Southern China 2009: The How Tough is Your China Built Bike Tour
Southern China 2009: The How Tough is Your China Built Bike Tour
The Bikes: 2009 Shineray GY-7. A Chinese built 200cc bike with a 21L fuel tank, 16hp engine and a nice set of racks. Total Bike cost delivered to your door in China is 8800 RMB
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The Luggage: 3 Adlo boxes per bike. Total box cost, 360 RMB per bike
The Players: Marcus, Lynn (Marcus’ girlfriend), Mike (me) and Lisa (my wife).
The Budget: 250 RMB a day including fuel, bike maintenance, food, hotels, and touristic fun
This summer Marcus and I have bought two Shineray GY-7s for a trip around Southern China and will be riding two up for the entire trip. The trip is expected to run close to 7200km in total and will cover the south of China from Guangdong to Yunnan and back again. We have allocated close to 5 weeks for riding. For this trip, fun is and adventure is the key factor.
Many people have asked me why we chose these 200cc bikes and not something larger. The main reason tell them is that these bikes are light, have a large fuel capacity, have some amazing ground clearance and a fair bit of redundant systems built into the bike. These bikes will do the job they are meant to do without the added costs, legal issues and the ability to indulge our passion for the higher speeds that come with a larger displacement bike. One thing we don’t want on this trip is an accident that would leave one of us in any sort or reduced capacity for any amount of time. Also in China, speed is one thing that is really not needed. Although China is the third largest country in the world and has the fastest growth rate of any country it has some of the worst road conditions you could ever imagine. Poor road constructions, random farm animals, rock slides, overloaded trucks with drivers who don’t know what a brake pedal is, locals who have no safety sense that walk out into streets without looking and other random obstacles make China a pretty dangerous place to ride.
One more reason for the bike trips is this is going to be Marcus’ first real bike trip and first real bike. He had owned a scooter before and had ridden some friend’s bikes before but had never really owned his own motorcycle. He and I both agreed it was better to start small and for a long trip 200cc is about as small as anyone would ever really want.
The bikes arrived a few weeks before the trip was set to get underway. Rather than just flying somewhere and picking up the bikes we decided it would be best if we ordered the bikes and had them delivered to us before we left so Marcus could get some practice in and we could work out the all of the kinks that come with owning a Chinese made motorcycle. All Chinese bikes come with their own fair share of problems that need to be worked out and this time was no exception. My bike came one week before Marcus’ and that gave me a little time to get used to it. This was my second attempt at the GY-7. My first ended with the triple clamp snapping on me while I was riding it. A year later there had been no more reported cases of the snapping triple clamp problems and I was assured by the factory that the new design was more than up to the task. I decided to roll the dice on another one for a few reasons, the first being that massive gas tank, the second is the bike comes well setup for luggage and the third was that before the clamps snapped I actually really liked riding the bike. It was smooth and the wide seat made long distance rides more comfortable than many of the available alternatives.
This time when my bike arrived from the factory I had a good look at the clamps and they seemed to be built much better than the ones that were on the early bikes, still not CNC’d from high quality aluminum, but still better. The bike went together easily and I was on and testing it in no time. After testing it was discovered that the rear brake was too tight (an easy fix) and that the bike was sent to me with a faulty stator. The bike also came with more vibrations than I remembered and that was eventually traced back to a snapped engine mount bolt. A week later Marcus’ bike came with air in the front brake line and a pile of loose bolts. I know it sounds like a lot for any new bike, but this is China and almost everything done here is usually done wrong. These problems are improving and even under all of the poor quality control there is actually a nicely thought out bike that has the potential to haul your ass and your gear in at least minimal comfort across China with minimal fuel stops.
After a few nights of planning an idea for a route was set. We decided to head west and get as far into the northern mountains of Yunnan as we could. The first day we would have to push the bikes for close to 600km, but after that we would try to keep riding to a maximum of 400km.
We threw the boxes on the bikes and on July 26th at 6:00 we hopped on the bikes and headed North West from Guangzhou to China’s famous Yangshuo.
Re: Southern China 2009: The How Tough is Your China Built Bike Tour
Day 1: July 26, Guangzhou to Yangshuo
Yangshuo was about 600km away. We thought we would average about 60kmph and be there in about 10 hours. Early morning was the best time to get on the road. So we were up at 5:00 and were on the road by 6:00. This was supposed to be a boring ride, a good time for Marcus to really get used to the bike and get more practice riding on Chinese roads. Most of the ride was on minor roads with minimal traffic.
From Guangzhou to the Guangxi border was about 270km and we were hoping to get that done before lunch. The bikes were working great and the ride was nice and relaxing. We were managing a good pace and even managed a small ferry crossing after we took a wrong turn down the wrong side of a river. Everything was going great then I looked in my mirror and saw there was no Marcus behind me. I pulled over to the side of the road and waited for about 5 minutes, still no Marcus. I decided to turn the bike around and go have a look. I got about half a kilometer down the road and saw Marcus riding towards me. He waved me on and we pressed on. It wasn’t until we stopped about 40km down the road that I noticed he and Lynn had fallen. His hand guard was rashed and his right side box was scraped up pretty nicely. I asked if they were both okay and they said their gear did its job and that neither of them had any problems. Marcus’ arm was scrapped up a bit where he hadn’t tightened his arm strap, but there was no major problem. I asked if they wanted to stop for the day and they said they’d stop in Yangshuo.
We pressed on to the Guangxi border and stopped for lunch in a small restaurant on the side of the road. I asked where the toilet was and the owner kindly showed me down the stairs to the kitchen. I looked around and on the other side of the kitchen was the toilet. There it was a nice hole in the ground tucked behind a small door about 2m away from where our lunch was being made. I was a little shocked, but this is China and I was hungry. I went up and informed the crew about the toilet/kitchen situation and asked them if they wanted to keep going to find another place. They said no and we waited for our food to arrive. Surprisingly enough the food was actually really good. None of us got sick and even better none of us died from eating there. While we were eating the skies opened up and the rain hit the ground hard. We waited for about 40 minutes, but the rain didn’t look like it was about to stop. We still had a long way go so we got back on the bikes, twisted the grips and plowed on towards Yangshou.
At about 4:00 we ran into a traffic jam. The jam was about 15km long and was caused by a jackknife truck. As we made our way through the jam the rain got worse and worse. It was so bad at one point visibility was at best zero. We had to stop. We were still about 200km from our destination. Our asses were hurting, we had no rain gear and the skies were very angry. My glasses were so badly fogged from the lack of movement in the traffic jam that I was literally blind. We were not going as fast as we had hoped and we were leery of making Yangshou before the dark hit us. As the rain let up a bit we got back on the road. We were determined to make it in to Yangshuo today.
With darkness coming and only 40 km left we decide to chance death and ride at night. Riding at night in China is probably one of the most dangerous things any person anywhere in the world can do. This is something we promised ourselves that we would avoid at any cost and here it was on day one, we were about one hour from our destination and it was dark. I don’t really understand why but most people in China always drive their cars, trucks, bikes or whatever with their high beams on all the time. Add to this all the slow moving water buffalos, bicycles, carts, people, and the masses of random rocks and other normal debris you find on Chinese roads and you start to understand why it is so dangerous. Lucky we managed to pull up behind a large bus and we just let the driver guide us into to town.
We arrived at about 9:30. It had been a long day complete with rain, a toilet / kitchen lunch, a ferry crossing and a motorcycle crash. We were behind schedule be we had made it. The bikes managed the load well and were comfortable cruising near 90kmph. Not bad considering what the bikes were hauling. When I filled up the tank just outside of Yangshuo and did the math I was amazed to find out we managed 32km per liter. I don’t know how we managed that, but if we could keep it up it looks like the bikes would be able to get us to Yunnan and back with only a few trips to the pumps.
Pics to come later...
Re: Southern China 2009: The How Tough is Your China Built Bike Tour
Day 3: July 28, Yanshuo to LiuZhou to YiZhou
Another morning came and we looked outside to see a dry but ominous sky. We packed the bikes, had breakfast and hit the road to our lunch time stop of Liuzhou. Liuzhou was about 190km from Yangshou and we expected a nice ride through some increasingly interesting landscapes. The first hour of the ride went well, no crashes and nothing out of the ordinary, then the angry sky opened up and we pulled over to throw on our rain gear. Looking like a couple of bright purple penis heads my wife and I were very ugly and very dry. Marcus’ plan to avoid the rain pants in an effort to stay cool and dry didn’t work well. When we arrived in Liuzhou around 1:00 he was cold, bitter and soaked. We started to look for a place to eat. We rode around for about 30 minutes trying to find a restaurant that wasn’t selling noodles or dog meat or some combination of the two. We finally arrived at a Northern Dumpling Restaurant.
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The food was good. We had the restaurant all to ourselves and we started to talk about where we wanted to go as our final destination for the day. We looked at the map and decided our best choice was Yizhou about another 160km from Liuzhou. We planned from Yizhou to go look for some minority villages.One thing we had forgot to consider was that before we could get to Yizhou we first had to get out of Liuzhou . It seemed everyone asked had no idea or had no interest in anything outside of Liuzhou. We must have asked 20 different people that all gave us different answers. Even the police were no real help. After eating lunch and riding around Liuzhou for what seemed like forever I looked at my watch and saw we were approaching 4:00. With another 3-4 hours riding ahead I started to worry again about having to ride at night. Luckily just as I was about to give up for the day a local lead me out of the city through some rice fields and onto a main road that lead to our destination.
It was now after 4:00 and we had to make good time. Happily the rain had stopped and we had started to see the first glimmer of sunshine of our trip. The roads ahead were nice, smooth and empty. It looked like we would be able to make some good time and safely make it to Yizhou. We stopped from time to time to take some photos and have a drink and to rest our asses. It was a nice ride. We saw our first sun, got to see some nice landscapes and Marcus was able to dry his pants out. We made it into Yizhou just after 7:00. Still plenty of light left. We found a cheap motel, paid our 60RMB, got some dinner and settled down for the night.
Re: Southern China 2009: The How Tough is Your China Built Bike Tour
Day 4: July 29, Yizhou to HeChe to Bashu
The night in Yizhou was only meant as a stopover. We didn’t have any fun and games planned for day 4, we just wanted to push on up the road about another 150km to Heche in our attempt to locate a minority village that had not become a large tourist draw.
We decide the night before that today would be a short ride and planned to be on the road by 10:00am. 10:00am came and with breakfast in bellies we hit the road to Heche. We hit Heche around lunch time and pulled into a restaurant for some food and some local inside information. Lunch consisted of the normal Chinese food fair and upon completion of consumption we started to pry into the local knowledge of the restaurant owners. We pulled out our maps and asked our questions and were told that there was a minority market in a place called Bashu. This Bashu place wasn’t on any of our maps and we were only given a vague idea of where the place might be, but we decided to put our trust in their words and headed off down the road another 80km.
breakfast
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My wife Lisa trying to understand all the Chinese on the map
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We pulled into this small town called Chehe (not to be confused with Heche) and asked where we could find Bashu. They told us to go back down the road we came and take the first left we saw. We headed down the road, took our first left and headed up a mountain. The road quickly got worse and soon was nothing more than piles of rocks and washed away mountain. This is what I was on the trip for. I love these roads and this is one of the great things about living and biking around China. The roads are bad, but that usually means you have the chance to make some nice discoveries and get to places not too many people get to visit. Most of the time the people you meet down these rough and beat up roads are welcoming and extremely kind to travelers.
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As we made our way up the ever worsening road we got to see some great views of the valley below. Guangxi is really an amazing place. The views were stunning and the road didn’t disappoint . We arrived in Bashu to see the end of the minority market closing up. We quickly asked one of them if we could follow them back to their village. We were answered with a big thumbs up and followed them back to their homes.
Re: Southern China 2009: The How Tough is Your China Built Bike Tour
These are some really amazing people. Living a great life off the earth, holding true to their beliefs that are very welcoming and gracious. They were so happy to have us in their village. The men all wanted to know about the bikes we were riding and where we were from. Everyone invited us into their homes for a drink and to talk. It was one of the nicest experiences I have had in China. The welcoming nature of the people really made me feel how lucky I was to be there.
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I was amazed to learn that the girls in the village make all of their clothes by hand and when they go out or into town only wear the clothes that they have made. It is really amazing how intricate the hand embroidered details on their hand woven clothes really were.
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We were invited into one house for dinner and sat down to a nice meal of chicken feet and bone marrow. The food was good, but chicken feet aren’t really my favorite thing to eat.
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We were invited to stay for the night, but with the lack of rooms and with how gracious our hosts had been we decided as a group not to impose on them any longer. We figured we could get a place to stay in Chehe and decided to head back out the nasty road, but when Marcus went to start his bike there was nothing. No power, not even a click. I quickly looked over the bike and noticed a loose battery terminal connection and asked him if he had this problem earlier in the day. He said the bike had given him a little trouble early in the day, but that it always started after a few pushes of the starter button. I ripped out my multi-meter and checked the voltage; only 10.5 volts. Luckily our bikes have a kick start and a couple of kicks later we were on our way out.
A massive rockslide that had happened just after we passed through the road earlier in the day
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Waiting for the road to be cleared
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The sun was starting to go down and we were making good time out the bad road. Everything looked okay for our arrival in Chehe when we rounded one of the last corners and were confronted with a traffic jam and some heavy equipment clearing away a rock slide that happened not long after we road through there. I talked to one person who was waiting there and he said he had been there for 4 hours waiting for them to clean the road. I guess we were lucky the rocks didn’t get us as we went through. The construction workers told me they had about another 40 minutes of work to do before the road would be passable again. We moved the bikes up to the front of the line and settled in for the wait. To my shock the work was actually done on time. Usually when people in China say something will take 40 minutes it means 4 hours, this time everything was done on time. I was the 3rd bike to fight through the mess of traffic pushing its way out of the mountain road. Patience is a virtue that is lacking here and as soon as the road was open to one lane of traffic two lanes tried their best to push their way through a recently constructed road. This is one time the bike comes in handy and is the main reason I pushed my way to the front of the line. I didn’t want us to be stuck on that mountain road all night. We both made it through in the first group of vehicles and managed to get into Chehe just as night was coming in. All in all it was a great day. No falls, no injuries and no death by rock slide. Tomorrow would be a big day. From Chehe to Guiyang, about 360km.
Re: Southern China 2009: The How Tough is Your China Built Bike Tour
Day 5: July 30, Chehe to Guiyang
I had never ridden in Guizhou before but I had been told by many people that roads in Guizhou suck. I’ve heard horror stories of roads that have no good scenery and that are so bad you can only manage 15-30kmph on them. I had also been told that due to this fact, Guizhou is one of the few provinces in China that will allow motorcycles on the express ways. Knowing this I opted for the expressway. I thought it would be the easier of the 2 routes and the quality of the roads would be much, much better.
After a nice noodle breakfast I turned the right black grip and we were on the road to Guiyang. Marcus and Lynn had eaten breakfast before us and decided to get an early start on the trip. Being a new rider he is quite a bit slower than me on long stretches of road. My wife and I are accustomed to being on the bike for a long period of time. She was nervous at first but has come to enjoy it enough to put up with my adventures. She was also excited to make it to Guiyang as it meant our goal of making it to Yunnan was drawing closer.
As we hit the road we were enjoying the solo riding time. Not having to worry about a person behind you is always a load off your mind when you ride. The first part of the trip was easy. The kilometers rolled by and we were wondering when we would catch up to Marcus and Lynn. As we made our way from Guangxi into Guizhou we spotted them. Just as the roads were turning bad we passed them. They motioned for us to keep going so they could enjoy the day together. Not one to fuss I was back on the accelerator pushing us through the broken road.
Making your way through a maze of overloaded trucks moving at breakneck speed is never a relaxing time, but it can at times be interesting. The suspension on the little Shineray was handling the bumps with ease. The crappy nobby Kenda tires were chewing up the gravel and this gave me the confidence I needed to push on and make my way through the jumble of 18 wheelers. I thought this road was bad, but it could only be due to the construction and that soon we would have to be out of the shit. Unfortunatly the road just kept coming. Seemingly getting worse with every kilometer. More trucks would appear, kicking up more dust and making the ruts in the road even worse.
Re: Southern China 2009: The How Tough is Your China Built Bike Tour
At one point I was in the middle of passing a group of stopped trucks when a huge overloaded truck ripped around a corner and was headed straight for me. This truck was hauling a load of mini-busses that were stacked side by side and then on top of each other. This was one wide truck and with little road to work with I was forced to gun the throttle in a bleeck attempt to spare my megar exisitance. As I pulled back on the throttle and shifted my weight into the tank to move the bike I noticed a large rock coming up on me quickly, I swerved to the right to avoid the rock but didn’t fare very well. At somewhere between 60-70 kmph I managed to smash my left foot into the rock. I hit the rock so hard that it went through my Alpinestars boot, through my sock, cut on my foot and ripped my left side foot peg off the bike.
This was probably the most pain I had ever felt in my life and I have hurt myself badly many times. After the hit my eyes were red and I was in agony. I felt like I was going to faint, but I had to keep pressing on until I could find a safer place to pass out. After about 15 km I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled the bike off the road climbed off the bike and walked over to the side of the road to take a rest, have a drink and inspect the damage. I was positive my foot was broken. I limped to the side of the road and planted my ass on the concrete. I propped my back up against a pole on the side of the road and pealed my boot off my foot.
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After getting the boot off it was pretty easy to see that the boot had done its job keeping damage to a minimum. The boot itself was ripped as was my sock, but the cut on the skin looked like a minor scrape. Inside the foot however it felt like someone had whacked me with a sledge hammer and I was having a hard time moving my toes. Again I was thinking only one thing. My foot was smashed and so were my vacation plans. I thought about it for a while. Sitting there on the side of the road I thought about what I could do with my foot, I thought about how I could get the bike to Guiyang and I thought about what I was going to do if I was unable to recover and if I would have to stop my vacation.
I sat there for about 30 minutes letting the initial pain subside and decide I only had one choice for today. That was to get back on the bike and finish the ride to Guiyang with my bashed up foot with one foot peg and see how I felt after a good night sleep.
The two of us climbed back on the bike and continued down the road to Guiyang. As the road passed under the Kendas I started to get some feeling back in my battered foot. My toes were still very numb, but were moving again, even if just a little bit. This inspired me and I thought there might be a chance that those Aplinestars boots were really made well and that they, plus the shearing of the foot peg managed to save my foot from any major damage.
As we were getting closer to Guiyang the Shineray started to show its first long distance travel hiccups. We had covered close to 2000 trouble free kilometers and now at the worst possible time it was starting to have a resurgence of Chinese built bike syndrome. The engine started to sputter and the bike died. I played with the pet cock and we were good again for about 5km, then it died again, again playing with the petcock solved the problem. I thought there must have been some crud in the line blocking the gas flow and was happy that a bullet had been dodged. The roads were improving and the speeds were increasing. The little Shineray was hauling along consistently around 95kmph chowing down on the now improved road. Then the troublesome engine mount bolt worked itself loose and I saw the nut pop off and fly down the road. I stopped the bike and had a look, but with no luck it was gone and I knew I would be forced to limp the bike into Guiyang with some wicked vibrations. Also all these bad roads and highway speeds had taken their toll on the poorly designed an riveted together exhaust can. All of the rivets had been pushed out by the vibrations and back pressure of the exhaust. The baffling in and rear plate shot out of the can with 5 km of highway riding left. Again I stopped, pulled my battered ass off the bike, shook my head and wondered if I would even be able to make it to Guiyang with any of myself or the bike left.
Random Chinese guy selling living rabbits, snakes and pheasants to passing motorists to put in their bellies at dinner time.
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I climbed back on the bike and made one last push for Guiyang. Riding into town with no exhaust, no foot peg and a badly damaged foot I started to look for the first hotel I could find. Traffic was bad focing me to walk the bike most of the way, but we managed to find a “7 Days Inn” right off the main drag. I pulled up to the hotel entrance and asked Lisa to get off the bike and go book us a room. It was a little out of our budget range, but I didn’t care. I needed to rest my foot and think about going to the hospital. I unpacked the bike, hauled the bags up to the room, pealed the boots off my feet again and had a shower. My wonderful wife went to get me some medicine for the swelling and the pain and to pick me up some dinner. After some dinner and some meds I passed out. Tomorrow would be a rest day. I needed to take the time to assess the damage to the foot and contemplate the ramifications of what would happen if the foot was broken. I was optimistic though, I could walk and most of the movement had returned to the toes. Except for some massive bruising and some serious swelling I couldn’t really find any problem with the foot. I decided to wait for morning to decide about the hospital.
As a result of the pain the camera spent most of the time in the bag.
Re: Southern China 2009: The How Tough is Your China Built Bike Tour
Day 6: July 31, Guiyang to the Hospital
I slept surprisingly well last night. The pain was subsiding and the feeling was slowing returning to my battered toes. The hospital was the last place I wanted to visit on my vacation and I was trying to put it off as long as possible. The foot was feeling better and I was optimistic about the condition its bones. As the swelling went down the pain in the foot was remaining and I decided to take my rest time to play internet doctor. I looked on many websites trying to figure out how to self-diagnose a broken foot. I read as much as I could, but nothing was encouraging. Basically every site I looked at said I had a 50 – 50 chance of having a broken foot and an even larger chance if I had (like I did) sudden blunt trauma. I decided after lunch to go get an X-ray to find out for sure.
I threw on my crocks and my wife and I headed out the door to find a taxi to take us to the best hospital in Guiyang. If anyone has ever been in a Chinese hospital it is a pretty depressing place. The hospitals seem to care nothing about the patients and nothing about the quality or severity of a patient’s injuries. I could hardly walk and when I arrived in the hospital and asked for a wheelchair, the hospital promptly told me no way. They said if I wanted a wheelchair to move my battered ass around the hospital I would have to leave a 600 RMB deposit to secure the chair. The deposit would be returned to me upon returning the wheelchair, but I didn’t want to go stand in a line at a cashier’s window to get a ticket that would allow me to procure a moving chair, so I decided to walk it out. I can’t even think of what would happen if someone came into the hospital with more severe problems. Even worse was the fact that no one would even look at me before I paid my monies for each individual procedure I needed at the hospital. The hospital registration, have to pay, the booklet they give you for the doctor to scribble in, have to pay. Need an X-ray? Got a broken femur? Can’t walk? Too bad, you’ve got to prepay for everything. You see one doctor in a room with no privacy as he blows cigarette smoke in your face and then he sends you across the hospital to another room. When you arrive at the other room you’re then presented with a bill. You then have to walk back through the hospital to the cashier’s window to obtain a receipt. If you don’t prepay the bill and bring the stamped receipt back to the doctor the hospital will basically ask you to leave. No matter what your problem, if you don’t prepay you don’t get help.
the hospital
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the foot
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the conversation with the doctor..no chair was offered
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the moldy hospital walls
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hospital glamor shot
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the x-ray machine
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getting the picture taken
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My wife and I ran through the rigurmrall of the congested, moldy hospital and obtained all the necessary receipts for me to have my foot examined and then X-rayed. After the X-ray we were told to go for a walk and come back in two hours to get the film.
the wonton soup
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random Chinese wall
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random Chinese family
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We went outside and sat down for a bowl of wonton soup. The hours passed and we went back into the hospital to get the film. When we finally picked up the x-ray we were told we would have to go back to the cashier’s window and get another receipt to pay for a doctor to look at the picture. I decided I was done with this hospital and I thought I had seen enough episodes of Doogie Houser M.D. to be able to understand an x-ray. I held the picture up to the light and was surprised to see no cracks, no breaks, no splinters and no ruined vacation. I was happy. A passing orthopedic surgeon noticed what I was doing and asked me in Chinese where I was from. He was impressed that I could answer all of his meaningless questions about my nationality. I asked him what he thought about the x-ray and he confirmed my diagnosis, no broken foot. He told me to rest the foot for a couple of days and that with some medicine I should be fine. I nodded my head and said I’d try my best to stay off of it for the rest of the day. I went back to the hotel and started to plan my route for tomorrow. I was stoked. No broken bones is always good news.
Re: Southern China 2009: The How Tough is Your China Built Bike Tour
Day 7: August 1, Guiyang fix the bike and get back on the road
A good days rest left me refreshed and excited to get back on the bike. The good news that came from the x-ray had inspired me to get back on the road and chew up some miles. First, however I’d have to get a new foot peg and a new exhaust slapped on the bike. My wife hopped on the computer and did her Chinese thing and came up with the location of a motorcycle market in Guiyang. Luckily it was only about a 10 minute ride from our hotel. The Shineray was in serious need of some love. Short a peg and an exhaust I set off. Car alarms were ringing all around me.
The Guiyang Motorcycle market made short work of finding a new set of pegs. I picked up a new set of dual sport pegs for 45 RMB and started looking for an aftermarket exhaust that would fit the bike. Due to the tight spaces under the wheel and rack it proved almost impossible. I ended out shelling out 180 RMB for a muffler that was really too big for the bike. To make the muffler work I had to use a spring riser on either side of the bike. I’m a little worried about these risers. They cost me 30 RMB for the set and they make the bike quite a bit higher. I’m also not too confident in the metal used to make them. Hopefully the Shineray boys will have a new exhaust system waiting for me when I get to Luguhu later in the coming week. Marcus’ bike also had an exhaust that was about to fail and he was stuck with the same solution as me. He also bought a new helmet to replace the motorcross style he had been wearing. The girls picked up a new set of gloves and then my wife dropped her helmet breaking the front latch and requiring another trip to the helmet shop to procure yet another helmet. 200RMB for a new helmet and we were back on the road.
The new exhaust install
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the new muffler
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Marcus' bike waiting for the same treatment
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working....kind of...
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random Chinese scooter getting tricked out
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It had taken almost the whole day to get the exhaust issues worked out and we were leery about being able put any distance between us and Guiyang. We really wanted to get out of Guiyang. It had been a budget breaking two and a half days. Trips to hospitals, expensive hotels and expensive food had soured us on the whole Guiyang experience. We opened the map book and picked a small city about 150km away. We figured we could probably make it there before dark and that we would have better luck finding cheaper accommodations there. We hit the highway and started down the road. The skies were blue and the road was smooth. Flanked by endless sunflower fields on either side it was a nice mind clearing ride. It was just what we all needed after the stress of Guiyang. We arrived in Anshun, our destination for the day and started to look for some cheaper places to stay. It had been an expensive day the exhaust, helmet, pegs and other minor repairs added up to close to 500 RMB and we were hoping to find a room in the 50-70RMB range. Sadly we weren’t successful, but we did manage to find a nice clean motel with a real toilet for 149RMB. It’s more than we wanted to spend, but it will do for one night. Tomorrow we will push on Yunnan. We’re hoping for good weather and safe day….
