Beijing-Xanadu-Beijing October 2012

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
And 700 years later Lobotomous and Fahni ride across a muddy field to dodge the guards on the gate.
Barry should have been there, too, but he fried his clutch on the sandpits of Inner Mongolia.


The three of us set off from Beijing on 4th October: Fahni on Jialing 150, Barry on Jialing 600, Lobotomous on QianJiang 150.
Found great camping spots on the first two days.
On day three, following some very sandy sections we ended up in a remote village with Barry's Jialing refusing to go uphill.
Tried various things to get the clutch to bite, but was starting to look (and smell) like a serious problem.
Thank you to LaoJiaHu, whom we managed to contact through one of the locals - they had a cell phone that miraculously worked by balancing on a coffee jar at a certain angle. It felt a bit like consulting an oracle and LJH came through with some wisdom about resurrecting clutch plates using coke. But we decided to get the bike to the next village before opening it up as there was really nothing we could do where we were.
After getting a local mechanic to open it up, we confirmed that the clutch was dead, that spare parts would take maybe 2 days to reach us, and that the whole village didn't have the 8' socket wrench needed to get the retaining nut off; so Barry set off on another truck back to Beijing.
Fahni and Lobotomous continued and eventually made it to ShangDu on day 5.
Quite an adventure. A lot of cross-country and off-road. Highly recommended.

Video on 56.com for China viewing.
http://www.56.com/u88/v_NzQ5NjYwNDU.html

and for everyone else, on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIm_Tlw1MIQ



Sorry for the shaky handheld camera work, but it gives you an idea of the roads.

Thanks for the videography, lobotomous!

And thanks to both of you for going on this ride together. It was a shame that Barry could not finish the trip with us.

Just in the defence of Jialing: my bike worked fine throughout (and actually it felt quite at home in the sandpits of Inner Mongolia) but it was actually another breakdown that caused the mess: my android phone went bust about 1h into the ride and it was the only navigation device where a full outline of the route was stored on. If my phone was more reliable, we would not have missed the turn and propably would have finished the ride without any troubles. So Barry was kind of right with his salutations to me that can be heard in the vid.


Another sad thing was that filipu was not able to join us due to his own string of bad luck. I hope we will be able to ride together again, soon!

And yes, Inner Mongolia at this time of the year seems to be one of the best places to go and ride ones bike...

Great job with the video! Looks like fun. Glad to hear that everyone and every bike made it back.

Yeah, Inner Mongolia is not far from Beijing, yet it seems like a million miles (terrain, open grasslands & little pollution).

PS: The side-of-the-road, get-home solution with coke usually only works with Coca-Cola, for some reason, from what I hear. Bizarre

Nice one guys, wish i have time one day to make it up that far north...

Looks like fun, except perhaps for Barry. Maybe Barry can fill us in with a RR for his "pig truck" ride?

I am wondering what went wrong with the clutch? Doesn't look like the friction plates.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by milton

I am wondering what went wrong with the clutch? Doesn't look like the friction plates.

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Clutch basket had to be replaced!

you guys haven't met a alone JH600 rider to Ulan bataa?