A Thousand K in a day

A long time ago I read a post by pumpkingman about a two day ride from Beijing to Chengdu. Although most of the trip was on the expressway, I was impressed that someone had actually covered that kind of distance in China so quickly. Unfortunately, we never heard from pumpkingman again, hope he is still having fun out there.

I've talked to many of the riders here on MCM about covering 1000 kilometers in a single day. Plenty of people have made it over 500, and some have even topped 800, but I've never heard of someone managing 1000 kilometers using regular S, X, or G roads without riding at night. So I decided to give it a try.

The first thing I had to do was piece together a route that would avoid construction. I have plenty of GPS tracks, and most of them are coded by speed, so I constructed a loop that would enable me to maintain a good pace while avoiding delays.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k15.jpg

Here is the final GPS track, color coded by velocity.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k16.jpg

Good morning it's 5:11 AM.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k01.jpg

I was on the way by 5:30. It would be another 30 minutes before the sun came up, but that half hour was spent on well lit roadways with no traffic.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k02.jpg

My first stop around 8:45 AM. Change of face shield and gloves. The temperature has gone from 10ºC to 17ºC, much better.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k03.jpg

10:45 AM - Half way there at 501 kilometers.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k05.jpg

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k06.jpg

12:10 Quick lunch along the river on G323.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k07.jpg

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k08.jpg

2:30 PM Another brief stop and scenery shot.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k09.jpg

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k10.jpg

3:30 Every time I pass this break away ramp on G105 there's a truck on it. This one almost broke through the end barrier.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k11.jpg

Getting closer to home, I think I'm going to make it.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k12.jpg

Sun is starting to set as I cross the river into Dongguan.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k13.jpg

30 minutes until darkness, 20 minutes from home.

http://www.contactdi.com/Processed/1k14.jpg

Rolled in a touch after 6:00 PM, just in time for beer o'clock :goodtime:

I used two different GPS units and got slightly different results:

Time: 12:50
Distance 1059.2km
Moving Time 12:03 Stopped :47
Average Speed 87.82 km/h
Total Ascent 7142
Total Descent 7141

Time: 12:48
Distance 1055.5km
Moving Time 12:00 Stopped :47
Average Speed 87.91 km/h
Total Ascent 7674
Total Descent 7671

I wouldn't call it a fun ride, but at least I finally made an iron butt ride in China.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Nice ride. 1000k in a day in China is pretty nuts. Congrats

Congratulations! Impressive ride, particularly down South :thumbsup:
I planned one but never did it. You inspired me to give it a try :riding:

And tell us how the "ïron" feels like after such a ride :lol8:

"Here is the final GPS track, color coded by velocity."
hi chinav, what kind of apps can do that? do you know any run at android phone?

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Originally Posted by chinabiker

And tell us how the "ïron" feels like after such a ride :lol8:

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When he got back home I was outside his garage preparing my TGR for the next day enduro ride.
And, of course, we went for that ride, looking for all the most messy trails in the surroundings.
He ain't got no iron ass. Just plain Stainless Steel one! :icon10::icon10:

Gor blimey. Stunning ride!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by td_ref

"Here is the final GPS track, color coded by velocity."
hi chinav, what kind of apps can do that? do you know any run at android phone?

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In 2002, some smart people issued a GPS standard called GPX (GPS Exchange Format). Unfortunately, evil companies like Garmin, Google, TomTom, etc. decided it just wouldn't be fun having an open source universal standard, so they forced everyone into their own proprietary file formats. The good news is, almost every GPS device that can record tracks has the ability to output the results as a GPX file. I know little about Android and it's GPS abilities, but I would assume that it's able to output in GPX. I don't think KML will work, as the basic KML format only stores location and altitude, not speed. Anyhow... get on your moto and track your ride, save it as a GPX file, and then go to GPS Visualizer

Set the form and then upload your GPX data.

http://www.contactdi.com/2010/gpsv1.jpg

You will get a KML or KMZ file that you can open in Google Earth. Here you can see my dirt bike ride from Sunday. The color coding is automatically generated based on your top speed. This can go wonky on you if your GPS has a brain fart and you get some 200 km/h reading. If that happens, open the GPX file in a text editor and just remove that line.

http://www.contactdi.com/2010/gpsv2.jpg

Cheers!
ChinaV

Thank you for the detail explation. That website is very useful (who deveope that must be really briliiant guy).
Too bad Google Earth only import KML format file, but My Tracks - develop by the same company - free GPS tracking software runs in Android phone capable exporting data in GPX. After recorded a track I can upload it to Google Maps, then shows up at "My Maps" which comes very handy examine the track.
I had limited budget and chose Android phone. It has lots of free apps those are very usable to me.
By the way, 1000km in a day, wow..
TD

Wow, i am speechless. Thank you ChinaV for once again rendering any of my future efforts completely meaningless.

500km before 11 o'clock!!! What the hell are you on?!?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by td_ref

Too bad Google Earth only import KML format file...

I had limited budget and chose Android phone. It has lots of free apps those are very usable to me.

TD

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You can open a GPX file in Google Earth by going to File-->Open--> then select your GPX file on the hard drive.

Nothing wrong with Android, it's looks to be the future of smartphones and I'll probably end up with one soon.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by felix

Wow, i am speechless. Thank you ChinaV for once again rendering any of my future efforts completely meaningless.

500km before 11 o'clock!!! What the hell are you on?!?

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Just high on motorcycles :17: :riding:

Any effort you make to ride a motorcycle and share the experience with others is hardly meaningless. We all have different ideas about riding, and each of us has our own little triumphs. Arriving home safely to cold beer is all that really matters.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Felix

What the hell are you on?!?

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Meth? :icon10:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by felix

500km before 11 o'clock!!! What the hell are you on?!?

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Meth and a 650? :lol8:

CC

ChinaV, hat's off to you on a spectacular adventure! What's most impressive is that you had time to smell the roses a bit, and even snap some pix.

Following up on Felix's comments, I'm now thinking that he and Motokai and Milton and I and others should be mapping out great one-, two- and three-day rides out of Shanghai that we can all share and update as roads and routes change. This of course plays right into your call for a centralized routing/mapping resource. I love the idea of having some "off the shelf" rides that come with relatively accurate notions of time and distance involved.

great accomplishment!

cheers

China V,

That is a lot of riding given the amount of truck traffic on some of those back roads. Very smart getting out early as it looks like you got a lot of km done before the truck drivers even woke up. The point that really boggles my mind is how you went out for a 13hr ride and only stopped for 47 minutes, including gas fill-ups. Iron Ass doesn't even begin to describe the pain you must have been in. Amazing accomplishment, glad you are still alive to tell the story.

Ryan Pyle

ChinaV,
Enjoyed your trip report and pictures.

Roughly 500 microseconds after ChinaV submitted this new thread, he skyped me a link to it :icon10:
And yes, I understood the challenge between the lines :lol8::lol8::lol8:

I showed ChinaV's story to my riding buddy Robert, aka freerider on MCM, and without too many words we decided to ride 1k in a day - it happened yesterday :rolleyes1:

We started early and rolled off at 5:28. As ChinaV, we also changed our gloves at the first fuel stop, but from the thin ones to the thicker as temperature fell from +8 to +2C as we headed higher up :confused1:
At the second stop, at 9:00, we had covered 366km, reached an altitude of 900 meters and had sub-zero temperature for the first time.
An hour later, back on the road and as we climbed a pass, temperature fell further and it started to snow :eekers:
We reached the high plain of Inner Mongolia, and stayed between 1200 and 1600 m, well below freezing temperatures and snow showers for the next four hours :eekers::eekers:

At our third fuel stop around noon with then 580km on the clock, the tank lever on my bike was frozen.

http://www.china-biker.de/forumfiles...0in%20snow.jpg
bikes and snow


At stop no 4 around 14:00, we came back down to below 1000m and above freezing, with my tank lever frozen again.

http://www.china-biker.de/forumfiles...ated%20ice.jpg
frozen snow on the fender - at stop 4

We ended up in our favorite pub at 16:50 after being caught a bit in traffic and being rejected to enter the expressway once. We burned about 70 liters of gasoline each and we are sure that we haven't been overtaken a single time.
We planned 1150 kms - in honour of our 1150 cc bikes - but as we were frozen down to the bones, we cut is "short" :lol8:


Tracker readings
Time: 11 hrs 27 min
Distance: 1026.3 km
Moving Time: 09 hrs 54 min
Stopped Time: 01 hr 33 min
Average Moving Speed: 103.6 km/h
Average Overall Speed: 89.54 km/h
Total Ascent 5329
Total Descent 5342

http://www.china-biker.de/forumfiles...0day%20map.jpg
map

http://www.china-biker.de/forumfiles...%20profile.jpg
altitude profile

http://www.china-biker.de/forumfiles...20Drivelog.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chinabiker

we are sure that we haven't been overtaken a single time.

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:lol8::lol8::lol8:

What a strange club this is.... the "Torture Yourself on a Motorcycle in China Club" :crazy:

Congrats and impressive statistics :bowdown:

Cheers!
ChinaV

Dear Andy,

You guys are hardcore!! Bloody snowdrifts! Subzero riding conditions. Sure hope they had Pfefferschnapps at that favorite pub of yours.

I'm sure you've noticed that your post appears twice. Worse yet, at least for me, several images are not rendering, and appear instead as little should-be-a-picture-here icons. And that's with a veepeeyenn running.

Congratulations on a ballbuster (or should that be Hodenfrorer?) of a ride!

Look forward to seeing all of your images.

cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChinaV

:lol8::lol8::lol8:

What a strange club this is.... the "Torture Yourself on a Motorcycle in China Club" :crazy:

Congrats and impressive statistics :bowdown:

Cheers!
ChinaV

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Self torture - I never thought I'd do that :lol8:
Regarding statistics, we have to admit that we had 150 kms empty expressway in the early morning.
Also, the roads of Inner Mongolia and Northern Hebei are as straight as drawn with a ruler, for as far as you can see with occasional bends - ideal turf for such an attempt - in the right season of course :lol8:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chinabiker

Also, the roads of Inner Mongolia and Northern Hebei are as straight as drawn with a ruler, for as far as you can see with occasional bends - ideal turf for such an attempt - in the right season of course :lol8:

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So I'm guessing your speed data doesn't look quite as erratic as mine. :eek2:

http://www.contactdi.com/2010/1k_report.jpg

And hats off to Robert, it looks as though he tackled those tempuratures without handguards :eekers:.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChinaV

So I'm guessing your speed data doesn't look quite as erratic as mine. :eek2:

[IMG]http://www.contactdi.com/2010/1k_report.jpg[/IMG]

And hats off to Robert, it looks as though he tackled those tempuratures without handguards :eekers:.

Cheers!
ChinaV

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Here is our speed diagram. Particularly the first 200km it seem less erratic :lol8: :lol8:

http://www.china-biker.de/forumfiles...peed%20dia.jpg

Yep, Robert is without handguards, but we are with heated grips. Although we didn't feel the heaters, we believe they helped :lol8:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by euphonius

Dear Andy,

You guys are hardcore!! Bloody snowdrifts! Subzero riding conditions. Sure hope they had Pfefferschnapps at that favorite pub of yours.

I'm sure you've noticed that your post appears twice. Worse yet, at least for me, several images are not rendering, and appear instead as little should-be-a-picture-here icons. And that's with a veepeeyenn running.

Congratulations on a ballbuster (or should that be Hodenfrorer?) of a ride!

Look forward to seeing all of your images.

cheers

---

Hey Jeff

No Pfefferschnaps, but tea and coffee we ordered at the pub - their staff couldn't believe that :icon10:

The post appeared twice and I think the moderator has taken care of it. The reason for this and the non showing pics seems to be that I was using Google Chrome to post :confused1:

I hope you see the pics now :rolleyes1:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chinabiker

...I was using Google Chrome to post...

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Thanks, Andy. Yes, it all looks fine now, but I'm surprised you're having problems with Chrome. I've been using it almost exclusively for months, and have posted frequently to MCM without any problems. I'm running Chrome on a Mac; maybe you are running Linux or Windows?

Again, awesome ride. You guys have really thrown down the gauntlet.

Next challenge: Do 1k on a Chinese bike. Once I get this friggin' shank out of my shoulder, I'll organize a Jialing posse and we'll see what we can accomplish with our big celestial thumpers.
:riding::riding::riding:

cheers!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by euphonius

Thanks, Andy. Yes, it all looks fine now, but I'm surprised you're having problems with Chrome. I've been using it almost exclusively for months, and have posted frequently to MCM without any problems. I'm running Chrome on a Mac; maybe you are running Linux or Windows?

Again, awesome ride. You guys have really thrown down the gauntlet.

Next challenge: Do 1k on a Chinese bike. Once I get this friggin' shank out of my shoulder, I'll organize a Jialing posse and we'll see what we can accomplish with our big celestial thumpers.
:riding::riding::riding:

cheers!

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I am replying to this with Chrome (8.0.552.0) now and it seems to work. No idea what it was - shouldn't have used version 9 probably :mwink:

http://www.china-biker.de/forumfiles... odo start.jpg
bike reading at start

http://www.china-biker.de/forumfiles...ke odo end.jpg
bike reading end

You guys are nuts, doing that in sub-zero weather! Absolut amazement.

Jesus, all this one-up-manship is making me want to join in! The most i did in a day on the Galaxy was just over 500km, but it was mostly mountain stuff. Picking a flatter, straighter route through northern jiangsu i do wonder if it would be doable. With a top cruising speed of 95/100 kph though, it would require way more hours than there is sunlight in a day at this time of the year. Ok actually on second thoughts screw you guys, i'm sitting this one out.

Both, ChinaV and Chinabiker (Andy) deserve our respect for their 1K-km-trips.
Awesome!!!
ChinaV because he made his trip in a more densely populated area, which required more stops and a lower average speed, therefore more concentration then usually. And: He made it alone.

Andy rode through chilling temps, that's very, very tough, even with heated grips and good gears (ball heater, build-in coffee injection???). The road conditions with snow and ice also require a lot of concentration, you guys must have been pretty exhausted at the end.

I have never made (I never dared to) make such long trips on a bike in China. Even 1k-km-trips in a car in China aren't easy. Or 1k-km-trip on a bike on the German Autobahn can be very exhausting (keeping the average sppeed above 200 km/h ;-). But with a bike in China: WOW!!!!!!

So, what's the next highlight? 1.5K-km or 2K-km...?
Maybe possible in the western porvinces, around Urumqi or Kashgar where the roads are empty, new and flat and during long summer days? Hhm... the frequent police checkpoints in these regions might be a problem for the necessary average speed.
Provided that the sun is up for 18 hours (approx. 15 hours riding) you have to ride with an average speed of 100km/h to complete 1500 km.
That would be like a cannonball race...
Possible? I'll gladly take the bets!:naughty:

Another congratulations on the ride. We've ridden 700 kms in a long day on Changs (Beijing to Qingdao) but next year we gotta try for the 1 KM marker!
Regds,
Jim
www.bmwsidecar.com

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jimbosidecar

... but next year we gotta try for the 1 KM marker!

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The race is on :lol8:

Hi Peter,
nice to read from you and hopefully you've recovered from the May mishap :confused1:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peterkue

So, what's the next highlight? 1.5K-km or 2K-km...? Possible?

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1000 miles, which would make a "real" iron butt is possible - I think.
2000km ? I don't think so but who knows :rolleyes1:

Dude, 1000Km is quite a challenge on the Chinese roads!

Nice to see that you still have your trusty Suzie.