Urumqi-Turpan-Dunhuang-Labrang-Xian-Yantai Trip Planning

I'm sending this out here to try and find some helpful tips on places to go, places to see. Maybe people to meet. OR if anyone is interested in doing this trip with us. Here are the details so far.

Put the bike on the train to Urumqi and meet it there on July 7th of this year. So in like a month. Then ride to Turpan. From turpan we get into Gansu and ride through the narrow part of the province. We won't go to Lanzhou but instead around it to the south, hitting qinghai a little and seeing part of the southern gansu teabeatin culture. Then west to xi'an. Terracotta that place up and head NE to enter Shanxi near a fancy waterfall. From there I haven't planned much. But I want to put the offer out there to anyone who has a month of two of free time and a motorcycle. I am going with my wife (Canadian). I have intermediate Chinese and we plan on tenting more often than we sleep in hotels. But it's the wife's first long-distance motorcycle adventure and we may do hotels more often than I plan.

So from the community, anyone wanna offer hints, tips, tricks, things I should pack, roads I should find? roads I should avoid? Bike shops that were helpful? Friends who are willing to meet new foreign travelers on a motorcycle? Riders who would want to ride for a day or two?

good luck on your trip, be carefull when leaving Xinjiang, after the city of Hami the winds can have very high speeds.

Take a look of the second half of our RR:

http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/sh...to-%DCr%FCmqi)

We started out from Changsha, ended our trip at Urumqi and trained our bikes back from there, sort of the opposite of your planned route.

We did motels/hotels/binguans all through our trip

The remarks about the cross wind in Xinjiang are quite accurate. Prepare for it.

Make sure you do Qilianshan, which is definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

Have fun.