My first hotel room tempered my immersion into China, it held both a hot shower and a color television. The next morning I woke up to a bouncy 12-hour bus ride to Dali. This marked the beginning of my mountain bike trip-the beginning of a trip from which I was not sure I would ever make it back alive. Dali is a great little town nestled between Erhai Lake the 13,000 foot [3963 meter] peaks of the Cangshan Mountains. It is a backpacker hangout in an area that is mostly inhabited by the Bai and Naxi hill tribes, two of the fifty-three ethnic minority groups in China. I listened to Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead sing “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” while I relaxed in a small travelers’ cafe. I spent most of the afternoon stuffing myself with tasty treats. I knew that this was one of the last places to enjoy any Western-style food or music for a while.

I had a beautiful day to start, brilliant sunshine and snow-covered mountains surrounded me. Nothing compares to riding a bike in the sun while looking up at snow-capped peaks, that was why I traveled halfway around the world. I knew that the first part of the ride would be straightforward, but I would rapidly cross the border into the part of China restricted from foreigners. This line moved back and forth all the time. During Chinese crackdowns in Tibet, security would be tight in all the Tibetan border areas. For the last few months I had been hearing that things had loosened up in Tibet. That news sounded good to me. Most of my entire trip ran through an area totally closed to foreigners.

My first Chinese checkpoint came quickly. A large red and white turnpike blocked the road, and a few Chinese policemen talked among themselves in front of the guardpost.