Prep Round-China Bike trip, 2-up, April-May 2012

Hey guys, a quick update to check-in : everything is ok for us, we're right now in Yulin, Shaanxi, having traveled to Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu, etc. .

And a funny note : the power of internet !!
Celine, my girlfriend, posted a few weeks ago on a chinese moto forum to ask for road status, giving a few info about us (nationality, type of bike, from Shanghai, etc.), and when checking today after a few weeks, here's what we found !
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A very nice guy spotted us near Kunming, shot pictures of us from his car and posted them !
We are laughing our asses off when we saw this, and that's perfect for us because obviously we didn't have pics of us together on the bike, that's gold ! :lol8:

Fred,
Sounds like a great trip and also seems you are being treated well as a tourist. If I understand your up to date itinerary, you will be coming thru Nanjing towards the end of your trip and heading to Shanghai by following G312 along the river. I can suggest an alternative very nice ride on G104 from Nanjing around the south and west side of Taihu Lake instead. My wife and I just went to YiXing and it was nice once you got out of Nanjing. Basically you either join up with G318 in Huzhou or you could go north from YiXing and join up with your original route on G312 in Wuxi. You bypass Changzhou but also all the traffic between Nanjing and Shanghai. Plus the tea plantations and bamboo oceans on the mountains are nice scenery. The roads have some nice twisties and are fun too.

And of course if you need anything when close to Nanjing, just let me know and I will be happy to help any way I can. Enjoy your adventure.

Thanks Texasaggie !

The end of our trip should not see us going to Nanjing this time (we both went there several times already), but you never know !

Wow!
Yulin, Shaanxi. You've made some real progress. How is it, day to day? Do you get sick of riding or do frequent breaks help?
Looking good in those photos, you two :thumbsup:.

Hey Pete,

I will be very honest with you : I'm absolutely not tired of riding, I don't know if I ever will someday, which sometimes scares me... How am I supposed to go back to the real world (working, etc.) ? :lol8:

But to be very honest : I am not tired of riding, not tired of riding in China because the landscapes are beautiful and always changing, but absolutely, terribly tired of riding around Chinese drivers.

Sorry in advance if I offend anyone here, but I can tell with a relative experience (9,000 km into this trip + more riding in and around Shanghai) that only a very very small minority of Chinese drivers know how to drive in respect of the road rules and others road users around them.
We all know that riding in China is a dangerous business which we accept, and I do not regret one second the trip we are doing right now, it will be wonderful memories for years. But that being said, yes it is dangerous and we have been very lucky a lot of times : I am being very very careful, but your complete focus is taken every second of every minute of every hour of every day, dodging people who never never watch their mirrors (we have yellow jerseys and the light at the front of the bike is always on, how visible can we be ?), or downright cut you off while staring at you in the eyes...

Of course we had several very close calls, and the risk is sometimes very high because of Chinese drivers. A risk sometimes I am pondering, having my girlfriend behind me.

I hope you guys will understand what I try to explain. It doesn't take any of the fun we are having away, and the incredible memories we will have, the incredible landscapes we saw, the delicious food we ate, and the accomplishment feeling we have when we reach some milestones into the trip, but yes, if someone is preparing for a similar trip on a bike : make no mistake about it : it is dangerous, and mostly because of Chinese drivers.

After driving for a while in China, you know one thing for sure : even the best and alert rider on the most prepared bike can be surprised by a car coming out of nowhere.
Today, on the road from Yulin to Fugu, we saw 4 accidents. 2 of them fatal for sure. The 4 of them would have been fatal on a bike...

It will not stop us, but it would be foolish not to pause and consider the risks sometimes.

I have already in mind some long trips in Europe and North America, which I'm sure will be far safer than China ! :lol8:

Cheers mates !

Fred

Wow again.
Four in a day, two fatal and none of them involving bikes.

Good job Fred, especially with a passenger on the back the whole way.
Have you been paying attention to your mileage (kilometerage) between filling up and running low on fuel? I'd like to know how the bike does with full luggage + passenger on all that varied terrain. Somewhere between 400-500km per full tank I'm guessing.

Doesn't matter if you don't know. Your safe and having a good time; that's what counts.
Keep us updated! I'm waiting for the time you pass through Shandong :popcorn:.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by soberpete

Have you been paying attention to your mileage (kilometerage) between filling up and running low on fuel? I'd like to know how the bike does with full luggage + passenger on all that varied terrain. Somewhere between 400-500km per full tank I'm guessing.

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Hehe Pete, I did more than that : I'm using an app on my HTC (Fuel log) to keep track of each and every refill and the fuel mileage.
I can then tell you precisely the figures until now (around 9,000 km into the trip), which I intend to write on the RR here, with also my comments about the YBR250, which will be very positive I should say.

Those figures are only for the trip, which means 2-up with full luggages (around 165-170 kg of weight on the bike including ourselves of course !) :
Best mileage : 2,55L/100km (92 miles per gallon US) : this is best attained with a stabilised speed of around 80 km/h, near 5,500rpm, steady for a whole tank.
Worst mileage : 3,44L/100km (68,4 miles per gallon US) : I'm still baffled how in the world I reached this number, I thought I had a leak until further figures reassured me. The difference is that this day the road was excellent and I was going 100 km/h on average, so quite high sustained rpm.
Average mileage : 2,8L/100km (84 miles per gallon US). Combined with a 19 liters tank, this is one of the reason for the YBR 250 to be an excellent touring bike for China (I insist for China, as here it is difficult to use all the power of a bigger displacement bike, in others countries it would be different).

Cheers,

Fred

3,44L/100km at it's worst!

My maths isn't great but I think that would give you about 552kms on a full tank.

Christ, that's about the same distance I get out of a full tank riding it normally (like a bat out of hell, that is). That is only carrying the occasional heavy backpack and going two's up from time to time.

I guess that most of my petrol goes into stopping at the lights and commuting while in the city. You're out on bigger roads going at a steady pace so - despite the weight you've put on the bike - during the long and continuous riding (with the exception of all your daily, emergency stops) the YBR 250 is really displaying some good fuel efficiency.

Nice :17:

And we arrived in Shandong !
Sorry for the short notice Pete and others, we just decided this morning of the road we would take for the day, and if we would stay or not in Shijiazhuang (Hebei) or not. Finally we're now in Liaocheng (Shandong) and set for the night. Tomorrow we'll take off for Tai'An where we will stay a minimum of 1 day to climb the mountain there (Taishan), then we'll leave for Qingdao, where we will spend a couple of days I think.

If anyone from Zibo or else :icon10: want to arrange a meeting with us (or has time !), please post here, and we'll try our best to meet each other !

Cheers and sorry again for the short notice !

Fred

:clap: I'm shocked that you're here already but it's a pleasant shock.
I am going to talk to my boss and see if I can get some day's off work a.s.a.p. before you head out of Shandong.

I'd quite like to ride out to Taishan to see you guys on your way out. There are some lovely, twisty mountain roads down that way but only ZMC888 knows how to navigate them so I'd better check up on him to see what he's doing.

So you posted your last message yesterday... have you climbed the mountain already? What's next on your agenda?

ZMC888 is fully booked and I'm only familiar with a certain number of roads between Taian and Qingdao but that's the only bad news.

Still want to go straight to Qingdao from Taishan? The quickest and most boring way would be (Option 1:) to cut straight through Laiwu from West to East and on though to Yiyuan (about 90-100km), however, I want to discourage you from doing it this way. It will be nothing but a long boring road of pure industry and articulated lorries. The only bit of fun riding you'd have would be on a small stretch of freshly laid road maybe 10km or so long that's just east of Laiwu.

Option 2:
Meet up with me just north of Taishan and I'll take you North-east through the twisty mountain roads, passing north of Laiwu (very close to Boshan) and then south-east down to Yiyuan. The trip will be longer (roughly 140-160km long) but you'll see many of both my and ZMC888's favourite roads!

After reaching Yiyuan it would be up to you to navigate to Qingdao because I've never ridden out that way before.
Let me know what you guys want to do. I have to go to class in the morning but I can get the time off to do this pretty soon afterwards.

Hey Pete, fantastic reply, thanks mate !

To let you know about our agenda : today we'll climb the Taishan, and we planned to leave Tai'An for Qingdao tomorrow morning.
We would both be very pleased to meet you and excited by your option 2 !
Problem is : you're not at our disposal, so would you be available tomorrow (June 5th) for this meeting and road together ? And if yes, when ?

We are flexible in our agenda, meaning that we will maybe not reach Qingdao tomorrow, but maybe stop somewhere along the way for the night, for example Zhucheng, and reach Qingdao on June 6th.

Thanks again anyway, we're definitely up for this bit of road together !

Cheers,

Fred

I'll get back to you early this afternoon about my availability Fred. Enjoy the mountain!

Would love to ride with you but I'm snowed under with work and family commitments, although I've got Friday and Saturday free.

My suggestion would be to go Taian>Jinan>Laiwu>Boshan>Yiyuan (districts not cities), far from direct but stunning twisty mountain roads, almost made for a YBR250.

Hey ZMC888,

Don't sweat it for the meeting, we're not the President and his wife anyway ! :lol8:
Pete will check for the best roads, and we shall meet tomorrow morning between Tai'An and Zibo, then follow the roads you both know around Boshan and to Yiyuan.
Looking at the map, I think I already spotted the roads you're talking about, but let's wait for Pete to see what he will come up with !

Cheers,

Fred

Awaiting ride report and pictures!:popcorn:

Good to know you're road spotting ahead of the game. I'm sure you'll appreciate some of the roads and sights (mainly mountains).
BTW before I posted this post, Fred, you and I were both level on 305 posts. That's just some extra competition now!

306 even ! :lol8:

Anyway with the ride report coming up, I'll post more soon ! You definitely have to start yours Pete !

Just got home....
...Wow, what a day.

I left Zhangdian city centre this morning at 08:00am after getting up early for an oil change, chain lubing and tire pressure checks.
Met up with Fred and his lovely misses around 10:30.
We rode about... how many kilometres together? I clocked over 400km in total for the day but my ride from Zhangdain to Taishan and the ride back from Yiyuan to Zhangdain were both alone. We did at least 200km of varied roads together, right?

In a nutshell:
-I was late for our designated meeting at a reservoir north of Taian.

-Fred rode a little way toward the direction of my approach and we eventually met.
-I took him down some roads that I claimed to be familiar with but still got us lost a couple of times :WTFamI.

-My GPS wasn't working too well but Fred's one was pretty damn good. I need one like that if I'm going to tour China one day.
-I got a bit lost again:WTFamI but eventually got onto a familiar track resulting in some photos being taken (coming soon from Fred).

-Fred liked the big, wide, smooth and clean windy road that I took him down from Boshan to Yiyuan.

-I left him and his misses there, said goodbye and raced home for my 18:30 lesson... but not before we were ambushed by a Chinese couple asking the same old questions:
"How much was the bike?"
"How fast does it go?"
"Where are you from?"
"..."
"How much was it again?"

The excitement of the day and the race back to Zhangdian left me with little energy for my English class but it was worth it.
All the best to you guys. I hope your final run back the Shanghai is a smooth one.

Sounds awesome, you guys! Looking forward to Fred's pictures.

Well well, where to start, it was such an awesome day !

Before starting, I have to say something right out of the bat : Pete, you were an absolute ace yesterday, you're such a kind and nice bloke, we were both very pleased to have met you !
And before you start blushing, who takes a day off, rides for 300km, leads the way for us and shows us the most beautiful landscapes and roads Shandong has to offer ?? And you even thought about making me practice my U-turns when pretending to be lost ! Just joking mate !:lol8:

Thank you very much Pete for yesterday, with Celine we are very honored to have met you yesterday.
Guys, if any of you go through beautiful (but smoggy) Shandong, go out of your way to meet Pete, he's worth it and more !

ZCM888, sorry we couldn't meet, but I'm sure it would have been the same with you !


That being said, let's see the pics ! Honestly I do have a hard time choosing which ones to post here (you will get everything Pete, I promise !), we shot 256 yesterday !

Fist thing first, wit Celine, we stopped to take some pictures of the landscape when we heard the high revs sound of a YBR 250 engine, could that be ? Yes, that was Mighty Pete with its black horse !

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After the formal introduction and usual trash-talk was done (Pete, did I tell you that the red ones are faster ? :icon10: ),
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"no I swear, I can pin it to 180 km/h ! True story !"


we followed Pete on the beautiful roads of Shandong, while Celine was snapping pics "on the move" !
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Pete, I'm sorry we ruined your fun, being so slow in the twisties !
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And that's a very small lean angle from Pete, I swear I saw him touch his elbow on the road while cornering !... I call him Pete Stoner now...


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Fully equipped Pete, looking good !


To be continued in the next post !...

Still shooting on the move, we managed to catch a glimpse of the ever-eluding "Pete Stoner of Zibo" :
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Avoiding straws all the way (and stealing some under the bike too...)



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Overtaking move, we pulled this off ! Haha Pete, you didn't expect this one from the heavy-loaded red one, huh ? :lol8:


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Western-style : horses resting outside while the men drink inside...


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"Fred, are you really sure that there's a turbo-boost button under here ?"


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To be continued...

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Pete navigating trough the straw and the farmers...


One of our road for the day, lovely !
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Waiting for Pete to succeed to pick his nose with the gloves and helmet... Come on mate, I told you it's impossible, I've tried before...



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Pete trying to find Shandong on his GPS, and me still being a kid...




To be continued...

As Pete wrote, we swapped bikes at one point, to feel the differences between our mounts :

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Pete : "now go on, you slow donkey ! I'll keep the red one and the missus !"



But then, after a full day of fun, it was time to go our separate ways, as we had a hotel to find, and Pete had classes to give !
No tears were shed, we tried to look tough through all of it !

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And the last pic, in order to see who's hiding behind the camera and took all of the day's pics !
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It was an awesome day with you Pete, thanks again, and we will keep in touch promise. Don't forget to check out the 2 bikes I mentioned (daily commuter and touring : Honda NC700X, and the "passion" bike : the Triumph Scrambler !


For us, the day was not over as a Chinese guy came to speak to us while we were parked in front of a big hotel in Yiyuan and helped us to negotiate a good discount on the room : a top official in the police force ! Followed a very expensive dinner with him and his friends (he invited us), where we drank approximately 8 bottles of beer each...
It's without saying that after a full day ride, it killed us....!
But now we arrived in Qingdao, where we will spend at least a full day tomorrow.


Cheers,

Fred

Sounds like you guys had a great time! I hope we can do the trip on Triumphs or big Hondas one day.

Fred: génial! On dirait que vous vous êtes bien amusés! I knew Pete was a nice guy, he was helpful getting an English version of the YBR250 user manual for me. And too bad you are leaving Shanghai and China soon. I myself have just arrived in Shanghai 10 months ago and I have only had my YBR250 for a couple of weeks. I could have used your advice!

Great pictures! Thanks!

I was actually going to do a post that today was a big day for me: I drove my bike to work for the first time. I checked the weather forecast: no rain announced. I planned to leave the office at a decent time so as to not have to drive in the dark on my first ride from work. I figured it would best as a newbie to worry about only one thing at a time. Great plan. I actually managed to fail on both counts: I left in the dark, and it rained... But I made it home safely. I have heard so many stories about the slippery markings on the road surface that i think I managed not to touch a single white line!

But then I read Fred's ride report and I thought my little adventure is so lame in comparison...LOL

Thanks for the report. Maybe we will meet someday!

But what a way to wrap up your 10 years in China! Good for you and Céline!

Bravo!

Haha, very nice comment Dipstick, thanks a lot !

One year ago, I was in your exact shoes with the first commuting in Shanghai with the 250, so I can understand ! I don't know where you live/work, but please be extra careful all the time, even more so when it rains. Some roads like the Hongqiao lu (which I call the U-turners road) are especially dangerous because fast and people are indeed making U-turns there every 50 meters or so...

I'll be in Shanghai from June 15th to 30th, so maybe we can meet !

Cheers,

Fred

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A little immaturity keeps the soul young :icon10:. You caught me 100% unaware!

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:eekers: Your manoeuvre was indeed unexpected! I shall never underestimate the French again.


The day felt busy, sapped a lot of my energy and was a lot of fun. If only we could go back and do it again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fred

Haha, very nice comment Dipstick, thanks a lot !

One year ago, I was in your exact shoes with the first commuting in Shanghai with the 250, so I can understand ! I don't know where you live/work, but please be extra careful all the time, even more so when it rains. Some roads like the Hongqiao lu (which I call the U-turners road) are especially dangerous because fast and people are indeed making U-turns there every 50 meters or so...

I'll be in Shanghai from June 15th to 30th, so maybe we can meet !

Cheers,

Fred

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I guess I am a disaster waiting to happen: I work downtown near Jing An temple and I live in Hongqiao. So I do have to take a large portion of the U-turners road twice a day. I am very careful though.

I am encouraged to learn that after only one year of driving in Shanghai, you felt like you could take on this big cross-China trek. Maybe it is true when they say one year of driving experience in Shanghai is worth 10 years experience in Europe or North America!

Would love to meet. Maybe there will be another no-bike night in Shanghai before you leave the country, but even if not, we could arrange something.

Stay safe!