Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

Huang Chong felt a bit dazed as he walked out of Zhang Guowei’s office after signing the transfer contract.

After all, as of this moment, he was now one of China’s top Professional Cyclists and a rider on an Intercontinental Team.

Once the team received his information and successfully registered him with the UCI, he would be able to earn UCI points just like the World Tour Cyclists.

This marked his official integration into the world of the Union Cycliste Internationale.

Intercontinental Teams were the highest level of cycling teams in China.

In the team tiers established by the UCI, there were two higher levels:

Intercontinental Professional Teams (Pro-level), and World Tour Teams (UWT-level).

But given the current skill level of China’s cyclists, it was virtually impossible to have teams at those two higher levels.

This was because:

First, the cyclists on teams in these two tiers were exceptionally strong. Furthermore, the team licenses operated on a promotion and relegation system, requiring UCI points every three years to maintain their status.

On top of that, there were far too few opportunities to earn points at UCI events held on Chinese soil.

Even the World Tour-level Tour of Guangxi, and another World Tour race held in the United Arab Emirates in Asia, only offered 300 UCI points to the winner.

Both of these were multi-day stage races, making winning the overall title incredibly difficult.

To draw a stark comparison, the five Monuments held in Europe are all one-day races, yet the winner’s points were as high as 800.

Even a fifth-place finish earned 360 points—more than the overall winner of the entire Tour of Guangxi received.

All the high-point races—primarily the three Grand Tours and the five Monuments—were held on European soil.

Therefore, for China to field a Pro-level team, its riders had to compete in Europe and achieve high finishing ranks just to have a shot at earning enough points to maintain their team’s status.

But this was unrealistic. The base salary for a Road Cyclist was not high.

Many World Tour Cyclists only earned a minimum salary of a few tens of thousands of euros per year.

If a rider failed to achieve good results, they wouldn’t earn any prize money. That meant they would have to pay their own way to compete in Europe, an inevitably expensive and money-losing proposition.

In Europe, a single, terribly unappetizing fish filet with two boiled potatoes in a developed country would set you back at least 20 euros.

Without a wealthy sponsor, who could possibly afford that?

After leaving Zhang Guowei’s office, Huang Chong found Chen Junyi in another room. She was engrossed in studying materials about the sport of road cycling.

Although Chen Junyi’s decision to transfer to the Intercontinental Team was indeed because of Huang Chong, it was driven by his potential for growth in professional road cycling, not by any romantic interest.

Her core task was to capture specific data on his growth at every stage, then systematically collate it to build a data model.

This would provide a scientific basis and training reference for more local Road Cyclists to improve their competitive performance in the future.

This was undoubtedly a long-term, highly valuable project that could offer immense help to the entire nation’s future development in the sport of road cycling.

And if she wanted to understand the situation in more detail—for instance, by comparing data between different cyclists—working at the provincial team was certainly not enough.

She had to join a frontline Intercontinental Team—and perhaps even a World Tour Team in the future—to collect a sufficient volume of rider data by comparing Huang Chong with other top cyclists.

Of course, all of this was predicated on whether Huang Chong could actually reach the level of a World Tour Cyclist.

If he couldn’t, she would have to honor the agreement with her father: leave her road cycling research project in a year and a half and return to the United Kingdom for graduate school.

Upon returning to China after graduation, she would have to follow her father’s arrangements and switch to researching a more mainstream sport.

So, in a way, the pressure wasn’t just on Huang Chong; it was on her, too.

She was, in effect, betting on whether Huang Chong truly possessed high growth potential in road cycling.

If her gamble failed, the two years of research she had invested would go completely down the drain, rendered worthless.

Of course, Chen Junyi wasn’t the type to fret over what might be gained or lost.

Having decided to undertake a long-term, valuable project, she would temporarily set aside all external distractions and focus on improving her professional skills first.

For example, her prior knowledge of road cycling was only superficial. She lacked a deep understanding of the UCI’s regulatory framework, the points system, and the cultural background of the various races, all of which she now had to get up to speed on.

As a professional member of the team’s staff, she had to master all the relevant professional information.

She had no desire to join an Intercontinental Team as mere window dressing—a rookie with no real expertise.

From her perspective, that would be completely unacceptable and highly unprofessional.

When Huang Chong found Chen Junyi, she was at her computer, looking up information on the official UCI website and taking all sorts of notes.

She was completely focused, her concentration unwavering.

He glanced at her computer screen and realized he couldn’t understand a single thing on it.

The UCI’s official website only offered two language options:

English and French.

So it was no surprise he couldn’t understand it.

Chen Junyi saw Huang Chong approach and stand beside her, looking like he wanted to say something but was hesitating. Sharp as she was, she could easily guess what was on his mind and took the initiative, asking:

"You came looking for me. I take it you saw the contract for my position with the Intercontinental Team?"

Huang Chong nodded.

"Ah—yeah. I just didn’t expect you to be going to the Intercontinental Team, too—"

"What’s so strange about it? Of course I’m going to the Intercontinental Team. How else am I supposed to get your performance data?"

Chen Junyi’s expression turned serious as she said to him,

"Huang Chong, to be honest, me joining the Intercontinental Team isn’t necessarily a good thing for you."