The Great Guangdong Adventure

This is the first time Shenzhen's unofficial motorcycle club went for a proper bike trip.

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CIMG4869 by SerpentZA, on Flickr


The plan: Leave Shenzhen early morning on the 1st of May, take the most scenic and twisty route possible to a town located on the border of Hunan, set up base camp (hopefully meet up with ChinaV and Rich) and from there we would spend a few days riding through the mountains enjoying the scenery before heading back to Shenzhen (okay so it wasn't really that well planned, but that was the gist of it).

First we needed a route, and who better to ask than ChinaV, the man with all the answers :)

Here's the route we got:

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ggdamap by SerpentZA, on Flickr

We bodged together a gps mount and a few usb chargers with some late night drunken soldering and last minute fitment, but it did the job, we all met the day before up at our mountain lockup and set about checking the bikes and readying them for the trip.

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CIMG4735 by SerpentZA, on Flickr


a bike trip in China (or anywhere for that matter) is all about preparation, you need plenty of spares and plenty of tools.

You have to expect that things will go wrong, so you must prepare for any possible eventuality.

It's much easier when travelling in a group as you can spread the load between however many bikes there are (tools and spares are heavy and take up a lot of space). Here are the bikes:

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CIMG4745 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

From left to right:
My QM200GY (seen in the MCM logo) which has been ridden through China umpteen times, still going strong after a little TLC was ready to hit the road again, Martin's beast, the 250cc made to order over the internet no name brand bike which was quite the monster (size wise), Tom's Qingi Zhongshen Hybrid 125cc with a 250cc engine welded into the frame using dodgey engine mounts (one of which almost fell off), surprisingly the quickest of the three.

We left Sunday morning at 6:30am (mainly to avoid any run ins with traffic police, the streets are swarming with them due to the Universiade). Once outside Shenzhen (we went out via yantian past dameisha) we stopped for breakfast.



A lot of Southern China is unfortunately an urban wasteland, dull, dusty, busy, dirty and dangerous with people, trucks, cars and bikes everywhere. We would have to endure these conditions for a few hours before we broke free into the countryside.

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CIMG4740 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

All of a sudden it was like we'd stepped into motorcycle paradise, long twisty treelined roads with almost no traffic, beautiful green rice paddies and mountains surrounding us as we opened up our engines, Tom in the lead with his GPS and street tyres (helps on the twisties), Me on the QM200 in the middle (carrying a passenger and lots of luggage), growing ever more confident and familiar with the bike (this is the first time I've ridden it any distance other than to the local bike shop and back), and Martin wrestling with the beast bringing up the rear (he's on tiptoes riding that thing, but somehow manages to control and tame it).

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CIMG4788 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Here's a picture we took on the side of a mountain around about the halfway mark.

Left to right: Tom, Winston, Martin

Coming soon: Paradise didn't last long, the weather and roads didn't quite play nice...

Oh boy, a Guangdong ride report :clap: and I'm not in it...yet. :naughty:

More please sir :popcorn:

I've got to stop cleaning my chain and get my holiday trip report done.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Haha, looks like this is going somewhere interesting! Amazing to the MCM whore (your bike) back on the road again. Talk about hard-to-kill!

Keep it coming please!

This should be fun and interesting.

Where we left off, Winston, Tom, Martin and the beer girl (Winston's passenger and fiance) were enjoying some beautiful scenery and humming along nice long twisty mountain roads in the countryside.....

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CIMG4763 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

We were somewhere near Heyuan, winding around a big lake / reservoir which was incredible... however, paradise wouldn't last long, we started to hit patches of light rain... which to be honest can be really nice and refreshing.. but not when taking fast corners on knobbly tyres, the roads became a little slicker, and there were more than one "whoa that was close" moments as my drum brakes on the QM200 became lubricated by the rain (and the cheap shit brake shoes didn't help), however all that experience falling off bikes in my youth and a good dose of luck kept me from falling, and we all fared well.

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CIMG4761 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Things were however about to get a little more interesting, the roads suddenly turned to absolute shyte, landslides and mud covered the roads, and either the roads were under heavy repair or still under construction, either way we were now riding through slick, soft clay-like mud filled with water and very dangerous (especially to Tom's bike which is an on-roader and Martin's inexperience on the dirt), this part was taken slowly with everyone having near falls due to either losing grip on the front or rear wheel trying to negotiate the shitty terrain. (sorry too busy riding to get pics).

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CIMG4757 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

once at the bottom of the mountain we were greeted with what has to be one of the worst roads in Guangdong, basically mud filled pot holes between bits of broken concrete, rocks and whatever remained of dirt and tar roads, this lasted for a few KMS, and was also being used by large trucks carrying construction material.... while the other two were cursing and taking it slowly I saw this as an opportunity to put my knobblies to use... about 20 minutes later and with a very angry (I don't understand why she didn't enjoy all the air and muddy splashes) passenger later I stood dripping with mud from head to toe on a tar road waiting for the others to arrive.

Our bikes were caked in mud (as were our clothes and luggage), and almost as an answer to this, the heavens opened up and we got a free shower all the way to our destination...

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CIMG4768 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

We'd been advised to push on all the way to Xinfeng before stopping for the night so that we could take in the sights of the Chinese "Grand Canyon" the next day, and so we did.


The way we figured it we'd traveled somewhere between 350~400kms after having left at 6:30am and arriving at our destination at 5pm, we finally found a hotel with available rooms, did some quick bike maintenance (martin and I got our bikes cleaned) and we headed out for a well deserved drink... what an interesting drink that was...

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CIMG4770 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Sitting outside under a gazebo, lightning flashed about us and thunder struck as torrential rain poured down.. still we stayed put with waitresses running out with our beers getting drenched and their umbrellas getting blown away.. it was quite an experience (I got lots of video footage, I'll post links as soon as they're up on youtube).

Next on the Great Guangdong Adventure.. we hit more amazing roads, make emergency petrol plans, hit small technical issues and meet ChinaV...... stay tuned.

tuned.

More beer :lol8:

Hi Shenzheners, you didn't come acrossa any police checking sites in Heyuan downtown? Were you aware of the police issue but went with luck?

Where we left off, the four of us were getting drenched under a leaky fabric gazebo at a dodgey little riverside restaurant surrounded by torrential rains but eating and drinking like kings (the videos will give you a better idea)...

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CIMG4771 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

We finally made a break for the hotel when the rain died down (this was hours later), but it came pouring down drenching us on the way back anyway.

Being May the 1st we had gone from hotel to hotel looking for a room, but every place was fully booked (either that or they weren't keen on a group of mud covered foreigners messing up the place. The hotel that beer girl managed to find us was a small little place, but they were willing to let us park our bikes in the lobby (a messy mistake on their part).

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CIMG4785 by SerpentZA, on Flickr
Next day we were to head out early, so in order to save time, Tom had the idea of packing some sort of instant food that could be cooked in the hotel rooms using a kettle (things like instant soup, smash, eggs to boil in the kettle... that sort of thing). So we ate some surprisingly good instant mash and soup before heading out (hungover but ready), we decided not to wear rain gear since the weather seemed fine(only beer girl insisted on wearing her raincoat)..... big mistake


about half an hour into the trip we got hit by one hell of a downpour, I was wearing my leather jacket and waterproof riding pants, but that didn't help, I was soaked through within minutes, my heavy leather jacket was now waterlogged as were my leather boots, socks and underwear were soaked too, the only part of me that was dry was my head being covered by my helmet, I couldn't see more than a few meters ahead of me and suddenly there was no Tom (he was leading the pack with his GPS), he had apparently taken shelter from the rain, but pulled too far off the road and by the time he'd turned around to try and flag us down, Martin and I had already passed him, so he hopped back on his bike and followed, we soldiered through.

about half an hour of low visibility torrential rain later the weather started to get better and we hit some rough roads, suddenly Martin decided that he was sick of constantly bringing up the rear and that he'd show us what his bike could do, so off he sped to the front I then noticed half a bungee cord dangling from the back of Martin's bike and dragging on the ground and luckily so did Tom, I was hooting and flashing the highbeams at Martin but he didn't take notice, Tom raced past him and cut him off so that we could see what was what.

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CIMG4777 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

A bungee had gotten snagged in the spokes and then snarled up on the rear hub a potentially big deal if it had gotten jammed up in the rear brake, so first technical casualty...

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CIMG4779 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

We stopped shortly after on a mountain side to have a quick rest and take a few scenic pictures.

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CIMG4786 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Martin and Tom

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CIMG4787 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Tom

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CIMG4789 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Me and Beer girl

Still completely drenched, we pushed on for about another hour until we hit a small town and settled down for some lunch, wrung out our socks and T-shirts and put them out to dry.

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CIMG4795 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Beer girl playing with some chickens...

One thing I've forgotten to mention is that on Day one during our lunch stop, Tom had noticed that the main bolt holding his engine in had worked loose and the nut had fallen completely off (luckily gotten jammed down next to the engine) so that was actually our first potentially bad technical issue.

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CIMG4856 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

****** Intermission time *********

More coming after the break

great keep it coming, love new good ride reports

Woohoo! Black Dog is still in action plus a ChinaV encounter!!!

:clap::clap::clap:

CC

you guys have the best ride reports

*************
Intermission ends
*************

Before we left off, our adventurers were all drying off in a small dirty town restaurant/shop located next to a filthy meat market (which had some interesting features... such as a strange breed of Engine loving flies... seriously hundreds of the buggers thought sitting on hot engines was the thing to do.... ).

It is in this small restaurant that we bought a bottle of local "famous" brandy for 22RMB which would later lead to Martin's 100RMB vomit cleaning fee at our posh hotel.

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CIMG4749 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Us filling up before hitting the mud on Day 1

When this picture was taken we were entertained by a group of local teens on their souped up scooters popping wheelies up and down the forecourt (it's all in the videos).

Anyway, back to Day 2, after a massive, dirty yet tasty lunch (why is it that the dirtier the restaurant the tastier the food???) we spent about 15 minutes trying to get rid of the huge amount of flies that had landed on our engines, even if you revved the engine hard they still refused to move... strange flies... as luck would have it, just as we hit the road again it started to rain... this would be a bitter sweet day indeed (mostly bitter).

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CIMG4802 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

However, raining or not, we had entered some seriously beautiful mountain roads and could now see the signs for the "Chinese Grand Canyon", a spot ChinaV had suggested we stop and see.

There are two parts to this place, a touristy paid for area which has all the views, and a back-road area with a big lake feeding a waterfall, there was a water covered bridge over which some local tourists were walking ankle deep, enjoying the peaceful scenery... that is until I went over the bridge, realised that the water was deeper than it seemed and had to really power through... screams of local tourists being splashed by my mini Tsunami echoed through the "Grand Canyon" that day.


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CIMG4799 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

That water bridge can be seen in the background here.

Okay now you'll have to put up with the fact that I'm a vlogger and tend to take more videos than pictures... so I didn't get a shot of the grand canyon... (ChinaV has plenty I'm sure), but I did take video footage, so keep an eye out for the links.

Speaking of ChinaV, perhaps I should get to that part of the story.

After leaving the Grand Canyon (mainly due to the fact we didn't want to pay to go in, and couldn't find the right path out of there, we backtracked to the main roads and continued on... it's then that both Martin and I ran out of petrol and had to switch to Reserve... we'd done about 180kms, which isn't bad considering Martin only has an 8L tank and my Qingqi has a 9.6L (yes, my 200cc uses more petrol than his 250cc bike.. but that's because the engine is older, I am heavier, and I'm carrying a passenger and more luggage... and having to strain the motor more to keep up and ahead of 250s... enough excuses?).

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CIMG4753 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

After flagging down a local farmer on his 125, we found out at his insistence that there was a petrol station at the bottom of the hill where we'd just come from... We hadn't seen a petrol station, but decided to go and check in any case.

We found an old run down house with an old woman sitting outside feeding chickens, when we asked her where we could find a petrol station, she insisted that she was the petrol station and produced some old sprite bottles containing something that looked and smelled like petrol (although we suspect it was watered down with lamp oil and apple juice).

Funny thing is that she kept asking us if we had "Chinese money" as she couldn't accept our strange foreign currency, even after producing RMB, she still asked us if it was "我们的中国钱" "Our China's money" ;)

She also offered to let us feed the chickens, but we had to meet up at ChinaV in little over an hour, so we decided to skip that and hit the road... (footage of the old woman and her petrol in the vids).

The next set of roads was probably the second best set of roads during the whole trip, (day 4 was the best.. and I have some great photos of that).

We hit some absolutely incredible white knuckle twisties through some beautiful scenery, these corners were fast paced and had the occasional branch on the road or broken down car, but all in all exhilarating. These roads were so fun to ride that once we reached the meeting point (the place we were going to meet ChinaV), Tom and Martin went back for seconds while I waited with the beer girl for ChinaV to arrive (I would have joined them if riding solo.. but my passenger was complaining about being dizzy from all the twisties).

So there we sat at the crossroads waiting for ChinaV to pitch up, and around the corner came the low humming sound of a Vstrom 650, ChinaV had arrived, while we were all being introduced a car pulled up behind us and a woman passenger ran to the side of the road and puked a few times, making the moment even more memorable (smells and sounds associated with events and all).

So we followed ChinaV all the way into town, to a great posh little 5star (more like a 3.8) hotel that he usually stays in.

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The above image is stolen from ChinaV's spring rides report, as we went down into Ruyaun following ChinaV, his wife snapped off a few pictures.

In this one you can see Martin (surprisingly) in the lead, followed by Tom and me and my "dizzy" passenger bringing up the rear.

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Again, following China V down into Ruyuan, this time Tom in the lead trying his best to keep up with ChinaV... which is just not possible, even when he's idling on that 650.


After booking in and freshening up, we all went down for a night of drinking crap beer, cheap brandy, talking about bikes and arguing the finer points of Mac vs. Windows machines (all the while it was pouring down outside).

The hotel was incredibly good value for money, and an amazing place to set up base camp.

In the morning, we bid our farewell to ChinaV and his lovely wife, but not after taking a few pictures and getting some more advice on local riding from the Vstrom rider.

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CIMG4813 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Above, China V and his lovely wife the morning after, just after taking the following pic:

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We were to stay on for the next 3 days, meet up with Rich and ride the best roads Guangdong has to offer...

Stay tuned, next time "The best roads in Guangdong"

Where we last left off, Tom, Winston, Martin and the Beer girl had just said farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Vstrom (well we all actually met up again shortly at the one and only local petrol station). Today being day 3 we were all going to go our separate ways (I’m not talking about the Journey song.. but now that’s stuck in my head).

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CIMG4816 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

A view from a restaurant in Ruyuan

ChinaV and wife were headed back home, Tom and Martin wanted to go muck about in the mountains exploring the local roads and do some close up bird watching (explained later), I needed to spend some quality time with the Beer girl who for some reason wasn’t enjoying riding through mud, rain and dangerous obstacles at top speed like the rest of us, so I decided I’d get the old Qingqi cleaned, take Beer girl for lunch and explore the local town and find a good spot for us to all have dinner.

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IMAG0023 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Tom mucking about in the mountains, just after pulling Martin's bike from the mud

RuYuan is an in the middle of nowhere town, but has its charms, it’s about a 3 horse town with a busy section full of shops, motorcycle dealerships (even real Honda and Suzuki ones alongside the usual Chinese fare), I snapped off a few interesting pics of some of the nicer looking bikes for sale (I'll stick those in another section).

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CIMG4898 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Have to love the creativity of this MKC whose Chinese name was a mix of Mcdonalds and KFC

I decided to get an oil change and lube the chain etc, my bike had for some reason been very difficult to start in the morning, I thought it could be due to the rain, and even ChinaV had come over to try help me get her started with some or other line “oh she remembers her daddy” or some such when she fired up.

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CIMG4894 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

When there's a foreigner fixing a bike, there's bound to be a crowd of curious locals.

Progressively she was getting worse, constantly cutting out, especially under heavy acceleration, I thought that perhaps the apple juice paraffin mix we’d put in the day before may have clogged up the jets in the carb… but no, as usual it’s always something obvious… and in this case it was my “Suzuki genuine part” spark plug which I’d put in before the trip (thinking that a fresh plug was a good idea).

China Bike tip: Always use a brand name you don’t recognize, it you’re buying something that sounds good like a “Genuine Brembo caliper” you know it’s a fake, buy that “Golden Lucky Dragon Star Rice Diamond caliper” instead.

With a new “Genuine Champion” spark plug in place (yes I don’t follow my own advice) she was running well again, this was to be the only technical issue with my bike for the whole trip (other than the shitty rear brake), in fact she was the most solid bike of the lot.

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IMAG0021 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Tom on his hybrid taking a splash

While I was pottering around the town chilling with my bird, Tom was having a completely different encounter with a bird at 60+ km/h, apparently it almost knocked his block off and he was very happy that he had his visor down at the time.

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IMAG0026 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Tom certainly has his way with the birds

The boys were tearing round the twisties killing small creatures and getting muddy whilst I was in a private room at a nice restaurant watching TV and drinking beer.

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IMAG0027 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

They hit a big landslide and Martin’s bike got horribly stuck in the mud, so with a heave ho and a one two three they made a plan, all the while I was tinkering around on the Qingqi, having a beer and enjoying the day.

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IMAG0020 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Fun with landslides and China bikes

*********************
Intermission

When we return, riding above the clouds on Guangdong's best biking roads

best installment yet!

hitting birds directly with my face is my preferred way to kill them too, since simply burning petrol near them is a much slower death and not nearly as satisfying.

If a bird comes, juts duck and cover :lol8:

Tom gets hit by a bird nearly every night out... but his chat up lines are very rude haha

******************
Where we left off, I was having a relaxing day exploring Ruyuan and fixing the old QM200, Tom and Martin were out getting stuck in the mud and ridding the world of flying beasts.

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CIMG4831 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Me, trying my best to strike a "cool guy" pose on the outskirts of Ruyuan.

The day ended with us all meeting at the local bike shop, fixing up the bikes and making a plan to drive to the highest spot in Guangdong the next day, the mountain that we were to ride up is situated half in Guangdong and half in Hunan and is littered with "nature reserves"... very odd nature reserves, but I'll fill you in later.

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CIMG4839 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Shmooozy couple shot (sorry, had to throw one in)

So I struck a deal with the beer girl, she gets to stay in the hotel, potter around town and do whatever she feels like while I head out with the boys and tear up the tallest mountain in Guangdong (saying things like.. it's probably going to rain and there'll be a lot of mud really helped :riding:)

We filled up and head out, the first part of the trip was the same way we'd come down into town following ChinaV on his Vstrom, we were about to hit one of the best G roads Guangdong has to offer, the weather didn't look great, it was wet and overcast, as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains we started to hit clouds, visibility went down to about five feet ahead, the roads were slippery, but once we emerged from the first level of clouds, things started to get really pretty..

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CIMG4852 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Tom taking in the scenery

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CIMG4855 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Nothing like being up in the mountains on a bike, not a single car or passerby, just three blokes, their bikes and amazing scenery.

The thing is, from here on out the scenery just kept getting better and better the higher we went, I stopped and let the others ride ahead so that I could take a shot of this and just take it all in:

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CIMG4859 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Above the clouds, my little camera does this scenery no justice whatsoever (maybe it'll come out better in the videos).

We started to descend and the weather suddenly cleared up, sunny skies and greenery were all around as I tore through a valley filled with farms, rice paddies and beautiful mountains, I was trying to catch up to the other two (since I'd stopped to take that pic and a few videos for youtube).

I caught up to them at a small petrol station in a small little village, we filled up, entertained the local school children who were all coming home from school, and then head up into a so called "nature reserve".

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CIMG4884 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Martin checking on his bike

***********************
Coffee break intermission
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Coffee break intermission over
**********************

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daytrip by SerpentZA, on Flickr

This was the route we were taking for the day (although we did get a bit lost somewhere up at that strange part and ended up in Hunan), this is more or less what we did, it turned out to be between 230~300kms of riding that day.

We asked a local if we had to pay to get into the "nature reserve" or not, he said that if we just drive through the gate we should be fine and shouldn't need to pay, so we did, we drove through a rather big gate and started to go up.

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CIMG4870 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Our bikes parked at an awesome spot somewhere near the top.

The road became extremely hazardous, if this was a nature reserve, they certainly didn't want any cars to be able to drive through it, there were massive rocks and trees scattered on the road, bits of road missing, small rivers at times and missing barriers, basically a lot of fun, we were screaming round the twisties with a "oh shit, big rock", "damn tree", "holy shit that was almost me over the edge" sort of thing.

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CIMG4866 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

The sun had come out and the weather was perfect for riding.

I suppose that the poor quality of the roads was due to the big storms that had been happening all week, but either way it was not a ride for the feint of heart, we stopped somewhere that we thought had to be near to top to have a rest, take some photos and eat some packed grub.

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CIMG4863 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Take note of the lack of barrier next to the road, if you make a mistake.. that's tickets for you.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3511/...01bb74a5_b.jpg
CIMG4868 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

You can see the small twisty roads, note the complete lack of barrier... bloody fun.

We hadn't seen any traffic since we'd entered this place, but as we sat taking in the view, a scrawny little sun-baked man puttered past us on his little 125, stopped a few meters down the road and made a phone call, he must have spent about 15minutes standing there staring at us all the while chattering on his phone... alerting the government to our presence?? Telling his family he'd seen aliens?? Who knows... he eventually got back on his bike and rode off at his usual 9km/h pace.

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CIMG4877 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

Another shot of the scenery..

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CIMG4880 by SerpentZA, on Flickr

This is the way to do it, no sponsorships, no big BMWs or support cars, just a bunch of mates on a shoestring budget carrying enough tools, spares and know-how to keep themselves going, this is motorcycle adventuring.

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In the next installment... we meet up with the Silver Fox, get really good at fixing punctures and despair in the rain....
*************************************

Videos are finally up!

http://youtu.be/2oi-o1qn_Hk

The Great Guangdong Adventure, part 1

http://youtu.be/bxVq60-2YGo

The Great Guangdong Adventure, Part 2

These should get you more or less up to speed with the ride report :popcorn: more report and vids coming soon! (and I'll try to get a youku account for the local chaps)

Great great great great!

Awesome pics & narrative. Can't access the videos cuz of ... well, you know.

Maybe the scrawny 125 guy was sent to see if you folks had fallen off a cliff? You can usually tell if it is a low-level, rural government official if he is riding with black p-leather slip-on dress shoes (always a sure sign). Mid-level officials have the shoes & an i-phone. Senior officials have the shoes, the phone, a black A6 ... and blow > .08.

Tx for sharing!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Serpentza

This is the way to do it, no sponsorships, no big BMWs or support cars, just a bunch of mates on a shoestring budget carrying enough tools, spares and know-how to keep themselves going, this is motorcycle adventuring.

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You could not be more right. That's my kind of adventure too!

Just when you thought it was safe to read other ride reports, the Great guangdong adventure strikes back! (well sort of), there is a new video up on youtube, and the final one is uploading now, I'll provide links and the final installment tonight!

Thanks of the vid. Goes without saying that if you live in China you drive with a china bike. And......if you live in Germany you drive with a BMW :lol8: In USA you drive HD :lol8: But in Finland you can drive whatever :lol8:

I'm curious about Martin's "no-name" internet bike, as it appears to be exactly like most of the cheap bikes I'm looking at on Taobao currently, from Chongqing...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ThePope

I'm curious about Martin's "no-name" internet bike, as it appears to be exactly like most of the cheap bikes I'm looking at on Taobao currently, from Chongqing...

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hey mate welcome to the forum, martins bike is a cqr 250 and your right it's from chongqing. I'll get serpenza to send you a pm, he's bought a couple from the same company now, for the money they are great for short trips and some trail riding around Zengcheng.

I'll be in zc on thursday and friday this week, so if you're around let me know

also there's a huge motorbike market in Guangzhuo you might want to check out for riding gear, there's an article on here about it from chinaV.

cheers rich

Quote:

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Originally Posted by richardktm

hey mate welcome to the forum, martins bike is a cqr 250 and your right it's from chongqing. I'll get serpenza to send you a pm, he's bought a couple from the same company now, for the money they are great for short trips and some trail riding around Zengcheng.

I'll be in zc on thursday and friday this week, so if you're around let me know

also there's a huge motorbike market in Guangzhuo you might want to check out for riding gear, there's an article on here about it from chinaV.

cheers rich

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Thanks Rich.
I'm still trying to find out whether I can get my MC DL at the moment. I haven't had time to sort any of this out yet, as I have to work during the week and the offices are closed on the weekend. My wife is also stubbornly resisting helping me, so that has been a bit of an issue as well. I know about the bike market, but, as I said, I want to start with the license first and then go from there. If I can even get the license, I am still several months out from being able to do that, as I will have to renew my residence permit and contract and temorarily change my residence. in june or july to meet the license requirements. Trying to be patient at the moment and get myself armed with all of the information I can gather from this forum...

Will keep posting updates...

Thanks for your help

Pope

Just a reminder that now isn't the time to.be riding

SHENZHEN police detained a Russian expatriate accused of drunkenly driving an electric bike Friday night near The Peninsula estate in Shekou, Nanshan District, as part of a coordinated action that led to confiscations of more than 4,000 illegal electric bikes across the city.****Police didn’t release the Russian man’s name but said yesterday a blood test showed his blood-alcohol level reached 99.2 mg per 100 ml, exceeding the legal limit of 80 mg per 100 ml.****Police said the man was the first expat caught by police since this month’s start of a 100-day crackdown on electric bike and motorcycle violations. The Russian could face one to six months in jail, police said.****Also in Shekou during Friday’s sweep, a Hong Kong man was fined and had his electric bike impounded because it exceeded national standards for speed and weight.****Police impounded 920 motorcycles and 4,134 illegal electric bikes across Shenzhen from Friday through Sunday. Sixty-eight drivers were detained for driving motorcycles, which are banned in the city; conducting illegal taxi services; or for violently resisting police.****Shenzhen banned motorcycles in most parts of the city in 1997 and placed restrictions on e-bikes that fail to meet national standards in April 2012.****People caught operating a motorcycle can be detained for up to 15 days and fined 2,000 yuan (US$319). People caught operating e-bikes for business purposes two or more times also can be detained, for five to 10 days.****Drivers of electric bikes that fail to meet national standards — no more than 20 kilometers an hour in speed or 40 kilograms in weight — will be fined 1,000 yuan and have their bikes impounded. Fines will be doubled for drivers of illegal electric bikes who carry passengers.****Police said there are about 500,000 electric bikes in Shenzhen and 80 percent of them exceed national standards. E-bike drivers are frequently involved in traffic accidents, with crashes leading to at least 46 deaths in the city so far this year.****

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Serpentza

Just a reminder that now isn't the time to.be riding
SHENZHEN police detained a Russian expatriate accused of drunkenly driving an electric bike Friday night near The Peninsula estate in Shekou, Nanshan District....

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Got a link to the newspaper article by any chance???

it's in today's Shenzhen daily, szdaily.com along with some bullshit article about motorcycle accidents and deaths, so strange how bikes are never mentioned, but now there's a crackdown they have all.these "to justify why we're removing evil bikes" articles :p