We are in the main enduro/dualsport and off-road enthusiasts here, yeah i know there are other interests. This is to my mind, in China, because they help on poor roads but also there has been world-wide fashion for the grunge image of such machines. Helped along with 'crusty demons' and the like certainly but for realistic reasons, lots of cheap models available worth the risk of experiment against the cost of big 4 machines. Now I do not pretend to care about actual statistics, this is perception. Trail riding has grown in Australia as a weekend hobby too. Yeah, lots of big BMW's and so on, but millions of dirt-bikes of all kinds worldwide, and quite a few more chinabikes on the road as well as off.

But is this all changing? I see many more scooters too, and moped types in the cities as well as all the road/sports models. We see chinabikes struggling to leave the 125 and 200cc range, not too many 250cc about, some in USA, some in China.

So what will happen next? I see the magazines full of 300/350/400 cc machines and reviews. We also have the EE3 thing meaning EFI with all the high tech problems for Chinese manufacturers. we have the major groupings of manufacturers seemingly controlled by the military with probably less consideration for market forces.

Far too many dealers/importers selling all sorts of mixed up variants, mainly 125 and 200 still, those that haven't disappeared or are 'out of stock' since the WFC.

Will China make the move to a market driven, well researched development and sales program, or having run out of models that meet latest ADR/EE3 and USA design rules classification, wil they just stop? They surely cannot take the Lifan/Loncin clones of jap. engines much farther especially with the demand for more power.

The internal Chinese market must be affected by the cities all closing down on motorcycle usage and I don't believe the few thousands of chinabike buyers outside of China, except maybe elsewhere in Asia, will keep the myriad companies and variations going.

Will we start to see a couple of good designs appear that conform to required emissions standards etc. or will it quietly all go away as they turn to or concentrate on cars?

Are we the lucky ones with our cheap workhorses, reasonably practical once sorted, and our willingness to experiment and modify, or are we going to be marginalised enthusiasts?

Hopefully someone will pick up the license for the Yamaha 450WF or similar, get some EFI tweaking sorted and we can progress, else I think we will be hunting for parts and repairs as these machines get to the ten of thousands of km and start to fall to bits.

Oh yeah, and I was chatting to a motorcyclist, a stranger, the other day when we parked alongside one another. He was a journalist and mentioned that he had heard that the government here and elsewhere worldwide, alongside of carbon taxes, is going to phase out all cars and bikes that don't meet or cannot be modded to meet, the latest standards. I suppose it is a gesture toward lower carbon emissions and global warming too little too late - but it would cause me a few problems!