Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

Of course, Huang Chong wasn’t the kind of person Liu Junjie thought he was—someone unconcerned with improving his own strength.

Quite the opposite. In his quest to become a Professional Cyclist, he was exceptionally focused on improving every single one of his weaknesses.

As for a power meter, it wasn’t that he couldn’t afford one. He simply didn’t want to waste money on high-end hardware upgrades for this particular Giant TCR.

After all, the stock drivetrain on the TCR ADV 3 was the TIAGRA groupset—a heavy, clunky, cable-actuated setup from Shimano that barely even qualified as entry-level.

Installing a power meter on a groupset like that would mean replacing the entire crankset with a high-end product, which was pretty pointless.

Besides, Liu Junjie assumed he couldn’t see his own real-time power data, but in reality, Huang Chong had his system’s bike computer.

The real-time data from that thing was bound to be more accurate than any electronic bike computer.

’This is a cheat system, after all. It can’t possibly have basic data errors!’

’Looks like as my strength improves, I need to hurry up and get a better bike. I’ll have to install a power meter, too. Otherwise, when I try out for teams later, they won’t be able to judge my abilities based on data—’

After parting ways with Wang Qiang and the other two, Huang Chong was silently running through his plans. He had no idea that after Wang Qiang got home, he sent the few, simple data points displayed on his bike computer to their captain, Zhang Yi.

Wang Qiang, of course, had no malicious intent or ulterior motives. He was simply astounded by how quickly Huang Chong was improving.

An average speed of 37 km/h, and in his aerobic Zone 2—this was already far beyond the capabilities of anyone else on their team.

He and Zhang Yi were close, so in a way, he was putting in a good word for Huang Chong to the captain.

At that moment, Zhang Yi was at home, putting his daughter to sleep. He was married with a daughter. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Being in his early thirties, having a family was perfectly normal.

However, for him, a man retired from the provincial team, his future prospects weren’t exactly bright.

Although he’d received a one-time retirement bonus from the provincial team, the cost of living in Hangcheng was exorbitant. And as a retired Road Cyclist, there were no relevant professions on the market that would allow him to continue his athletic career.

In China, although road cycling had exploded in popularity among amateurs, popularity was one thing, and a professional career was another.

The vast gap in professional standards meant that official support for the sport hadn’t increased by much.

Furthermore, the UCI’s own gold-medal events were largely concentrated in track cycling, which was what the nation truly invested in developing.

Zhang Yi’s dream, of course, was to see outdoor road cycling become fully professionalized in China.

He hoped even more to one day see Chinese riders competing on the World Tour stage as a matter of course.

But for now, that dream seemed completely unattainable.

But he had fantasized about opening his own road cycling club—something like the youth academies abroad—to help the younger generation get a head start with professional training.

Of course, opening a club was the easy part—you just had to throw some money at the registration. But to keep it running and actually turn a profit? He knew that was currently impossible.

Would parents in China really send their children to be trained in the road cycling industry from a young age?

After all, in this sport, you had to reach the level of riders like Pogačar, Vingegaard, or Evenepoel to earn millions of euros a year.

If you were just a regular domestique, apart from the UCI-mandated minimum salary and team bonuses, you couldn’t make a fortune like athletes in mainstream sports such as soccer or basketball—who could get rich even just playing in the Chinese Super League or the CBA.

So, Zhang Yi was deeply conflicted.

On the one hand, he clung to his ideals and wanted a career in road cycling, which was why he had founded the Windward Team on Wang Qiang’s suggestion, even after retiring—

On the other hand, for the sake of his family and livelihood, he had already taken a job at a bicycle factory, helping the product R&D team review and calibrate frame geometry data.

As a retired Professional Road Cyclist, he certainly had the expertise and authority to be the final word on geometry data.

It was just that the job felt too routine for him, a huge step down from his personal ambitions.

The pay was good, but he felt like a tiger locked in a cage.

So, in his spare time, especially when training with the members of the Windward Team, he often fantasized about one of his riders winning a few amateur championships and building a name for him.

That way, he might be able to open a profitable road cycling club, just like a music school or an art studio, and finally start on the path of cultivating the next generation of Road Cyclists!

But reality was harsh. Wang Qiang was already his strongest rider, but at his level, winning an amateur race was completely out of the question.

His best result was merely cracking the top one hundred, which barely counted as an achievement.

It was of no help at all to his dream of opening a road cycling club.

Until tonight. After putting his daughter to sleep, just as he was about to wash up and head to bed, his phone buzzed. It was a message from Wang Qiang with Huang Chong’s bike computer data. His eyes immediately shot wide as saucers.

’Leading a 100km ride with an average speed of 37 km/h and a heart rate of 140?’

’How is that possible?’

’I remember when he rode the Tour of Zhejiang Western Sky Road with me last week, his power was only around 200W, but his heart rate was already at his Zone 4 threshold.’

’He even briefly hit his anaerobic Zone 5 when he got out of the saddle on the steepest part of the climb—’

’That was only a week ago. How could he improve this fast?’

’Could it be that he was holding back before?’

Zhang Yi shook his head. It felt too incredible to be true.

He had personally witnessed Huang Chong’s condition after the Taizi Peak climb. The kid had been at his absolute limit; there was no way he was holding anything back.

But now, his power output was higher, yet his heart rate was significantly lower.

This could only mean one thing: in the past week, he had made an earth-shattering leap in progress.

’This kid... Could he be a genius in the world of road cycling?’

Zhang Yi was deeply shaken.

But no matter how he looked at it, the bike computer data Wang Qiang had sent felt off. It looked like it had been Photoshopped.

As an insider, he knew better than anyone: Huang Chong’s rate of improvement wasn’t humanly possible.

An increase in average speed within a week might be achievable; after all, a lot depends on the rider’s form on any given day.

But for his cardiac fitness to improve so drastically in such a short period? That completely defied the laws of human physiology.

He immediately sent Wang Qiang a message:

*Wang Qiang, are you sure this is Huang Chong’s data? And you didn’t use some editing software to change the numbers?*

Wang Qiang, who was already home, saw the message and rolled his eyes. He immediately replied with a voice message:

"Captain Zhang, come on. You know me, what’s our relationship like? Why would I do something so pointless?"

"This is Huang Chong’s real data from today. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Chen Guangming and Liu Junjie. They were both there tonight and saw it too!"

Hearing this, Zhang Yi was already convinced. He couldn’t help but think:

’Looks like this kid really is something special.’

’At this rate of improvement, he should reach the level of a Professional Cyclist soon. I wonder if he’s interested in becoming one?’

’No, he must be.’

’I remember he asked me at Taizi Peak last week what the baseline Power-to-Weight Ratio for a Professional Cyclist was.’

’I just wonder what his Power-to-Weight Ratio is now.’

’Looks like I’ll have to find some time to ride with him one-on-one and test his true abilities!’

Zhang Yi continued to mull it over. He was thrilled that a true genius had appeared on his team, but at the same time, he felt a strange sense of melancholy.

Because another thought immediately struck him:

’If Huang Chong really has what it takes to go pro, will he even have time to win amateur titles for the team?’

’Those titles are the very cornerstone of honor I need to have any chance of opening my own club someday.’