We’re in Shanxi province, the most polluted one in China. For a whole day we circulated under a grey sky in a valley where factories and coal mines alternated every few kilometers. The sun was invisible, breathing became difficult. This is the land of coal mines, of very rich mine owners, extremely poor mine workers, terrific mine accidents. Everything is black, coal is everywhere.  Traffic is very intense, heavy and overloaded trucks circulate in endless lines. Very often they are so slow that we seize the opportunity to cycle closely behind them, taking advantage of the wind protection. So our speed can get up to 45 – 50 km/h for a few km.  The challenge is to catch the fasted one, quite a funny game.

But Chinese roads are not just a playground.

Chinese roads are dangerous, very dangerous.

Two days ago a truck just passed us and then suddenly turned to the right, cutting our road. Charles and Nico couldn’t avoid falling down. Nico had a few scratches, nothing serious. But this was a warning. Chinese drivers are just not used to cyclists circulating at our speed, and most of the time, they underestimate us. So we must be very careful.

But yesterday Nico avoided certain death just by one or two seconds.

We were circulating on a expressway, but two lanes were closed due to a little landslide. As so often in China, this was not signalized. I was circulating some 100 meters in front of Nico who was catching up to me. Then I heard a terrific Bang, and when I looked back, there was no more Nico, but a huge scrap heap. No noise. At that time I was convinced Nico was dead. But, by miracle he was unhurt. The crash happened just a few meters ahead of him. One truck had just passed him, but stayed in the left line, ignoring another truck was coming from the other side. The choc was terrible. One cabin was snatched and ejected some 10 meters down the road. The big engine lay in the middle of the road. Three people were lying motionless. I tried to help as much as I could, but there was not much to do. One man was bleeding a lot out of the ear. Another one had his leg squashed under the cabin. The third was stuck in the cabin, motionless, half buried under lots of gravel. I fear he will not survive.

The police arrived only half an hour later. When we left the place, there was still no ambulance…