The Pursuit of PRO: China CX Part 1: Pre-Race

The Qiansen Trophy Series is China's first-ever UCI cyclocross race. Sponsored by the Qiansen Engineering Corporation all riders were provided round-trip airfare and a week's worth of transportation, food and lodging at one of Yanqing's premier spa and resort. This post is the first in a series that attempts to relay just a few of the incredible moments we, as riders, were blessed to experience.

My attendance at this race can best be described as being in the right place at the right time. Back in late July CX Magazine published a press release requesting riders to "come be a part of history" at China's first-ever UCI cx race. All expenses paid for a week in China and all you have to do is race for an hour? Sounds too good to be true, right? What's the catch here? Are they just flying us there and then going to leave us stranded? Are we going to be sold into white slavery to break rocks on the side of the road? Well, let's jump into the rabbit hole and see how deep it goes.

I applied 8/1 and didn't hear anything for a few weeks. Three days after I'd accepted that I wasn't getting in I received an email stating "you're in;" flight info and invitation letter enclosed, looks like this is actually happening!

Beijing airport, notice the smog

Fast forward and we've landed in Beijing; the air is close and oppressing but we're here. We're greeted by an event volunteer who guides us to a bus. We hop on the bus and drive a couple miles where we park on a seedy side street. Turns out our guide doesn't speak any English and uses her phone to ask us to surrender our passports so it's "easier to check into the hotel." Let's see, we're parked in a sketchy back alley and you want us to give up our passports? In our sleep deprived state we somehow agreed to it.

And then we sat there. Apparently we were waiting to pick up the Aussies coming in on a later flight. Three hours we wait. Just after 1am we finally head back to the terminal. Turns out they'd been waiting 2.5 hours and just sleeping in the terminal. Whatever, we were finally on our way. For two hours we ripped down tiny tree-lined streets to gridlocked expressways (yes, at 3am). Finally we arrived, checked in and passed out. Doesn't look like a white slave camp.

Typical lunch dish

The next several days we were treated like royalty, all the food one could ask for, a free trip to the Great Wall and near-unlimited access to the course. In short, we didn't want for anything.

The night before the race everyone attended the Opening Ceremony where we had the chance to meet the race sponsors and local dignitaries. You'd think that after spending up to $5000 to bring each rider to this race they'd act entitled or feel that we owed them something. This was one of the most eye-opening moments of the trip because all we had to do was set aside a week of time, get on a plane and race for 60 minutes, and still, they profusely thanked us for being there. I still can't get over it.

view of the hotel grounds

The Opening Ceremony was incredible; while all other meals were served buffet-style this was served family style-there was so much food at each table the servers had to start piling dishes on top of each other. The sponsors, race and local officials all gave speeches and then they started in on the toasts. A side note here, in China it is considered incredibly rude if you do not finish the entirety of your drink when toasting. Thankfully we had a few Japanese riders seated at our table who tipped us off to this before the party arrived at our table. Now let's put this in perspective, there were something like 25 tables at this event. The organizers/officials toasted each table. They'd obviously worked incredibly hard to put this together and you could tell they were elated it had finally started. The 25+ toasts probably helped a little with that elation.

After dinner some of the racers headed over to the pyramid to explore what the spa had to offer in terms of massage. I read a book and passed out at 9pm. Race day tomorrow, should probably get some rest.

In an effort to make this somewhat easier to read I have decided to chop these reports into sections. Next up: Race Day. I will try and post it as soon as possible. Please enjoy the pictures below.