Tibet Odysee (Changsha-Chengdu-Lhasa-Ali)

**DanKearney** · 12-23-2009, 06:16 AM

Wow. Great follow-on pics!

So, how did the bike handle two-up at 5,500m?

My XT225 manages 4,200m one-up OK, but yours must have been really chuggin' at that height.

Cheers,

Dan K.

**tokyokid** · 12-24-2009, 08:24 AM

Since the YBR250 has Fuel Injection no problem at all, only the "road" conditions are limiting you.
I always ride 2 up, with the YBR125 and the TZM 150 it was slow at 4500+. Also fuel consumption got really up on the bikes with caburator.

**tokyokid** · 07-03-2010, 01:30 PM

Ok, ChinaV said we need to share more....damn, i hate sharing ;)
I will put some more pictures up these days but i am too lazy to write much, so please forgive me and just enjoy the trip.

Chengdu - Ali elevation map

Western Tibet route & elevations

The Team

The cheap equipment

**tokyokid** · 07-03-2010, 04:38 PM

**tokyokid** · 07-04-2010, 12:34 PM

Right before Gerze (改则) we had one of this moments on the trip you dont forget so fast.

Until this point of the trip we had 3 times problems with the police and could make our way out on all of them.
As we don’t had any permissions to be in Tibet at all, I usually just drove trough checkpoints at high speed and without stopping. At checkpoints in Tibet the barriers are half open, so pedestrians, bicycle and motorbikes can pass, but car, busses and trucks need to stop. When I saw the barrier was down I found usually a way to drive around it.
But this time it would be different :)

We made it already 2800km into Tibet and where right before Gerze in the Ngari area.
I know a checkpoint would come soon. As it was evening and we drove westwards the sun was low and shining right into my face. I saw the checkpoint coming and saw the barrier was high open so I speed up, just in the last moment when the sun was covered by the checkpoint building I saw, there was another barrier right behind the first, and it was CLOSED! Fuck! Full crash, bike me and the wife where down. When I saw up a machine gun was pointed at us.
As it was 17th September everything was on high alert because of the 60th Anniversary of China on 1st October.
Some minutes later the situation got easy and we where sitting inside explaining what we are doing here. They didn’t believe our story that were on the way to Germany over Pakistan and Iran, but after we showed them the trip reports in Chinese magazines from 2008 they got relaxed. After they called the headquarter they told us we don’t need any permissions as we are individual travelers and not a group, only groups need permissions. What a bullshit, but hey we are lucky.
After we got tea and cookies from them I thought hey it’s a lucky day, try a bit more. So I asked the soldier if I could have is machinegun for a picture, he sure, and handed it to me. Just before my wife can make the picture the main police officer comes in and start shouting on the soldier why a laowei has a gun in his hand…so no photo :(

Anyway from that day on at every checkpoint I just stopped, pulled my driver license, registration and my wifes ID out and showed them to the soldiers, they usually just registered us and off we could go.

**moilami** · 07-04-2010, 03:44 PM

Damn you! xD I was just very happy in thinking I don't ever have to go out of Scandinavia and Finland, and now your pictures made me to reconsider and doubt it.

**tokyokid** · 07-04-2010, 03:55 PM

After recovering from the checkpoint crash we where back on the road.

This part of Tibet call the Changthang, it is one of the lowest populated areas in the world with 0,26 persons/km² (Mongolia has 1,9 persons/km²).
Keep in mind that even if it looks all very flat up here, the lowest elevation is 4500m.

The yellow bottles are our extra fuel supply. 2x1.5l + the 19l gas tank. The good thing about this bike is that it has fuel injection, so it don’t consume more fuel in high altitudes. We only refueled after 625km at the Nepalese border.

The last thing that you need here are any troubles with the bike. And as it seems my tire just start to break. Closest place for getting a new tire: Lhasa 1300km away.

The white stuff on the ground is salt. Almost all lakes here contain saltwater. There is no river going out of the Changthang.

There is still some ppl even living out here.

Finally I found a small place with mobile reception (usually there is none up here). Called ChinaV to get some ideas about the tire problem. We figured out I need luck. And we had. The tire lasted until the end of the trip.

The water is disgusting salty.

Refueling

You need to stop often to cream your face and lips. Even you do it, the skin is breaking and your lips start bleeding. The skin can not recover anymore before you leave the high plateau.

Michael Jackson style nose

**tokyokid** · 07-04-2010, 04:14 PM

Originally Posted by moilami

Damn you! xD I was just very happy in thinking I don't ever have to go out of Scandinavia and Finland, and now your pictures made me to reconsider and doubt it.

There is one thing you will miss here if your from skandinavia. Trees. On an area over 1.000.000km² there is not a single tree.

btw i just moved to Austria. Nice mountains. A little bit like Tibet. Your welcome to stay here!

**moilami** · 07-04-2010, 06:38 PM

Oh man, the Alps.... those have been on my dreams todo list since I read from the first motorcycling magazines of them and watched the pictures. Touring Germany, Austria, and Switzerland should let me take a good look at them! Now I just fear exploring Kola Peninsula or touring Eastern Europe will get delayed... but have to put first things first! The Alps is the way to go! If I just can since the Lapland and Northern Scandinavia are already whispering softly into my ears, calling me back to see and experience more what they have to offer. Can be some hard decisions to do in the future, but at least not regarding the bike. I totally fell in love to my little and simple Skyteam and would chose it even for the RTW trip. Anyway, maybe I can travel to the Alps by the excuse of travelining first to Estonia to look for one Estonian woman I met, and after driving through Estonia giving up and chosing to go get some relief from the nearest mountains, the Alps xD Sounds like a very good plan :) Anyway, if you chose to travel up North, be welcome to take a rest in my summer cottage, if you just can stand some mosquitos :)

The Alps and the headquarters of KTM (and BMW), oh man. It would be almost like some religious trip! Can't wait to park my Skyteam in the front of KTM's headquarters xD Have to stop thinking of it now or else I begin to float and there is a lot of work to do for me now xD

EDIT: Forgot the trees. I am really suprised you mentioned the trees

for those I begun to miss in Norway for the first time in my life. I used to hate roads in Finland, it is like driving in a tarmac tunnel in endless forest, but for some very very strange reason I begun to miss it and were very glad when got back to Forest tunnels in Finland. Had to think wyh it is so. The reason was that I imagined forests would give me shelter, concealment, and food in case I needed it xD

**tokyokid** · 07-04-2010, 07:36 PM

Thanks man, would love to come to Finland. At the moment i am stucked here without a bike and with my pregnant wife.

Your right the alps are soo nice and this place is just 10 min from me

why was i living in Shenzhen before?