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  1. #1 New Member: Beijing next year! 
    C-Moto Senior CantDecide's Avatar
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    Hi All,

    My wife won a grant to go to Beijing for 14 months September, and I'm going to try and join her for as much of that as I can. Part of the deal was that I could have a motorcycle while we were there, but the more I look into it the more complicated that seems to be.

    I've read quite a bit about the license requirements and all that, so I think I know what I would need to do on that end. What I'm curious about is the requirements for the bike itself.

    How do you make sure a bike is properly registered?

    Are there special rules about having motorbikes in Beijing?

    Is there a buyer's guide for bikes in China (or specifically, Beijing?)

    I watched the video of the bike gathering on the main page, and it mentions something about hoping the rules change for bikes in Beijing and downtown (I think thats what Sabine says). What was she talking about?

    I'm a beginning biker (I just took the MSF training course here in the States last year, and that's it!), and I probably can't get a bike here when we are trying to sell all our stuff to move to China, so this whole idea might not work out, but the idea of the adventure of it has got me hooked.

    Thanks for any advice you might have!
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  2. #2 Re: New Member: Beijing next year! 
    Administrator-tron CrazyCarl's Avatar
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    CantD,

    There's a good amount of info on the forum that answers many of your questions. As is usual protocol, we ask members spend some time searching the posts to see if those questions have already been answered.

    Luckily for you Beijing has probably the most dense community of xpat riders in China so there's plenty to learn!

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  3. #3 Re: New Member: Beijing next year! 
    grumpy old sod jape's Avatar
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    Fair enough CC but I must say I have done a good few searches myself to no good result! You have to get the keywords just right and know how to use tags. Also the login fails a lot in this and keeps asking for a re-login and the security 'image verification' can be crap too, experience tells me this can be off-putting mate.

    Hopefully some of the Beijing dwellers and old hands will be patient enough to repeat themselves for this guy?

    Also most members on this forum really don't post or chat a lot compared to other forums, just seem to stick to a very specific thread or interest area ( I have found myself that sometimes valid questions get overlooked); so responses to these introductory posts are a good way to get folk interested and participating.
    Just my opinion not a criticism.

    So welcome to the newcomer Mr. CD - Mr. Crazy Carl is right, the depth of information and the help you will get here can be great, but you do have to work for it because many newcomers just ask the same old questions and then disappear ... maybe do some broad searches then join in and reactivate old threads with specific questions and also remember you can PM folk and get individual help.

    Some of the guys even meet up and do rides and help each other with bits and pieces, even making parts and accessories. If you have an hour to spare and decent Internet for pics, read the many pages of Mr. Pfaelzer's 'my new JH600' thread in the 'dirt and dual sport' section and you will see this working brilliantly.

    I am not in China myself, just have a cheap little chinabike which is good value and fun and a life line at present as the car is bust. I have learned heaps from taking time to read through old threads. Good luck.
    Last edited by jape; 05-05-2010 at 09:41 PM.
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  4. #4 Re: New Member: Beijing next year! 
    Moto Scholar moilami's Avatar
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    Yeah, welcome to the forums and hope you enjoy. Regarding your questions, I don't have a clue and.... sorry to say this but they are very uninteresting and even if I would have a clue I might recommend you to seach the forums ;( and do myself something more interesting things than answering to uninteresting question. Why to do uninteresting things if answers are around already? xD No reason for that I might argue.

    I agree with Jape that here is silent and I have to squueze the brake lever all the time and be carefull with the throttle or else suddenly the ratio of posts would go 5/1, me posting 5 times and someone else posting once that is. Also when posting here I almost feel guilty each time doing it since it seems people in forums these days are very strick "stay on topic" extremists where relaxed chatter is considered to be an offending sin. Gief the Usenet back! Don't fear the trolls!
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  5. #5 Re: New Member: Beijing next year! 
    Senior C-Moto Guru culcune's Avatar
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    Cantdecide, welcome to here. What I would do is to research established motorcycle tour companies in China, take an organized tour, and in the meantime, have established contact with the numerous ex-pats currently in China who are members here on mychinamoto. You will get all sorts of advice from them, probably much of it conflicting, before you have set foot in your new residence, but if you have a tour set up, you could at least get out and ride legally before deciding if owning a bike is worth it to you while you live in China. Without having ever been there on a visit or living there myself, it seems there are many, many ways to go about getting on a bike, but if it was me, I would seriously suggest a tour to see if it is even worth it in the long run!
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  6. #6 Re: New Member: Beijing next year! 
    C-Moto Senior CantDecide's Avatar
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    Hey guys, I'm totally ok with the RTFM / search the threads response. I've actually been doing that as well, but I thought I might as well introduce myself and see if anyone had anything specific or obvious I might have missed.

    I found this post which explained a bit about the Jing A and Jing B plates, as well as a bit about the common bike sizes. I'm still a bit confused by that thread, are bikes larger than 250cc completely illegal in China, or do they fall into a different category?

    Anyway, thanks again, I'll keep searching the forums.
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  7. #7 Re: New Member: Beijing next year! 
    SabineHartmann SabineHartmann's Avatar
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    Hi Mr. CD. I surched the threads for you. here you can find more information to your questions:

    • Forum
    • Riders and Riding
    • Ride Prep and Making Tracks
    • Validity of Chinese driving license in foreign countries

    • Forum
    • Riders and Riding
    • Regionals
    • Asia
    • Getting a motorcycle license in Xinjiang

    • Forum
    • Riders and Riding
    • Ride Prep and Making Tracks
    • Legal issues, clarifying the law in China

    • Forum
    • Riders and Riding
    • Ride Prep and Making Tracks
    • Temporary driving license...really only for cars?

    • Forum
    • Riders and Riding
    • Ride Prep and Making Tracks
    • ZMC's Attempt to get a Chinese License Blog

    maybe it is really a good idea to make a special topic for this always incoming 1st questions.
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  8. #8 Re: New Member: Beijing next year! 
    SabineHartmann SabineHartmann's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by moilami View Post
    Yeah, welcome to the forums and hope you enjoy. Regarding your questions, I don't have a clue and.... sorry to say this but they are very uninteresting and even if I would have a clue I might recommend you to seach the forums ;( and do myself something more interesting things than answering to uninteresting question. Why to do uninteresting things if answers are around already? xD No reason for that I might argue.

    I agree with Jape that here is silent and I have to squueze the brake lever all the time and be carefull with the throttle or else suddenly the ratio of posts would go 5/1, me posting 5 times and someone else posting once that is. Also when posting here I almost feel guilty each time doing it since it seems people in forums these days are very strick "stay on topic" extremists where relaxed chatter is considered to be an offending sin. Gief the Usenet back! Don't fear the trolls!
    I feel: this is a very arrogant answer....... MCM members are living all over the world, time difference is up to 20 hours, so "chatting" is not very easy. every question has a right to be asked and hopefully finds an answer.
    we all have our jobs to to in the "outside world" and why should we blubber to everything? for example, I am not a dirtbike rider and I am no mechanic, why should I post there? so, I also, always, stay to "my topic".
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  9. #9 Re: New Member: Beijing next year! 
    grumpy old sod jape's Avatar
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    Maybe in the 'intro' section the 'sticky' thread method could be applied to some topics such as raised here that arise again and again? My only negative statement was that I have personally found my own searches to be erratic, sometimes inappropriate and time-consuming when the login request keeps repeating.

    Internet forums can be weird! Language difference, time-zones and cultural background and generational differences often lead to misunderstanding. I used to argue a lot on forums, you get to feel proprietary about a forum you go to daily and even the arguments can be fun; nowdays I usually just ignore things I construe to be personal, mistaken or useless - and sometimes I am sure people apply that reasoning toward me!

    But its funny how forums are so remote and impersonal in someways and intimate in another - a post can be unanswered and you can feel slighted, and then another post shows folk are in fact reading if not answering. The other side of that coin is you can answer helpfully at length and not get a response or thanks. Nature of the beast and the world today. I guess it is choice of course as much as mood and time.
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  10. #10 Re: New Member: Beijing next year! 
    Moto Scholar moilami's Avatar
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    Sorry I really don't understand what you meant after reading your post three times. In case you think I was blaming someone you got it wrong. I know perfectly well people have their jobs, kids, hobbies, old socks, warm beer and what not. What I meant with "chatting" was relaxed discussions where OT and stuff is not a sin. Haven't seen here yet people accusing of "derailing" or "hijacking" when very enjoyable discussions has taken place. In Usenet you never heard those words because the technology behind it allowed easily the threads to begin to live their own lives, and none "owned" much less wanted to "own" the threads.

    The modern forum stuff is very alien thing to me. It is like gathering somewhere and discussing things, untill then at some point someone says "hey, even though I don't need to read what you wrote and even though there are people who want to read what you wrote, what you wrote was still not exactly related to what I wrote here, so you did it wrong, don't do it anymore." It is like "Ahh... I see a control freak here", or in case there are many of those "Ahh... I see many control freaks here". And people watch that happen and become worried to write anything else than strictly "on topic", effectively ruining the relaxed chatty flow. Some think that it is better, and if that is the way people think forums should be, fine, so be it. It is not really my problem, it just makes me miss the good old Usenet.

    Jape, the fine old Murphy's law has been adjusted to Internet communications. Like this:

    1. If there is a chance for misunderstanding, then it will happen.
    2. If there is no chance for misunderstanding, then misundestandings will happen for sure.
    3. If what you wrote can be understood in several different ways, it will be undersood in the worst way possible.

    Etc. In this thread is a perfect example of those laws happening bi-directionally with Sabine.

    It is hilarious and actually shows among other things how self-important we all are. I am however not that bothered with it. Hell, I think it is good! Without it I might still speak with the same old people in the same Usenet groups xD Dunno though would it be bad, but at least it is fun to meet new people every now and then.

    So the conclusion is? I have mine, it is called "relax ppl" xD
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