October 1st - Ride 2011 BJ to the Dragons Head

RR BJ-QHD and back

So my first longer trip and my first ride report, here we go:

My GF and I were riding two up to QinHuangDao/Shanhaiguan. All in All we did around 820 km in 4 days with day 3 mainly transfers and sightseeing in ShanHaiguan. We set out on October 1st. I noticed in many of the other RRs that if zou plan to get on the road early, it doesn’t work out. So, as we had some celebrations to do the evening before, we did not plan to get on the road early and guess what – it worked out fine! I switched on my GPS at Dongzhimen at around 10 a.m. First we followed the airport expressway, then switched to the Jinping Expressway to the east.
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Motorbike trip to SHG October 2011 by fahni
We got off the Expressway at Pinggu and drove leasurely around the countryside with a nice feast late noon and then decided that we would not be able to make it to XingLong anymore so we settled for the next bigger town down south the road we were on which happened to be JiXian in Tianjin municipiality. During the whole trip we had difficulty finding accommodation not because of national day tourist masses but because of registration restrictions for smaller Chinese hotels. So first we found some decent Chinese hotel which after we bunked and changed clothes told us that we need to find another place because they are not allowed to register foreigners. OK, packed all the gear again and got back on the bike. After we asked in 2 other small ones and in one that seemed to be the governments official guest house (with a very unsocialistic price range) we found a reasonable priced one and bunked for good for the night. We walked around town a bit until we found some snack street and feasted on everything that can be put on a chuanr before we went back to the hotel, straight to bed and fell asleep in front of the TV.

On day one we made around 200km in just over 5 hours.

Next morning we missed breakfast because we were downstairs only at 8:30, so we checked out and decided to have an early lunch instead. On to the roads of JiXian again which (I guess) has nothing special to offer but seems to be a nice enough town. There is a big reservoir nearby and you can see that some rich people already got their weekend villas at the slopes surrounding the artificial lake. Roads first were not particularly interesting but after we passed XinLong and turned onto S355/G112 it got better. A lot of trucks passed by in the opposite direction but for us riding was smooth. We pulled to the side in one small village and ordered some standard ChaoCai. When we talked to the Laoban and told him that we wanted to get to Qinhuangdao we were surprised to hear that it would take us another 5 hours. We did not believe him especially when he said there might be major traffic jams ahead. “We don’t need to worry”’ we thought “we are on a motorbike, traffic jams are no obstacle for us”. Well, after maybe 15 km there was a major intersection with a major traffic jam. My GF was riding and had a difficult time balancing the bike with me on the back and luggage through all the cars, trucks, other motorbikes, pedestrians, etc. We managed to get on a sidewalk and pass by the mess not without scratching the side of one vehicle and in the same instance loosening the right side mirror, which led to continuous road side tightening of the screw with my leatherman because I did not bring a wrench with me to tighten it properly once and for all. From that moment on there was nothing special on the road except some oncoming trucks and some nice landscape.
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Motorbike trip to SHG October 2011 by fahni, on Picuna
Especially the last 70 km on S251 are scenic because you follow a beautiful riverbed and autumn had colored the first trees and bushes red.
Cars kept flashing their lights at me and when we got off the bike for the next driver switch, we noticed that the non-stock air horn had fallen off and was dangling down only on the wires. I had used it all the time but had not noticed that it was not where it was supposed to be! The iron latch with which it used to be fixed to the motor was broken, probably due to the vibrations during riding. I had no drill or a spare latch so some cable binders had to do the job…
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Motorbike trip to SHG October 2011 by fahni see the Horn dangling?
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Motorbike trip to SHG October 2011 by fahni, on Picuna
We continued down the road and ran into the next traffic jam, this time it was me who had to find a way through which was only possible by driving next to a deep ditch with my right foot stretched out and balancing the bike on the right side of the ditch. The reason for the traffic jam turned out to be construction site for a new bridge, where all cars (trucks!) higher than two meters were detoured through the dusty river bed and a make-shift bridge. We flew by and had the last kilometers to Qinhuangdao ahead. We did not really read a lot of travel guides before, otherwise we would had continued straight to ShanHaiGuan. But when we had the choice for QinHuangDao East or West and my phone which doubled as GPS had ran out of juice (yes, that is correct, I have not fixed the charger problem yet), we went for the western part and ended in the VERY uninteresting city of QinHuangDao. Again, we had to ask in several Hotels until we found a pricy one that was licensed to house foreigners. And since there was a KFC just opposite, it was fast food dinner for us :)

The total mileage for day 2 was around 300 km in 7 hours.

In the morning, we managed to get up just in time to gather the last bits and pieces from the Chinese breakfast buffet before we hopped onto the bike and drove down the last couple of km to Shanhaiguan. The road led us straight to the dragons head but we decided to look for accommodation first and then to start sightseeing. The search led us some 10 km north into the old, walled city of ShanHaiGuan. The Beijing Excursion guide (2008) and my old Lonely Planet (2008) said that this was still some interesting old-style city with some authenticity to it. But since then the main north-south axis has been completely “harmonized” and now looks like a small copy of Beijings Qianmen area. Only the luxury shops are missing and most of the newly renovated facades house ordinary food stalls, XiaoMaiBu or souvenir shops. The courtyard inn, where we rented a simple room is a nice place to be even though it has nothing special to offer.
After we checked in, we headed back to the Old Dragons Head but thanks to advice from friends and other MCM members did not enter the museum/park right away but turned east and went to the adjacent beach first.
url=http://www.picuna.com/photo/Motorbike-trip-to-SHG-October-2011-26015]http://static.picuna.com/photos/s576/26015.jpg[/url]
Motorbike trip to SHG October 2011 by fahni, on Picuna
From there one can stroll some 300 meters along the wall to the sea where the last section is fenced off with barb wire. But we have not been the first longing to get further down along the wall and so we quickly found a way under the fence:
http://static.picuna.com/photos/s576/26019.jpg
Motorbike trip to SHG October 2011 by fahni, on Picuna

Later on we had lunch in some very mediocre tourist restaurant before we first bought a ticket to some kind of museum with dioramas about important events in connection with the great wall. It was so bad that I liked it just for being a display of the Chinese lack of care for detail and maintenance. After that we headed for the real Dragon Head and enjoyed the time with the other thousands of tourists.
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Motorbike trip to SHG October 2011 by fahni, on Picuna
Dinner was in small restaurant in the old city again.
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Motorbike trip to SHG October 2011 by fahni, on Picuna

Total mileage for day 3 was ca. 40 km.

Because I had to work on October 6th again and wanted to have a one day rest before returning to office, we decided to go for the G102 and ride back to Beijing in one day. We knew that it would not be a very interesting route but what we got was even worse. Lots of trucks all the time, bad road conditions, one village (or city) more uninteresting than the last and dust thick as fog the whole ride. So we just pushed forward and managed it back to our little courtyard in just over 7 hours.
http://static.picuna.com/photos/s576/26025.jpg
Motorbike trip to SHG October 2011 by fahni, on Picuna
My advice: never even think of riding G102. It might be not as bad as all the coal truck roads in the northwest of BJ but it is definitely not a nice ride!

<img_src="http://static.picuna.com/photos/s576/26017.jpg">

Is that a tilt/shift pic? I like that effect.

Nice story too.

Cheers,

Dan K.

Hi Dan,

it is an programme function in the Canon camera called "miniature" basically what it does is it blures the picture above and below two lines that can be selected and adds higher color saturation. I like the effect very much, it is especially nice when taking pictures from higher ground...

Nice to see another interesting ride report here on MCM, thanks for sharing your adventure.

Are you going to explain this one? :eekers:

http://static.picuna.com/photos/s576/26011.jpg

Cheers!
ChinaV

That was our backup ride which we took with us along the road p) Very comfortable one-up, very fuel efficient but not very fast:wheelchair:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fahni

Hi Dan,

it is an programme function in the Canon camera called "miniature" basically what it does is it blures the picture above and below two lines that can be selected and adds higher color saturation. I like the effect very much, it is especially nice when taking pictures from higher ground...

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I need to upgrade. Still using a Canon 20D. i don't have all those neat built-in features :(

Cheers,

Dan K.

Hi Dan, my GF is in charge of cameras and pictures and I don't know shit about this whole stuff but the Canon Powershot S95 is taking incredible pictures and has amazing features!

Great story! I know I'm about 6 months late on this thread, but I just recently also did a trip to Shanhaiguan (and Beidaihe) on my JC-250. Unfortunately I took the direct path of sticking mainly to the G102. Definitely not as scenic and there was lots of dust and some pretty intense traffic. Credit to your gf for navigating through a country style China traffic jam! Story of your mirror was funny too seeing as how I had the exact same thing happen to me! Luckily was able to find some tape to hold it in place as the screw was a bit stripped, so even after tightening (had to use my leatherman too) it would loosen up.

Unfortunately didn't do a trip report here on MCM, but I managed to post the story on my blog from the road. You can find it here for those that are interested!

Very nice indeed! I am really enjoying your work. Thanks for posting!