To escape the wind. Today I changed my route, leaving the freeway to what I suspected was a road through farmland with the accompanying wind protection. My mind was focussing on how to avoid the wind. And I have it – tomorrow I will be cycling at night! Night rider!
The long road
The road south to Yumen town looked on the map like it was through farmland (any roads on the map leaving the freeway with occasional side roads are usually farmland). Well, it climbed 500m across a desert plain to a ridge with a massive oil refinery. I was happy though – with almost no wind in the morning, I rocketed up the 500m, and had that altitude to ‘spend’ cycling down against the wind to Jiayuguan. No farmland though.
Police
I passed the 17000km mark from Eindhoven.
17000km
A rest day is planned visiting the Great Wall and then I’m turning nocturnal!
arctic-cycler.com 
Hi Matthew
I saw that your friend has gone and that you have to do the worsest part of your whole trip alone.
I hope that you will be so strong to do it alone.
Follow you every day and I like your stories.
It is also good that you tell us how hard it is for you sometimes I appreciate that very much.
Come on guy I am sure that you can make it .
Good Luck !!!!!!
Ton Smeets
Thanks, Ton. I think the 5 days of headwind were perhaps the hardest part of the whole trip so far. But, China still threw up some more challenges before reaching Laos. You will read about them in the coming weeks.. 🙂