Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

[Host detected descending at high speed. Please maintain an average speed of at least 25 km/h and safely navigate at least 10 hairpin turns. Reward: 2 Basic Optimization Value points, Cognitive Enhancement Agent x1.]

[Cognitive Enhancement Agent: Enhances the host’s cognitive reaction and mental agility upon consumption. Allows for rapid reactions to take countermeasures during critical moments, such as high-speed cornering or crashes.]

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"A Cognitive Enhancement Agent? This is great stuff!"

After reading the description for the new support medication, Huang Chong couldn’t help but marvel. ’Is the system planning to optimize all my innate physiological conditions first?’

Mental reaction time was, without a doubt, one of the most important assets for a professional athlete in any field.

It wasn’t just Road Cyclists who needed it. F1 drivers, basketball players, soccer players, esports competitors—all professional athletes required reaction speeds far exceeding those of ordinary people.

One could even say that what people commonly referred to as "athletic talent" was, to a large extent, just innate reaction ability.

Huang Chong was well aware that without his "cheat" activated, he wasn’t some prodigy. He was, in fact, extremely ordinary.

An ordinary family background, ordinary physical talent, and an ordinary IQ that got him into an ordinary undergraduate university.

If things had gone as expected, he would have found an ordinary partner and lived out his ordinary life.

But he knew that now, he was no longer ordinary.

After taking the various support medications provided by the system, his body had long since surpassed that of his previous life.

His potential was constantly being pushed higher, especially his all-important cardiopulmonary function.

And now, with the appearance of a support agent that could improve his cognitive reactions, he would be optimized by the system from head to toe, from body to spirit, once he took it.

’Safely navigate 10 hairpin turns at an average speed of 25 km/h, huh?’

’Looks like the system knows the reason for my reincarnation!’

’Is that why it deliberately lowered the difficulty to a level I can complete with ease?’

Huang Chong couldn’t help but mock himself inwardly.

This cornering speed was no challenge for him at all.

Downhill sections were probably the favorite part of a ride for amateur cycling enthusiasts.

They could enjoy the speed and thrill, like lightning in the wind, without having to exert any effort themselves.

For a Professional Cyclist, however, the descent was the most dangerous part of the race.

Huang Chong didn’t like descents, especially not ones with endless, winding series of hairpin turns.

Not only were the gradients steep and the difficulty high, but it required total concentration, and it was hard to gain any significant lead over other riders of the same skill level.

After all, not everyone was a Pidcock, daring to attack on a high-speed descent and close a gap of over a minute.

During the top-tier World Tour races, Huang Chong had seen plenty of Professional Cyclists crash while cornering on descents, even on live broadcasts.

This was especially true in rainy weather. The road surface would be slick, and since the tires of a road bike are already narrow with limited grip, the problem became even more severe in the rain.

The lucky ones would get away with scraped skin, gaping wounds, and broken bones, forced to withdraw from the race on the spot.

The unlucky ones, like Evenepoel—nicknamed the "Little Cannon" and a titan of flat-road individual time trials—had accidentally crashed off a bridge during a descent in the Tour of Lombardy, one of the five Monuments. He’d nearly lost his life and destroyed his entire career.

Even worse, some went straight off the course during a descent and died on impact.

The only consolation was a tradition in races abroad where, on the stretch of road where a rider died, their name would be imprinted to be memorialized forever.

But to be honest—and this was an unpleasant truth—’Huang Chong had no desire to have his name remembered that way.’

Especially since he had already ended one life in that very manner in his past life.

Although the cause of the accident wasn’t his fault—it was the car that had pulled out from the inside lane. It was going too fast, didn’t honk, and had crossed far over the line, forcing him off the shoulder of the road.

But no matter how the law assigned responsibility for the accident, he was the one who had lost his life.

If his cornering speed had been just a little slower back then, even with the other driver illegally crossing the lane, he might not have been unable to react, and his life wouldn’t have come to a crashing end.

In the face of death, assigning blame was meaningless.

The only lesson was that while you were still alive, you could never afford to be complacent.

Of course, descending from the summit of Taizi Peak was different from the situation on the descents back in his hometown.

Here, the view from the top down was completely unobstructed. He could see the entire line of every hairpin turn and any passing vehicles. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

It wasn’t like his hometown, where the view was obscured by the mountainside. If a car didn’t honk, you would have no idea if a vehicle was about to pop out of a hairpin turn.

Therefore, with a full view of the road ahead, plus teammates in front of him setting a safe pace, Huang Chong’s descent to the foot of the mountain was incredibly smooth.

Whether it was his choice of line or his technique entering and exiting corners, he was no mere novice.

For example, he knew to slow down before a turn, entering from the outside of the road towards the apex at a speed he could completely control, all while leaning his body’s center of gravity into the turn without crossing the centerline.

At the same time, the foot on the side he was leaning toward had to have its crank arm raised to the highest point, and he couldn’t pedal through the turn.

This was to prevent the bike from leaning over so far that the crank arm and pedal strike the road, upsetting the bike’s balance and causing a crash.

"Huang Chong, your cornering is so smooth! You don’t look like a rookie who’s been riding for less than a year at all.

Have you really only been riding for such a short time?

I keep getting the feeling you’re like us, that you’ve been riding for several years."

On the descent, Huang Chong rode behind Wang Qiang and Chen Guangming, while Liu Junjie had deliberately positioned himself behind Huang Chong.

He wanted to see how this kid, who was so strong on the climbs, would perform on the descent.

The result was just as he’d expected: Huang Chong’s descending ability was indeed silky smooth.

While not at the level of a Professional Cyclist, among amateurs, he was definitely top-tier.

Liu Junjie considered his own descending skills to be quite good within the team. After all, his hometown was also in a mountainous area, so he often rode winding mountain roads when he went home, giving him more opportunities to practice and naturally raising his skill level.

But he discovered that Huang Chong was not the least bit weaker than him.

In fact, when leaning into the corners, Huang Chong could achieve an even greater lean angle than he could.

This meant that in a real race on a closed course, if they were both riding at full speed, Huang Chong would be faster through the corners.

That wasn’t something you could do without years of accumulated descending experience.

In road cycling, innate talent was certainly important, but without day after day of training over countless miles, it was all just talk.

Take the world’s number one, Pogačar. A casual daily training session for him was five or six consecutive hours of Zone 2 cardio, with his power output reaching as high as 350W.

So, no matter how talented a rider was, achieving results still required piling on the time and mileage.

"I’m really not lying, Brother Liu.

But my home, Xianyun County, is a small mountain town. The roads there are all winding, with lots of rolling hills.

Maybe it’s because I usually ride more mountain roads and fewer long, straight flats? Could that be why I’m like this?"

The reason was convincing. Liu Junjie himself had trained on mountain roads, so after a moment’s thought, he didn’t press the issue.

And just as Huang Chong successfully navigated the last of Taizi Peak’s hairpin turns, the system reward notification popped up!

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