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

: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.