June 18th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China
Today’s distance / ???????: 27.4 miles / 44km
Average speed / ????: 7.2mph / 11.6km/h
Time on skateboard / ????: 3h 46m
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: 4955mi plus 377mi (?) / 7975km plus 606km (?)
Ascent / ??: 650m
Descent / ??: 200m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: N41° 47′ 39.10″, E095° 07′ 47.60″
I have spent the last three days skating uphill. 1000m in three days. That is a very gradual uphill. I am 1700m at Xinxinxia pass. It is 11:30am and I am taking the rest of the day off.
I woke at 5:30am. Told myself I must get up. Must get up. Must get up. Ah, but it is so comfy here on my sleeping pad. Sooooo comfy. No! Must get up. Ah, but I don’t want to get up!
Just because I am skating around the world, it does not mean that I am super-human motivated in the mornings. I have to force myself up, and force myself not to give in to the small voice that, if it had it’s way, would have me sleep in till the sun rose well above the horizon.
But every time that I force myself up, within 10 minutes of getting up, I am glad I did not listen to that small voice. I am glad that I listened to the voice of reason, knowing that an early start is always a great way to start the day.
Today I continued on the same gradual insidious “you are weak” uphill for 20km before at last the road entered some low lying hills and some more steep uphills. Steep is good. You can see and feel the result of your effort.
That’ll do for today. 130km done unsupported. Not too shabby considering it was uphill, into a headwind, and I had to carry all my guff.
June 17th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China
Today’s distance / ???????: 49 miles / 78.8km
Average speed / ????: 7.2mph / 11.6km/h
Time on skateboard / ????: 6h 47m
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: 4928mi plus 377mi (?) / 7931km plus 606km (?)
Ascent / ??: 680m
Descent / ??: 130m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: N41° 58′ 08.40″, E094° 42′ 01.60″
A huge thanks to Heather Burge, a fellow human powered traveller from Australia who provided me with some very helpful route information regarding the National Highway 312 route through Xinjiang and beyond. Heather cycled the same route as I am taking last year, and GPS’ed the whole thing. I emailed her before setting out in China, asking for advice on road conditions, and among her very detailed advice, she let me know that from Lotojue to Xinxinxia in Xinjiang, there were no official services. That’s a distance of 130km. A good solid two days skating if the wind is not fair.
So I stocked up with water in Lotojue. When I rolled out, I had 10 litres on my trailer. I estimate the trailer weighed about 20kg. Plenty enough for me, thank you very much.
After the wonderful tree lined road of yesterday, this was what I saw only 10 minutes out of Lotojue:
A massive, endless plain of stones and dust. The wind was in my face. The only thing that made the situation bearable was the fact that the road was smooth (good old China!) and a hazy low fog was blocking the sun. I considered waiting another day in Lotojue in hope that the wind would change in my favour, but realised that the road would still be there. Miles skated today are miles I don’t have to skate tomorrow. I rolled down the hill to the awaiting plain.
Apart from a few down hill spots, it was uphill all day. And not a nice short and sharp uphill either. Long, gradual uphill that looks like it is flat, but isn’t, but tricks you into believing that it is, and makes you think you are weak for skating so slow on a ‘flat’ road. Very frustrating at times. All morning I was pushing into a headwind, that only increased in velocity as the morning wore on. At times I was moving only just faster than walking pace. Looking back however, I could see how much I had climbed, and how much pavement was now behind me.
At 12:30pm it was time to get out of the sun. The day was heating up again, and I certainly did not have water enough to last me two days if I was going to skate through the heat of the day. I did what I always do; I found a nice culvert under the road and set up camp for the afternoon.
I am not alone in my fascination with culverts in China. Round the world cyclist and friend Daniel made many a culvert his home while in China, as did Edward Genochio.
I napped until 4:30pm. Poked my head out to see how the wind was, and lo and behold it was a raging westerly (tailwind). I packed up quick, despite it being earlier than usual, and got out on the road by 5pm.
With the aid of the tailwind, I made short work of the continuing gradual uphill.
As the sun began to set at around 9:30pm, I began scouting out a good sleep spot for the night.
I settled for a spot out in the open on the under construction expressway. The night was cool. Much cooler than any night I have had in China so far since Santai. Santai was at 2200m, and here it was 1300m. The altitude certainly makes a difference. I put on all my clothes and snuggled into my thin cotton ‘sleeping bag’. Since Turpan, I have not been carrying a tent or sleeping bag. I sent them ahead of me to Shanghai. I bought some thin cotton gauze and had it stitched into a sac that I can sleep in. The cold night reminded me why summer travelling is so tiring. I can never sleep as well in the heat as I can in the cold. Give me a super cold night over a hot night any day.
June 16th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China
Today’s distance / ???????: 42 miles / 67.2km
Average speed / ????: 8.7mph / 14km/h
Time on skateboard / ????: 4h 47m
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: 4979mi plus 377mi (?) / 7853km plus 606km (?)
Ascent / ??: 180m
Descent / ??: 60m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: N42° 33′ 38.60″, E094° 08′ 45.60″
I woke to a hazy, smoggy pale that hung over the sleepy city of Hami. I was feeling well rested after two days in the city relaxing and getting some good long hours of sleep in. “Money in the bank, Rob. Money in the bank.” That’s what Steve Dewhurst, the skipper of the yacht delivery I assisted on across the Atlantic would tell me whenever we arrived at a port. I made sure that I put many a deposit in over the weekend.
Hami was only just starting to wake up as I rolled out of town. People commuted to work on bicycles, butchers were carting their haul into town.
As I skated towards my old friend National Highway 312, I stopped to take a photo, and a sprightly elderly gentleman glided up on his bicycle. He told me that he had seen me going past as he was getting ready to head out for his morning bike ride. “You are very fast!” he spouted as he eyed up my longboard. He asked me where I was going, and told me that it was the same direction as his daily bike ride, so he would cycle with me for a while.
In the end he accompanied me for 15km. We parted ways near the beginning of highway Z501. This 35km long road runs more or less parallel to National Highway 312, but passes through a beautiful tree-lined area with many spots along the road to eat water melon and get supplies, whereas the main highway 312 bypasses the towns.
My cyclist friend drew me a map in the gravel on the side of the road to explain that Z501 was actually shorter than the main highway, and it would be much better for me to go the Z501 route.
I am glad that I took his advice. It was a very pleasant day of skating, with very few ups and downs, and well sheltered from the wind due to the many trees.
Huangtian was a very pleasant town. It is about 30km east of Hami on Z501. Pleasant locals. Pleasant architecture. Very rather lovely and pleasant.
The Uyghur influence in the town was obvious not only from the above mosque, but also advertisements in Arabic here and there.
I pushed on past Huangtian, and around 1pm felt the heat of the day getting to me. It was almost 40 degrees celcius, and time to get shelter for the rest of the afternoon. Conveniently, there was an old deserted mud house off the road. Next to it was a flowing irrigation channel. Perfect.
It was cool inside the dark hut, and I slept well for almost four hours. At 5pm I made my way reluctantly out into the heat again and pushed on.
Wanting to test the carrying capacity of the longboard trailer even more, I bought a water melon and hauled it about 20km to Lotojue, the town I would end up staying at for the night.
The poor melon didn’t handle the bumping around however, and was a little mushed by the time I got there…
Near Lotojue, by the way, there appears to be a town full of soccer fans…
I checked into a 10RMB (1 Euro) a night truck stop, filled in my logbook, and hit the hay.
June 15th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China,vids
Well a relaxing day in Hami today. A couple of things ticked off my to-do list:
In the internet cafe I have been checking up on some other adventures. In particular I am looking forward to SOUTH:
“SOUTH will be the first return journey to the South Pole on foot, and the longest unsupported (human-powered) polar journey in history.” – from the SOUTH website.
Ben Saunders and Alistair Humphreys will be teaming up for this expedition.
I watched a video of Ben speaking about a previous trip. Very interesting. Amazing in this day and age where people interested in a journey can get daily updates on how a journey thousands of miles away is developing! Great stuff.
I was inspired recently by a quote that Ben has on his Facebook page:
“The greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses; people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you’. Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few friends these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms, she rewards passionately.â€
- Tim Krabbé, 1978
Great fun.
I was also inspired by a letter written to Dave Cornthwaite before his epic skate across Australia. You can hear the letter read out loud in this video promoting Dave’s book about his journey. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDupjrKXgzw
In the letter, Dave is warned that he will either give up after less than four days in Australia, or die from exposure to the sun. He didn’t give up, and he didn’t die. Dave skated across Australia.
June 14th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China
I’ve been a busy little bee here in Hami today. Two videos uploaded today. The first is all the action from the last five days on the road (there has been lots of it!) and the second is an introduction to the trailer setup I have on my longboard. Both the videos are also available on Youtube here: Update Six and the Longboard Trailer Intro.
June 13th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China
Today’s distance / ???????: about 30km
Average speed / ????: n/a
Time on skateboard / ????: n/a
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: n/a
Ascent / ??: n/a
Descent / ??: n/a
End-of-day GPS coordinates: n/a
I did not sleep well in the shack last night. Mice were scurrying. Windows were rattling in the wind. I woke in the middle of the night and thought I saw the dark outline of a small child standing in the doorway, watching me. I lay still and silent, holding my breath for what seemed a lifetime, before I finally quietly reached for my torch and shone it in the apparition’s direction. It was just shadows in the moon’s light playing tricks…
Shortly after getting on the road at 6am, I passed an elephant. Yay.
And before I knew it, I was in Hami. National Highway 312 passes about 2km north of Hami central, and the road is relatively un-trafficked. I veered south off 312 and skated with a strong tailwind down into the city center.
I had no idea where I was going. All I knew was that I wanted a cheap place to sleep and take the weekend off. I kept heading south. South. After 4km, I turned east along Tianshan Road and stopped in at the first hotel I could find. A nice enough shared room for 30RMB (3 Euro). Eateries close by, and three internet places to choose from within 5 minutes walk. Perfect. What more could I want.
June 12th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China,highlights
Today’s distance / ???????: about 70km
Average speed / ????: very slow
Time on skateboard / ????: very long
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: lots
Ascent / ??: 150m
Descent / ??: 450m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: dunno
Yesterday I ran out of juice for my GPS. All my batteries are dead. And I left my battery charger in my hotel room in Shanshan. Dumb. So no data for the last few days. I’ll have to work the distance out on a map.
I didn’t get away from the road construction HQ until 8am this morning. I wasn’t concerned; the day looked to be a cooler day. Plus, the men would not have me leave without having breakfast with them.
It would turn out to be an eventful day. One of the best of the trip, perhaps. And it was my birthday.
As I pushed away from the HQ, I had a slight tail wind, and refreshingly green scenery on either side of the road.
The wind from last night left in its wake a beautiful clear day. The clearest weather I’ve experienced in China. I resolved to enjoy it while it lasts; from reports from other travelers, skies like this don’t last for long!
With a fresh mind and fresh legs, I was actually enjoying skating. I may be getting back into a positive frame of mind. The three weeks rest in Shanshan has done wonders.
It took no time at all to get to Sandaolin. Like most cities along this National Highway 312, the city itself was about 2km south of the highway. I stayed on the highway and picked up some snacks to take with me on the road for lunch.
What greeted me just outside of Sandaolin was a birthday present I couldn’t have wished for in a hundred years. The two-laned highway (National Highway 312) I have been traveling on so far will one day be one side of a four-lane expressway stretching the breadth of China. In places so far I have seen the construction of the other two-laned side of the future expressway. Today, I spent a whole afternoon on a not-yet-open-to-vehicles three-laned (two-lanes and a lane-wide shoulder) super smooth recently completed expressway. From Sandaolin all the way to Hami, it seems, this southern side of the future expressway is not open to cars, but is perfectly paved and super smooth.
It was booodiful. A slight downhill, with a slight tailwind…wonderous. It was the same flat desert that I had seen previously, but I was feeling great. On one section, where I did not have to push because the gradient allowed it, I just sat down on my board and relaxed. I kept this up for about 5km. Luverly.
It got to about 12:30pm and I decided it was time to catch some zs and take the rest of the avo off and wait for the heat of the day to subside. I spied a nice looking culvert and set my sleeping mat up and scoffed down some of the snacks I got from the store in Sandaolin.
As I was just starting to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, I could swear that I could hear water running. I thought for a moment I was going to be washed out of my culvert. I rushed out and looked towards the hills to the north. No clouds. As clear as can be. Upon further investigation, there was an irrigation water race just a few meters from the culvert I was in. The water was running clear and fresh. An opportunity not to be missed. Five days without washing; this is a God-send!
I stripped off and jumped in. I rinsed out my clothes; I knew they would dry in minutes here in the desert. Just great. I spent the rest of the afternoon dozing and reading, with a cool breeze floating through the culvert, listening to the water running in the irrigation race.
By and by 6pm came around and it was time to hit the road again. By this time the road and everything around me had absorbed the sun’s heat, and everything seemed to ooze heat from their very pores. Even these kangaroos would have been sweating if they could.
But as the day wore on, things started to cool down. It was about 8pm when I noticed a curious development ahead of me. A monstrous cloud of dust…
Cars and trucks entering the dust were enveloped and could have been plucked from the earth, and noone would ever have seen them go.
I hoped I would not suffer that fate, and just kept skating towards the mammoth cloud. About 1km before the cloud, my tailwind died down, and for a few moments, there was complete calm.
Those few moments over, the easterly gale hit with force. With 500m to go to the dust, the wind increased in force. I pulled over to the edge of the shoulder of the empty expressway and sat down behind my trailer. All I could think was…this is awesome! What a birthday!
The main front of the dust storm passed within a few minutes. It blotted out the sun completely, and not until much later in the day was the setting sun able to pierce through the dust for a last showing.
After the worst of the dust had blown over, I got up and skated another 500m to the nearest culvert for shelter from the wind. I decided to sit the wind out for an hour or so, and then carry on. I stuck my orange flag in the dirt outside the culvert as an indicator of the strength of the wind. Why get up to check the wind, when I can just glance outside, checking the wind from the comfort of my own culvert?
By and by the wind died down enough for me to carry on another 10km or so eastward. I passed by a toll gate (once again receiving the bewildered looks from the gate keepers), and stopped just at nightfall in a small shelter off the side of the road.
June 11th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China
Today’s distance / ???????: about 70km
Average speed / ????: very slow
Time on skateboard / ????: very long
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: lots
Ascent / ??: 1025m
Descent / ??: 790m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: dunno
The day started well. Once again I was on the road at 6am sharp. About 30 minutes before the sun began burning a slither of it’s bright mass above the hills in the east.
The morning was calm and cool. I almost considered putting a jacket on, but was warm from moving in a few minutes. The day would turn out to be a solid day of climbing, with fierce, fierce side winds that would ultimately call an eary stop to the day.
More concrete statues graced me with their presence as I rolled slowly past, across a high plateau.
This road runs in a general south-east direction, and as the road turned slightly more to the east at the end of the plateau, and began climbing, the wind began to blow. Hard.
On numerous occassions I was thrown off balance with the massive northerly wind. It was a stiff uphill also, with trucks going in my direction going so slow it was a tough ask to resist the temptation to grab a hold of the back of one for a pull. I did resist the temptation however; if I was holding onto the back of a truck, I may as well be inside the cab. And believe me, I got plenty of invitations for a ride.
More concrete statues kept me company…
I was stoked to meet another traveller along the road today. A Japanese cyclist cycling from Shian to Kashgar. The poor guy was having a harder time than me; he had the unfortunate reality of having to continually veer into the northerly gale. At least I had the promise of spending the day veering more and more towards a south-easterly direction.
Another 7km after I met the Japanese cyclist, I was at the top of a pass. A sign at the top told me that I had just skated 18km uphill. That was a tough one. Downhill on the other side, and I was hating life. The road veered south-south-east, so I had a raging gale and a deceptively steep downhill to contend with, with stony shoulders and fairly frequent truck traffic.
A tailwind and downhill, that’s got to be awesome! You might say…but the way the wind was blowing, I had to keep a very firm foot-brake on the road. 15 minutes of these conditions, and my shoes had lost a fair amount of rubber on the soles. I was happy to have the road level out.
Towards the end of the downhill, there was this sign:
Directly translated, the characters mean Green Colour Transit Road. Doesn’t look very green to me…
I stopped at another small store near a toll gate and stocked up on water and food. For the next 40km to Sandaolin, there would be no services, apparently.
The going was still tough. As the downhill petered out, the road veered in a more easterly direction. The northerly gale was till blowing powerfully, and only increased in velocity as the day wore on. I was moving at just over walking pace when I spied a cluster of buildings up ahead. Perhaps it is an inn, I think, and make my way toward it.
It turns out it is an HQ for a road construction contractor working on the new expressway between Shanshan and Hami. I pulled into the lee of the wind behind a wall to the HQ compound. A white collar employee eyes me up and apparently decides that I am indeed of nourishment. He ushers me into the HQ kitchen, and fills me up a bowl of fried noodles. Just what I needed.
“Is there a place to sleep around here?” I ask.
“I’m afraid not,” he replies.
I tell him that I will find a place to set up a wind block with my tent fly. Around the HQ compound is an unusually green grass and tree area. An oasis, you might say.
After finishing my noodles (a second helping is forced upon me, of course), I head outside to look for a place to sleep for the night. The wind has increased even more. Ther is no way that I will be able to sleep in this.
Four workers are struggling against the wind to set up a generator to get the power to the HQ up and running again. It is a simple affair; the bare ends of wires from the generator are wrapped around the overhead wires running to the HQ. I watch as they lean against the wind and get the job done.
Job done, I ask whether any of them know of a sheltered building or something I could crash in for the night. In no time I am invited to stay in one of the workers’ dorms.
I really must be over my brush with travelers’ burn out, because I thoroughly enjoyed the two or three hours we spent chatting. I was interested to learn that Mr. Yan, the man on the far left, earns 50RMB a day (5 Euro). All his food and board is supplied, so that’s all in the hand. So that’s 1,500RMB (150 Euro) a month. Obviously they were taken aback at my US$2,500 a month salary in Japan, but as I tell everyone that asks about that, living costs are much higher in Japan. Still, the discrepancy in disposable income between countries is glaringly obivious.
The HQ allowed me to eat dinner with the men, so I had a second helping of noodles for dinner at 8pm. We chatted some more until lights out at 11pm. I was woken up at around 2am with a ceiling tile in my face. The wind shook one of the false ceiling tiles loose, and it landed in my face, shattering spectacularly. Mr. Yan, who was sleeping next to me, got a second-hand spattering of ceramic, and was equally rudely awoken when I jumped up in a sudden. We removed another suspect tile from the ceiling, shook off the bed clothes, and in 5 minutes we were all sound asleep again, as if nothing every happened.
June 10th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China
Today’s distance / ???????: about 40km
Average speed / ????: slow
Time on skateboard / ????: lots
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: dunno
Ascent / ??: 525m
Descent / ??: 400m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: n/a
I roused myself at 5:15am, about 30 minutes before a thin band of light began showing on the horizon. Yesterday was brutally hot, even under the road in the culvert where I rested during the heat of the day from 10am until 6pm. Today, I assume, will be not much better.
I didn’t eat very well yesterday, so I promise myself that I will do better today. Oatmeal and a Chinese attempt at instant cereal begins the day, and begins it well.
It is a much better start to this poor fellow (you can still see the driver in the cab of the truck). It seems he went off the road in the night. Thinking about it, he is in more or less the same position as where I was sleeping last night in a water race not 10km west of here. That could have been ugly had he come off the road where I was…
Most of the morning was uphill. But the wind was light, and the higher I went, the cooler it got. I was able to skate until noon before taking shelter under the under-construction expressway that has been running parallel to National Highway G312 for all of yesterday and all of today.
Before stopping for the afternoon, I was thrilled to make aquaintance with the beginning of the famed central northern Xinjiang roadside concrete statues. They began in style, with a pair of giraffes.
I had first seen photos of these satues in the blog of Edward Genochio, who cycled from England to China and then back again. It was with no little joy that I experienced them for myself today.
This not-so-little cricket (about the size of a man’s thumb) almost got run over by yours truely. The little sucker was huge. I shooed him off the road so as to not get run over by the frequent truck traffic.
I pushed on up to the top of a small pass, and enjoyed the reward of a downhill. The downhill spelled the end of the featurelessness (is that a word) of the surrounds, as I dropped down into an amazing wide valley flanked by colourful hills on either side.
I sheltered under the under-construction highway until 6pm. I continued to read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain; a book I bought in Shanshan. In between reading, I slept. Or tried to. A hot wind was blowing through the culvert. Despite the shade, it was 35 degrees under the road. I hate to think what it would have been outside in the direct heat.
At 6pm on the dot I was packed up and on the road again. It was still hot, but I still had a very nice downhill to ride. I stopped at a small store; the first in about 30km.
“Are there any more stores between here and Sandaolin?” I asked the store keeper.
“No. None at all,” he said, without looking at me.
“How far is it to Sandaolin from here?” I asked.
“About 80km,” he replied.
“No stores, nowhere to buy water or food for 80km?” I asked.
“No,” he replied, again not looking at me.
I was reluctant to believe him. According to a cyclist I had emailed prior to arriving in China, who had done the same route, the furtherest between services on this stretch of National Highway G312 in Xinjiang was 140km, and that was east of Hami. But what was I to do. I had no choice but to believe him and buy up enough water and food to last me at least a day. I bought the water and food, and went to leave. As I was about to leave, I asked “Do you offer meals here?”
“No,” he replied.
“There is a truck stop up the road about 4km though,” a person sitting at a table in the store said.
“So there is somewhere to buy stuff?” I said, laughing at the store-keeper’s successful attempt at getting the hapless tourist to buy up large at his store.
I have had this happen before, except the last time I knew I was being had. It was nearer to Shanshan, and was told that for 300km there were no services. I knew that couldn’t be the case, so I asked a couple more people in the same little town. Sure enough, the consensus was that there were plenty of places to get food and water along the way.
I skated to the truck stop, and was happy to find a whole selection of small stores, restaurants (grimy eateries), and cheap ‘motels’. I stopped in at one, and was instantly greeted as a hero by a table full of rather drunk road construction employees.
I ordered noodles, and slowly tackled the big bowl as I tried to communicate with the friendly fellows. In China, drunk men can be either very convivial and genuinely happy to meet a foreigner, or they can be obtrusive and harassing. These lot were the former. Great fun.
I was at the eatery at 8pm, so had plenty of time to continue skating if I wanted. However I had done 50km, and decided to call it a day. The eatery had a dorm-style inn at the back, and I stayed there for the night for 10RMB (1 Euro).
June 9th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,China
Today’s distance / ???????: 30km
Average speed / ????: 9.8km/h
Time on skateboard / ????: 3h 00m
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: 7703km plus 450km (?)
Ascent / ??: 350m
Descent / ??: 50m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: N43° 10′ 54.00″, E091° 38′ 12.80″
There are many factors which grind your patience and motivation to a mere resemblance of a stump. A boring landscape is one of them.
Flat and featureless, today was a tough one. Add to the boring surrounds a pair of legs that are three weeks out of shape, and you’ve got a tough day. Thoughts of giving up once I get to Hami are well and truely alive right now. But then a voice in my head reasons that this is the first full day on the board after three weeks off. Don’t be so hard on yourself. The voice is far away and non-descript however. I resolve to get a bicycle in Hami and cycle the rest of the way to Shanghai.
A nice sunset reminds me for a moment why I’m out here.
And then I pull off the road and try to sleep the night away, buffeted by wind despite my semi-sheltered spot in a dry water race (dumb idea, I know).
