Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
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As I write this, I'm sitting indoors at a lovely warm coffee shop sipping a great big coffee and looking outside at the miserable weather, a slippery sheen of icy water covers my bike and I'm in no mood to ride home just yet...
It all started with the idea that Tom (Capt'n Pikey) Myself and beer girl were to ride to YangJiang (somewhere near Hainan).. The idea was that we'd be arriving somewhere with sunny beaches or at the very least nice enough weather to chill out for a few days and enjoy the Lunar new year since the (almost) Southern most part of China should be the warmest place to be in China.. the weather was looking good, just a week before the trip we were having warm sunny days in Shenzhen, I'd spent a few weeks fixing up the CB and getting prepped for the trip.
Prepping the CB:
I'll have the vids on youku this evening, but here's a picture of the finished product:
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New front wheel, new forks (well new tubes and innards), new front calipers/brake pads, new plastics (Rear cowling, front mud guard), new regulator, new crash bars etc.
It was promising to be a good trip, the CB had never been in better shape.. and with the new front wheel she was smooth as silk and handled wonderfully...
[Next up] - A bad omen
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Shortly after the above picture was taken I headed out to meet up with the rest of the Shenzhen Biker gang (RichardKTM and Capt'n Tom Pikey), our bike fixing session (Thanks to Rich for all the help with the brakes) soon ended up being a drinking session as it usually does.... anyway long story short, sometime in the wee hours of the morning I was rolling around on the ground in the rain winded and rather upset that my nice shiny new fixed up bike was all bent and scraped.
:goodtime:
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[Always wear protection... this could have been my face]
About 2 days of hangover and dented pride recovery later I managed to bang the CB back into shape (it wasn't that bad really, bent handlebars, instrument cluster snapped in two, speedo cable torn out, crash bar bent, exhaust scratched up, headlight damaged etc), a few hours later she was looking almost like new (except for the electrical tape holding the instrument cluster together).
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[After being banged back into shape]
.. I had seriously thought about giving the trip a skip after my little fall (it wasn't that little, my watch was torn off my arm, my jacket ripped almost in two, my right eardrum rather badly hurt and a little road rash here and there), but I'm not the sort to back out of a trip, besides I couldn't wait to get my CB out on the open roads to test the new front end.
Sunday morning 8am and everything was packed onto the bike, we were going to head out and meet Tom somewhere near Huiyang, from there we'd head up "Martin's road" a lovely fast straight road that leads all the way to Huizhou.
As you all know... Bikes aren't allowed in Shenzhen and it takes a bit of creative riding to get out of Shenzhen and into the "bike friendly" areas, there's a big police checkpoint that needs to be passed which can be hairy at the best of times.. and as luck would have it as I was apporaching the checkpoint, my clutch cable snapped...
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[I hate this bastard thing]
I managed to make it through (kicking through the gears gently) and for some reason the lights were all green for a ways until finally I reached a big intersection and had no choice but to stall.
At this point we were only 50kms into the trip and already I'd suffered a big setback.
I sent Tom a message and asked him to meet me where I was since I knew he had a spare cable for his Yingang (and since the Yingang is basically a copy of a CB I was hoping it'd fit).
... I wasted no time, got off the main road and started asking around for bike shops..
Since this was Chinese Lunar new year's eve things weren't looking good, all the shops were closed.
[Coming up - a solution]
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
I knew that 2nd bottle of Saki was one too many... we planned a dirt bike trip and only managed two days riding.. we got wet and seriously cold on tuesday even riding up crazy rock climbs and getting stuck in ravines didn't warm us up, i was shaking like a dog with distemper by the end of the day.. are you back in shenzhen yet?? if not ride safe and wrap up warm!!
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Quote:
Originally Posted by
richardktm
I knew that 2nd bottle of Saki was one too many... we planned a dirt bike trip and only managed two days riding.. we got wet and seriously cold on tuesday even riding up crazy rock climbs and getting stuck in ravines didn't warm us up, i was shaking like a dog with distemper by the end of the day.. are you back in shenzhen yet?? if not ride safe and wrap up warm!!
Thanks mate, all good and back now, Tom should be back tomorrow, just banging out the ride report.. and there are videos
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
I followed some directions down a back street and to my surprise, the only shop open on the street was a small bike repair shop.. he asked me what sort of cable I needed and I said "one for a Honda", he sold me a cable for 10RMB which looked like it may work, I ran back to the bike and started installing it.. as I was installing it, Tom arrived looking a lot more padded than usual, he was wearing 5 or six layers of clothing (including his raincoat) under his riding jacket.. I thought he was going a bit overboard since I was just wearing a T-shirt under my leather jacket and nothing other than boxers under my riding pants... (I was seriously unprepared).
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7014/6...15835099_b.jpg
[Tom and Beer Girl all nicely wrapped up in multiple layers of clothing]
Anyway, back to the problem, The new cable seemed to fit, but the wire was too long and well it didn't work. Tom's spare cable fit perfectly as if it was made for the bike... however he didn't want to part with it unless he really had to, so once my bike was up and running again we all rode to the bike shop and eventually found a cable that worked, I bought an extra spare and we continued on.
[Coming up - The weather takes a turn for the worse]
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
We rode on without issue for a while, stopped off to fill up with petrol before leaving the main roads and heading into the "Mountain areas", to my surprise the CB had used a lot of fuel, I'd been taking it easy but still used up 10L in the 130odd kms we'd traveled... so I put in 70RMB +- and Tom put in a depressing 34RMB into the Yingang... (I suppose the CB is a 4cyl 400cc compared to his 1cyl 250.. but still).
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[Tom Parking the Yingang]
Anyway, we started hitting some what would normally be awesome roads... lots of twisties, lots of sweepers all through lovely tree-lined roads... problem was that it started raining... the wet combined with the cold really did a number on me (don't forget I wasn't wearing anything other than a T-shirt, a pair of gloves and a small scarf), my gloves were soon soaked and my hands started to cramp up... it got so bad that I was having difficulty using the clutch since it was too painful to use my hands, we got to an intersection and decided to cut out the scenery and get to the nearest town.. which happened to be Zengcheng.. it was only an excrutiating 35kms away from our current location.
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[Beer Girl standing in the cold outside a Zengcheng bike shop]
We had hoped to stay in a 7days inn that Tom had used before.. but when we arrived it was shut down.. a search on Google maps got us a few results and I led the way to what looked like a promising place.
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[Spot the Tom - Outside the hotel we stayed in]
The hotel we found was wonderful, cheap and nice, RMB100 for a room (130 for a double) and it was on the main street. After unloading the bikes, locking them up in the alley next to the hotel, we retired to our rooms to warm up, freshen up and get ready to go out for a drink, we'd only done a about 220kms that day.. far short of our goal..
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[Watch the video in the post above to see this guy try and start his unhealthy bike]
Tom knew of a place that served draft beer, and after having a few of the bottled veriaty, we went in search of it.. we found the place but it was closed due to the new year, luckily there was another place open nearby and we settled in for dinner.. the food was great (or maybe that's just because it was hot).
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[Good warm food.. sitting outside in the freezing cold]
After a big meal and quite a few beers it was getting even colder.. so we hurried back to our hotel and the heaters within, we'd be woken in the middle of the night by the hotel staff asking us to move our bikes.. but that's a story for the next entry...
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[Cold, wet, deserted streets]
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Hey Serpentza, what caused the big fall? Glad you are OK.
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Quote:
Originally Posted by
td_ref
Hey Serpentza, what caused the big fall? Glad you are OK.
Thanks for the concern, it was my fault, I shouldn't have been out test riding in the wet with an over-inflated front tyre and all that beer didn't help :P
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Hey at least you can celebrate Australia day with more beers.:icon10:
I'm thinking of celebrating Australia day with the quaint Aussie tradition of getting extremely drunk and then skiing down the local ski resort nude except for the Aussie flag draped around me.See what happens. Has warmed up to a balmy -18 now. :lol8:
I bet the Chinese will love that.
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bigdamo
Hey at least you can celebrate Australia day with more beers.:icon10:
I'm thinking of celebrating Australia day with the quaint Aussie tradition of getting extremely drunk and then skiing down the local ski resort nude except for the Aussie flag draped around me.See what happens. Has warmed up to a balmy -18 now. :lol8:
G'Day,
Don't forget to listen to Tripple J Hot 100 during Aussie day......... works a treat via streaming.......
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Where we left off, we'd all gone back to warm up at the hotel and escape the horrid cold... later at some or other hour at night I was woken up by the phone in the room ringing.. I ignored it and then heard the phone in Tom's room ringing (which he answered).. a moment later there was a drowsy knock on my door and Tom saying something about them wanting us to move our bikes...
Thing is, we'd chained our bikes up nicely in the alley under a roof and out of the rain.. This dozy security guard was insisting that we park them on the street in front of the hotel so that he could keep an eye on them (he'd be asleep the whole night anyway I'm sure). So after some half asleep deliberation we finally moved the bikes out of their nice cozy covered parking onto the wet pavement in front of the hotel (it wasn't raining at that moment).
Morning came and I was greeted by this sight:
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[A biker's hotel room]
During the night I'd made a decision, after looking at the weather reports things were only going to get much worse, our destination was going to be basically days of raining (no sunshine as we'd hoped) and the temperature was going to keep dropping.. basically it was going to be an awful useless wet trip with nothing to look forward to other than dangerous slippery roads, crap weather and a whining/complaining Beer girl... I decided that I'd salvage what was left of my holiday and go back to Shenzhen the next day as at least the weather looked reasonable (10 Degrees C and semi-visible sun).
I let Tom know and he agreed, I met him early in the morning as he was going to head out at 8am and try to get to Yangjiang which was about 400kms away... only thing is he didn't leave at 8am.
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[I love being prepared... Charge away little battery!]
Our bikes were soaked as it had rained through the night.. and Tom's bike wasn't starting, that was because he'd left his heated grips on and for whatever reason they'd been connected directly to the battery and not through the ignition.. (not a good plan), this caused them to completely drain his battery... good thing my CB has charging issues and I always carry a spare battery (it's a little smaller for carry convenience 5Ah rather than the usual 7Ah.. but does the trick), a bit of cold/wet morning bodging and Tom was on his way, I took his flat battery up to the room to charge on my fast charger (which I took along just in case).
About 2 hours later and after packing everything nicely we headed downstairs, while Beer girl was sorting out getting the deposit back from the hotel and generally faffing around as she does, I got the CB started... being out in the rain and cold didn't make her too cooperative (my choke lever is broken so I couldn't use the choke..) I eventually got her started by giving her a push start, and she looked more like a steam powered bike due to the cold, either way she was ready to be loaded up.
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[This was the best the weather got the whole day]
[Coming up... the shortcut home]
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
I wanted to get this over with, the shortest and most direct route home was through a lot of small towns and cities (not what you want on a bike trip), but it was new year's day and so I expected the traffic to be light.. and I just wanted to get back... so I struck out, it was about 120KMS+- to get back home, as soon as we left Zengcheng we hit some of the most dreary, horrible sort of urban wasteland that you could ever imagine.. and the weather made it worse..
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[Just about to leave Zengcheng... note the electrical tape holding my rev counter on]
Beer girl was very happy that we were heading back...
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[Yes it was cold]
About 15mins ride out of Zengcheng....
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[Dreary lifeless nonsense..]
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[Suicide inducing scenery]
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[At least a lot of the roads were new]
We stopped about an hour or so after riding to get a coffee and try to warm up a little.. we'd stopped somewhere on the outskirts of Dongguan somewhere along the S120...
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[This is where Beer girl was sitting... you can see all the lovely mud and wetness thrown up from the road]
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[I love my CB... nice from far, but far from nice]
While Beer girl got us a table and ordered us a table I got a text from Tom, he was already half way to his destination, apparently the roads had been boring and the weather was predictably shyte in that direction too.
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[I still can't figure out how some Cantonese restaurants manage to make their coffee taste so shyte and bitter.... it was rubbish but warm. beer girl had some noodles and we were off again]
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[We briefly stopped to put some air in the back tyre and watched some kids play with fireworks]
The riding was pretty rubbish but quick enough.. that is till we hit the S225.. that was awesome.. nice smooth roads and pretty much straight down into Shenzhen, there were a few police checkpoints, but they were all deserted due to it being new year, we sailed home without incident, threw the bags in the house and hopped back on the bike and I took Beer girl out for a proper coffee and a meal.. and that's when I started writing this report.
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[In total 350kms.. the shortest and worst bike trip so far]
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[Me with my CB]
Finally it was all over... however Tom was still out there, he stayed a day at Yangjiang then went straight to Zhuhai to stay with some friends, hopefully he'll write a report about what he came across during the next few days.
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[Beer girl's reward]
End of RR
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Part 2 video coming in about an hour!
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
"In total 350kms.. the shortest and worst bike trip so far"
I did 300km night riding for some occasions for your reference. Hehe.
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Shit buzz. I've had better road trips riding to work.
You'll appreciate it all the more next time you're carving down a dry, warm, sunny mountain!
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Quote:
Originally Posted by
td_ref
"In total 350kms.. the shortest and worst bike trip so far"
I did 300km night riding for some occasions for your reference. Hehe.
Yeah, that's why this is the worst bike trip ever.. usually we average 400kms a day at least...
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Thanks for sharing your misery with us Serpentza :thumbsup:. This is the first time since 2007 that I didn't go on a long CNY ride, I can't believe how shitty and cold it is this year :gaah:.
Fear not, I'm sure the sweltering heat of southern China is just around the corner :icon10:.
Cheers!
ChinaV
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ChinaV
Thanks for sharing your misery with us Serpentza :thumbsup:. This is the first time since 2007 that I didn't go on a long CNY ride, I can't believe how shitty and cold it is this year :gaah:.
Fear not, I'm sure the sweltering heat of southern China is just around the corner :icon10:.
Cheers!
ChinaV
Yeah, and the worst part is that today it's sunny and hot.... I was hoping we would bump into you guys in Zengcheng, but I guess the weather had put an end to your enduro stuff too.
Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong
If you'd like to hear what happened to Cap'n Tom Pikey after we'd split up, here's the rest of the story: http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/sh...Hailing-Island
