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Hotel in the Clouds

Rob Howard / 18.09.2009

All the athletes have now arrived in Wulong and are preparing for the race, getting their gear checked and sorted into race boxes, and completing registration.

The race HQ for now is the Xuefu Hotel, which is high on the hillside above the town and both last night and this morning the building has been wreathed in fog and cloud, so there is no view of the town and river below as yet. Our Chinese hosts tell us Wulong is a small town, but driving through it last night, past numerous multi-storey buildings lit up in neon, it was apparent my idea of a small Chinese town wasn't in tune with modern China! The largest tower must have been 30 storeys and from its roof a bright blue laser scans the sky and lights up the town at night.

This evening the race will drive down into town for the opening ceremony once all the formalities and briefings are completed. The hotel itself is a large and well appointed one, with plenty of space to accommodate and feed the large number of racers, staff and press, and the race is very well set up and organised. The reception desk is the hub, and there are numerous staff, directing everyone to where they need to be.

This morning that was at the gear rooms, where bikes were assembled and racked ready for tomorrow's prologue and gear had to be sorted out into bins which will be delivered to the transition areas. The ropes testing was limited to basic skills, but as Nathan Peterson of Air New Zealand/R&R Sport commented, "it's more useful for us to see how they set up their ropes than anything else". Most of his team are new to the race, although Fleur Pawsey has competed before.

Those who have been here to race before have found the Chinese food one of the challenges of the event, and even the race staff from Beijing have commented that the food in this region is very spicy. Judging by last night's meal and breakfast the race has gone to great efforts to make things easier for their visitors. A typical meal might include 20 dishes and with rice, noodles, vegetables and even some pizza slices on offer there were plenty of 'safe' choices. There were more adventurous options for those who wanted and you certainly knew it if you picked the wrong pepper! Richard Ussher commented, "Normally I wouldn't eat anything like this at a race, but you just have to eat as much as you can." He added, "At least there are no feet and heads in the food this time.

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