 years since the conception of the Peoples Republic of China, very big news out here, all the towns and cities decorated up with flags and Chinese lanterns. All the staff in the hotel had “We love China “ tee shirts on and waving flags, Keith and I had a picture taken with them before the young ones left the breakfast table, under the celebration banner, then we had a full team picture, just before we left.
The roads where reasonably quite as we left Zhenjiang, making the route out of the city, very easy, though we did not hit any open roads, the towns and villages just merged into one. We made really good time in the morning on the empty roads, maybe also because the lads did not want to miss lunch again. Before we knew it we had done over 50 odd miles, so the call went out for a lunch stop as we entered Changzhou, unluckily at this point Keith had a puncture, with the lads in front, I soon caught them up and told then to ease up, when Keith re-joined us we took a little de-tour into the town and found small café, very nice meal and and ice cream after, though Keith did have another flat just as we left. Soon on are way again, with the rain holding off and the head wind not to bad, just a matter of riding in the last 30 miles, we had a little break about 12 miles out, then some local lads went by on road bikes, it was like red rags to a bull, off the young went chasing them down, with Keith & I in tow, soon caught them and passed them, they did try and stick with us for a while then tailed off, when we joined two other local lads, who stayed with us all the way in to Wuxi, we left them with a wave and smile just as we found are hotel.