Shanghai to Jiuhuashan to Thousand Island Lake and Back

This past Saturday I started out on my first long journey on my 650NK. To this point, my longest trips had been the few taken to Moganshan and Wuzhen. On this trip, I had no solid plan, but from MotoKai’s post in 2010 I had decided Jiuhuashan looked interesting.

Because, for a while now, I had been saying I would go to Thousand Island Lake, that was on the list as well.

Ultimately, I went from Shanghai to Huzhou, then on to Jiuhuashan, through Yellow Mountain area, then down to Thousand Island Lake.

The trip was a great experience, but one that reminded me that I need to continuously work on both my riding skills and my mechanical ability. That, and I need to get better at brushing off the selfishness of other drivers.

The route is here:
http://ditu.google.cn/maps?saddr=%E4...,5,6,7&t=m&z=9

Things I Would Now Like to Change

• Bike tubes around the straps of the Great Basin bag, to help protect them from wear.
• Better fit for Straps on the Back
• New brake levers have been installed since the ride, but I also need new bars. The sweep of the current bars puts my wrists at an odd angle that results in extreme pain after hours on the road.

What I Carried
Just a short while ago, I had shipped some Giant Loop bags from the states. These included a Fandango Tank bag, with 10L capacity, and a Great Basin saddlebag with a 50L capacity. The former I had successfully taken on a weekend trip with a pillion, the later I had only brought on a trip to Moganshan once.


Tank Bag

• Camera
• Toothbrush
• Chargers
• Disc Lock
• Wallet
• Phone
• License
• Registration

Great Basin Bag

• Clothes
• Sandals
• Extra Pair of Boots (Thought I might do some hiking)
• Tools
• Fuel Pump
• Air Compressor
• Towel
• Bike Cover

Along with these things, I carried nearly two years of frustration with Chinese driving habits and a limited understanding of automotive mechanics from dealing with a series of unreliable cars.

Day One

I packed up my bags at home, then drove to Mingfan Moto to take care of a few repairs. I had gone down in Moganshan the previous weekend, and followed that up with my first offroad experience on the 650nk.

At the shop, I picked up new sliders, a new footpeg, a new sidemirror and put some air in the tires.

After the shop, I stopped to visit family in Minhang, then left just before 4pm. Headed out on familiar roads towards Huzhou and planned to stop around Xuancheng. In retrospect, it was probably best I didn’t try to go that far as it was getting dark, and the roads fell apart soon after Huzhou (just as Kai had reported back in 2010).

Heading towards Huzhou, there were no surprises. By now I am familiar with that portion of the 318, but I was aware that it becomes a bit tough to follow it through the city. Upon arriving, I finally saw the sign that had previously gone unnoticed, placed just before the ongoing construction that had always held my attention. Making that turn, I was able to navigate through Huzhou and out onto a new stretch of the 318.

Once clear of the city, I decided I should get a bit of gas before heading any further into new territory.

At the station, I went through the normal routine, but when it came time to start the bike, it gave a little cough, but didn’t start. I tried again, still nothing. I turned and asked the attendant if it was in fact, 93, and she confirmed that it was. Though, I’m not sure what other answer I could have expected.

I pushed my bike off to the side, tried a few more times, and nothing much was happening. The only starting issue I had experienced before matched what Micah had seen with his bike. An issue that only appears when the bike has been sitting for a few days.

Because gas was the only new variable in the equation, the first thing that came to mind was bad gas. The workers were adamant that it was not the gas though, and said it couldn’t be because I had gas in the tank already. Makes sense, that I wouldn’t have seen the issue so quickly if it had been bad gas, but correct me if I am wrong.

I messaged a group of riders, as well as Jeff from Mingfan Moto. He was, very generously, offering to come out and help me switch out the fuel pump. Others were offering to help as well. All of which was a greatly appreciated, at least letting me know that I wasn’t stranded, even if I couldn’t get it started. Nevertheless, I didn’t want anyone to need to come out at that time of night, especially since I was already a few hours away. I also knew that I needed to learn to deal with these situations if I am going to make a habit of travelling around China on a motorcycle.

I ended up asking the attendant how far the nearest hotel was. She said it was about 15 minutes down the road, at the first stop light. As I got ready to start pushing the bike, both attendants were talking with me. Telling me I should call someone to help me get my bike down there. One of them saying it would likely be more like 30 minutes to push the bike down there. I said I needed the exercise and went on my way.

Besides needing to push my bike past the entrance to an off ramp, getting my bike to the hotel was uneventful.

When I got to the hotel, there was a group of ladies playing Mahjong, one of which got up checked me into the hotel. During this process, I realized I had left my wallet in my tank bag outside. When I let her know my wallet was outside, she looked shocked and yelled for me to bring my wallet inside. Having seen my motorcycle, and the bags attached to it, the idea that I might have left my wallet outside by accident likely made a bit more sense. She kindly also then provided a ramp for me to roll my bike into the hotel lobby.

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Day Two
The previous night I had listened to some podcasts, but fell asleep doing so. When I woke up, my phone had no credit left, which was likely because more recent versions of the podcast had been automatically downloaded while I slept. I added finding a China Unicom vendor to my list of things to do that morning to my list (along with breakfast and getting my bike started) and headed downstairs.

In the lobby, because I had not put the cover on, a toddler was in the middle of a photo shoot with my bike and one of the younger staff members wanted to chat with me about it. Because I am not a particularly social guy, and at that moment was doubly so because of the tasks at hand, I just walked out and down the street. I found my way to a few cell phone stores and eventually to one that could add credits to my phone. While getting coffee, my phone rang and informed me that ‘my beloved vehicle’ was being molested. I figured the young guy working at the hotel had decided to do a photoshoot of his own.

I headed back to the hotel, asked the staff not to touch my motorcycle, ate and headed downstairs to try my luck at starting the motorcycle.

I pushed the bike down the ramp, and started attaching my bags to my bike. At this point, a young boy arrived to watch, and I attempted to strike up a conversation with him. He just shook his head to let me know he didn’t understand. Soon enough however, the rest of his family, including his mother and grandmother had joined, and I found I was giving a little English lesson. When the bags were in place, I put the key in, and discovered the bike had decided overnight that it was ready to go. I said goodbye to my students, and headed down the road to the 318. Happy to be on my way again, and hopeful that my newfound luck would continue through the rest of my trip.

On the road, 318 was great. The pavement was smooth, and the bike seemed to be running fine. Then I reached a point where there was a sign up a ramp to an ‘expressway’ as the road continued around a corner. I ended up skipping the ramp and heading around the corner. There I found a cloud of dust trucks and cars. Not yet a fan of riding in the dirt, I checked my map to make sure that was going to be the way I needed to go and decided on the ramp instead. Up the ramp, I encountered a different dirt road, that lead right back to the same road I had just avoided (I think). In any event, the dirt didn’t last long and I was on to lumpy concrete in no time at all.

This imperfect concrete gave way to potholes, then to dirt and rocks intermittently. I kept my speed low, and watched oncoming traffic intently. Keeping me alive seemed to be somewhere far down the list of their concerns, with avoiding potholes being somewhere far above that. As trucks approached, I made sure to keep a bit of distance, as there was always the chance an Audi was going to pop out from behind it in passing mode.

In the event no cars appeared from around the back of the oncoming trucks, there was always the chance that the driver of the truck would be so intent on avoiding road imperfections that they would be oblivious to any wild gesturing or honking I might attempt as a means of questioning their list of road priorities. This would then lead me to make the, admittedly easy, decision to choose to point the bike towards portions of the road that might just as easily serve as a sculpture of Dane Cook’s cheek as a section of highway, rather than continue the game of chicken.

The 318 was also interrupted at one point by a wall, but a wall with a small vehicle sized hole in it. This hole allowed me to continue on my way without having to take a detour. Off to the side of the road, I was still happy to see countryside, and despite the behavior of the traffic, it was relatively light.

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By the early afternoon I was motoring through Xuancheng. At one of the Sinopecs near where the 318 would continue, I pulled in to fill up with gas, shutting down for the first time since the night before. As happens occasionally, the attendant was a bit chatty. When I parked my bike and entered into the store for something to drink, I was informed that I had made the wrong decision on bottled water, and my selection was returned to the refrigerator and replaced with the right brand of water. The question of whether or not I had eaten lunch was also raised, to which I responded in the negative. This was followed by a few minutes of insistance that I eat lunch. It was going to be free. Figuring I was going to be treated with some microwavable noodles, I gave in and went to see what was on offer. To my surprise, it was a homecooked meal. Though the food was not bad, I hardly ate any of it. I just wanted to hear my bike start and be on my way again. I thanked the attendant as politely as my severely limited Chinese would allow and headed off.

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As I continued on my way towards Jiuhuashan, everything continued to go well, with the exception of a group of three tour busses. The lead driver of this group insisted on piloting his bus at 100+ kph speeds bullying any vehicles that got in his way off the road. This included large trucks heading the other direction. As I hung back to avoid what felt certain to be a catastrophe, I was able to see the expressions on the faces of the near victims. Including the disbelieving face of a jaded truck driver that had been forced onto the shoulder of the road as the bus passed in his lane.

Heading into Jiuhuanshan, I was aware of the fact that motorcycles were not allowed at some point, again thanks to Motokai’s post. I kept my eye open for signs indicating that I was not welcomed, but did not see any until I was already on the winding road up to the top of the mountain. Had there been any doubt that I had passed the point where I was welcomed, it would have been put to rest by the helpful bus driver that, as he exited the base of the mountain, honked and shook his hand at me to let me know that I was in the wrong. This warning was shrugged off, and he was off to join his fellow bus drivers in the nationwide sociopathic game of chicken, and I was off to find that I was entering a new game of chicken myself.

Around the countless hairpin corners, there was roughly a 50/50 chance I would be in competition with oncoming traffic for the apex of the corner. The mirrors positioned alongside the road helped alleviate the issue, but I still found myself going slower than I may have otherwise gone. Knowing I was almost at the top, I prepared for the next corner, thinking ‘slow, look, lean...fuck.’ Sure enough, as I began to lean into the corner I was greeted by the large grill of a Ford truck. This resulted in a panicked grab at the wrong breaks and me dropping my bike. As the bike went down, my hand clipped the brand new left mirror, breaking it off.

The driver of the truck slowed to watch me begin to pick up my bike, then went on his way with a trail of other sadist behind him.

Having hoisted my bike back up, I had a moment to think how bad it would be if my bike failed to start, but with the sound of the engine that moment ended and I rounded the last few corners up to the gate.

At the gate, I was greeted by a handful of people, lead by two security guards. The more senior guard, indicated by the rotundness of his belly and practiced apathy, put his hand out, grunted and motioned that I should turn around. I decided to meet his apathy with refusal, and kept asking about hotels until they told me to buy a ticket (190 kuai) before entering and finding my hotel.

Happy to be in the gate, I pulled into the first hotel and booked a room. I still had a few hours of light left, and headed off to try to get a few photos. While walking around, it was clear that this was not a destination frequented by foreigners, as nearly all of my conversations were with giggling interlocutors and saying ‘hello’ to me in English was a sure laugh for any passersby and their friends.

The degree to which I stood out at this destination was made particularly clear by the fact that I was being asked if I was the one that had driven the motorcycle up there. This was, as always, followed up by a series of questions including ‘how much’ and ‘how far.’

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Day Three

The morning of the third day, I was looking forward to having breakfast. To that point, I had being going off of liquids, the few bites of food in Xuancheng and some baozi. I made my way downstairs for some Chinese buffet breakfast, then gather my things and headed outside to try my luck again at getting the bike started.

Removing the cover off the motorcycle, my performance began, and the first two members of the audience were quick to arrive. One of the two 40-some-odd year old men came in firing with ‘how much,’ and seemed to recognize the brand. The other was equally interested in the answer to this question, but also wanted to start poking various things on the bike. I attempted to kindly ask him to not touch it, resulting in him crossing his arms and nodding. However, as soon as I turned my attention to my bag, I caught a glimpse of him kicking at the front of my bike as he asked his friend a question. This resulted in my disc lock going off. I looked at him, reminded him that I had just asked him to please not touch my bike, removed the disc lock, and questioned his intelligence. Following this sequence of events, the friend felt it was a good time to let me know he was impressed with my Chinese.

With the bags secured, the audience had increased in size to about 10 people. I started the engine, and put on my helmet. Through my helmet, I managed to hear one of the audience members mention a problem. This turned out to be coolant dripping off the righthand side of the bike. Because the coolant level seemed fairly high, and because I didn’t feel like adding maintenance to my performance, I decided to ride down the mountain to the first gas station and deal with it there. It also occured to me that it may just be coolant that had spilled out when I dropped the bike.

At the base of the hill, all seemed good with the bike, so I continued on to the 103 towards Huangshan. The plan was to continue on towards Huangshan and make a decision in that area whether or not to continue on to Thousand Island Lake.

This stretch of road proved to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the ride. The countryside was beautiful, the air felt good, road surfaces were smooth and traffic was light. These condintions were only occasionally interrupted, most notably by a crane righting a truck that had flipped in the Taiping lake area, and a smaller truck just a short way down the road nearly doing the same as the first, only this time coming around a corner towards me at speed.

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Scenery around Taiping lake and through Huangshan continued to make the trouble worth it. It felt great to be outside of Shanghai and experiencing the country in a way unlike I would have from a car or tour bus. Unfortunately, these roads had few shoulders, and I was resistant to shut the bike off anyway, so I didn’t take a great deal of pictures.

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With great road conditions, I found myself in the Huangshan area in the early afternoon. Looked at the map and felt a lump in my throat. My motorcycling and China experience are not at a point where I look at a line that squiggly and feel excitement. I also hadn’t seen the portion of the roads in that area that gave way to a small slab of concrete, but I suspected they were coming, and country roads felt like where I would find them.

Nevertheless, it was early in the day, and I made the decision to try to get to Thousand Island lake before dark. The path would take me from the 103, to the 205, 215, 324 and on to country roads.

Starting with the 205, there was an instant feeling that I was headed for worse roads. However, it was still some time before the road quality dropped significantly. In fact, there were some very nice stretches along this portion of the ride. At one point, I was beginning to think it was going to be a breeze getting to Thousand Island lake.

On one particularly nice stretch however, I realized I had made a wrong turn, and had to double back and head to Country Road x012. Having doubled back, I pulled over at the fork in the road I believed I had missed the first time, and down off the one lane poorly paved road came a blue truck that left no room on either side of it.

The truck passed, and I cautiously went up what I had confirmed to be the path Google had provided.

The road never got any better, but it also never really got any worse. Trucks came by, but not with great frequency. Still, for hours around blind corners I was saying a little prayer with my horn before leaning in. When oncoming traffic was encountered I would pull over and let it pass. The rest of the time was spent scanning the scenery on the roadside, watching out for obstacles the locals had placed in the road and keeping an eye out for markings along the side of the road to be sure I was still on the right path.

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When locals saw me, they tended to give me a look that indicated they felt I must be lost (I basically was). Their towns were frequent, but small. Their sewage system consisted of outhouses positioned over the river. One of my favorite memories though, was seeing a young fisherman that had climbed a rather large tree to fish from about 40 feet above the river. One other ‘highlight’ was when I passed a set of bee boxes, and unlike the others, the bees were hanging out over the road, rather than off to the side. For this I just closed my visor and ran through the swarm, hoping for the best.

I don’t know how many hours I went without seeing a gas station, but it was quite a while. If any of you head this way, make sure to fill up ahead of time.

Eventually, I found myself down the other side of the mountain taking a picture of the first lane marking I had seen for quite some time. When I stopped for gas, the attendant confirmed that Thousand Island lake was near, and I was on my way. Within an hour or so of riding flat, smooth sweeping corners around the lake I was at the Sheraton.

Entering the lobby, unshaven and surely smelling none too pleasant, I listened to the staff ask each other where I was from. At the front desk, the woman checking me in had no information to offer then, since I had provided a license instead of a passport, so they were left guessing. All of them not considering that the foreigner that road up with a Chinese drivers license and Shanghai plates might understand at least a little Chinese.

The sunset on the lake was beautiful, and after watching it I gorged on a burger, fries and beer.

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Day Four
On day four, I didn't do much of anything. I just hung out around the hotel and rested.

Day Five
I spent the morning of day five checking out a few hotels in the Thousand Island Lake area, since my company will be taking a trip there soon. Once those tours were done, I headed up the 302 to the 320 and through Hangzhou.

The 302 was nice in parts, allowing me to appreciate the scenery on both sides of the road, but it would occasionally suddenly shift from smooth to Chinese highway version of Whoop-De-Dos and occasionally the ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ lumps of concrete that can send you airborne if you aren’t paying attention.

I transitioned from the 302 to the 320 without drama, and on into the traffic of Hangzhou. Here I was a little nervous, as I knew motorcycles are not technically allowed in the city, but the police didn’t seem to care. Mostly, I had to watch out for drivers that did their best to ignore the fact that I existed, resulting in me spending a bit of time in the bike lane while I tried to navigate out of that traffic ridden hellhole.

By the time I left Hangzhou, I was celebrating to myself in my helmet, but aware of the fact that I now had to deal with the lumpy side of the 320 at night.

On my previous trip to Wuzhen I had already become aware that the 320 does not provide smooth road surfaces. This, coupled with my fellow travelers all using their best and brightest headlights left me longing for the familiar 318. There I knew I could rely on smoother surfaces and a barrier between me and the onslaught of highbeams.

A road sign indicating the 202 would lead me towards Suzhou provided an escape. I took the exit ramp and made my slow escape, continuing to ride with caution as seeing much of anything is made impossible by a misunderstanding on when it is appropriate to use highbeams. This misunderstanding also made it difficult for me to create any distance from myself and the young local hotshots who wanted to challenge me by coming in as close and fast as possible. Ultimately, I just pulled over to the side of the road and took the opportunity to orientate myself before continuing on to the 318.

Once on the 318, all was good, and I was back in Shanghai around 10pm.

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Well done and a very good RR did you find out why your bike did not start the first time in the petrol sation and what was the total km for the trip it does help to have some mechanic knowledge when you ride by your self but once again well done hope the littel fall did not cause to much damage to the bike with things like that its more damage to ones parade ! hope you can do more rides out did you not have no friends to ride with for what i can see loads of riders live in SH

Thanks! It was a good ride, and a good challenge on my own. I've got a few people I ride with in the city, but none were along for this ride.

The starting issue was likely electrical. The shop has gone over the bike since I have been back, and it is starting fine.

The crash didn't do much damage to the bike, but as you guessed it did add to the beating my ego has taken in recent weeks on the bike.

Total km I believe was between 1100 and 1200 km.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by guangtouge

Thanks! It was a good ride, and a good challenge on my own. I've got a few people I ride with in the city, but none were along for this ride.

The starting issue was likely electrical. The shop has gone over the bike since I have been back, and it is starting fine.

The crash didn't do much damage to the bike, but as you guessed it did add to the beating my ego has taken in recent weeks on the bike.

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Tha main thing you was not hurt bikes can be fixed at a cost some times people cant be fixed dont matter at what cost .. as i have said loads of time on here "It is not IF you have a accident its WHEN you have a accident in China" so yours has come i hope it is the last but some how i doubt it ! well GREAT RR if you next ride take you into north Shandong PM me

Nice ride report! Photos look great and I can't wait to do a bit of riding around qiandaohu next month. The NKs do seem to have some assembly flaws, especially in the electrical systems. It's a pity, but checking it out regularly for loose connections is probably the best you can so, short of requiring the whole thing.

Vey nice report! Sounds like a good trip I can do next time! :thumbsup: