JH600 impression

[euphonius]

Hello Franki and ChinaV,

many thanks for your ideas and suggestions. i'm really looking forward to returning to china after the lunar new year, and getting my JH600. i'm going into this with my eyes open -- fully cognizant of the difficulties of getting parts and service in China. But we all will be raising the visibility of adventure riding, and this will build support in China.

And I expect we'll all be helping each other too! I'll do my best.

(Sorry for the tardy reply. gmail diverted the mychinamoto mails into my spam bin. it's now whitelisted.)

cheers,
Jeff

[Bob S]

Rode my new JH600 home last Friday here in Xinhui. Nice bike but a bit top heavy. Idle speed seems really high for a 600cc single. Any ideas what the "normal" idle speed should be & how to adjust?

JH600_2.jpg

[euphonius]

Dear Bob,

Wow, that's a sweet looking ride. I like Franki's military green but black looks great too! Congratulations!

Hope you don't mind; here's a bunch of questions for you:
--Is that the 2009 model or are they now into a new product cycle for 2010? Is this still priced under 30k RMB? (i.e., 29,800 ≈ US$4,365)
--I'm assuming the Xinhui you mention is the one northwest of Zhuhai in Guangdong province. Where was the bike delivered and how far was your ride? (I'm thinking you didn't ride it down from Chongqing!)
--You are living in Thailand? You going to ride the JH600 out of China or keep her inside the PRC?
--On the assumption that you are riding on public roadways in China, what kind of vehicle registration did you get? Will there be restrictions on where you can ride?
--What kind of sales support are you getting from Jialing? (They seem to do a lot of friendly stuff for Franki, but he's cultivated that relationship over several years. I've tried to deal with Jialing's office in Shanghai, where I live, and they refer everything to Chongqing.)
--When you say it rides a bit top-heavy, what are you comparing it to? Is this in comparison to a street bike, or to other dual sports like the 650GS or KLR650? (I'm riding a KLR in California right now, but it's the first bike I've ever ridden so don't have any real comparison.)
--Nice to see it comes with a skidplate, but it's otherwise quite farkle-free. Did the factory have any suggestions for cases or other touring gear?
--Now that you've got it, what do you plan to do with it??

As you can see I'm quite excited about the big Jialing, and look forward to getting one soon. I'll be returning to Shanghai after the Lunar New Year, and will likely go fetch one straight from the factory in Chongqing, with the intent to ride it back to Shanghai, hopefully via an interesting and circuitous course!

Warm regards,
Jeff

[DanKearney]

Rode my new JH600 home last Friday here in Xinhui. Nice bike but a bit top heavy. Idle speed seems really high for a 600cc single. Any ideas what the "normal" idle speed should be & how to adjust?

Bob,

Nice looking bike. I've followed Franki's ride reports on the JH600, and I see one in my future. I'm sure he'll respond to your query about idle speed. FWIW when I got my F650GS last year I thought the idle was way too high at 1,200rpm. Sure enough, that was the correct speed. It was explained to me that since it is such a big thumper at 650cc that it needed that much speed to retain momentum and wouldn't idle properly any lower. Since the JH600 is only a few cc's smaller, I'm guessing it's the same situation.

Cheers,

Dan K.

[Franki]

Hi Jeff,

JH600 idle speed should be 1600-1800rpm depending on where you are at. Other questions I leave it to Bob to answer.

Please note all sales and services of JH600 is done through Jialing Chongqing JH600 office. There are a few service centres spreadf out in Beijing, Mianyang, Kaiyuan, Xiangyang etc. but non of them are suitablly equipped to do a full service. Therefore, I do recommand all to deal with Jialing direct. Getting someone who can master Chinese well to call will certainly speed things up a lot.

Have a happy year of the Tiger!

Franki

PS: for those who bought the JH600 and is interested to make it a real long distance tourer by adding alu pannier cases to it should take a look at this:

[david3921]

Those are some nice cases Franki, and they look good on there.

[Pfaelzer]

Franki,
those panniers are really nice looking. Are they available in China or Hong Kong? They look pretty much like the BMW ones or the new series Touratech is offering.

Greetings,
Andreas.

[euphonius]

Franki,

Thanks for your update, and the images of the aluminum panniers. those do look excellent, but I don't see any branding. Did you have them fabricated in China?

Also, are you back from your Southeast Asia ride? I look forward to seeing your next ride report in advrider!

I'll be returning to Shanghai in mid-March, and will be moving quickly to get the Jialing. I'm thinking now of going out to fetch it in Chongqing, and riding it back to Shanghai via some circuitous and interesting route.

Any other Jialing owners in Shanghai or nearby?? I see that the Austrian company that designed the JH600 engine has a testing office in Shanghai. I wonder if any of the engineers there have the JH600?

I've been riding a 2000 KLR600 over here in California, which is a quite similar dual sport, and enjoying the learning curve very much. I'll be very keen to start riding in China upon my return.

cheers,
Jeff

[Franki]

Those are some nice cases Franki, and they look good on there.

Thanks David

[Franki]

Franki,
those panniers are really nice looking. Are they available in China or Hong Kong? They look pretty much like the BMW ones or the new series Touratech is offering.

Greetings,
Andreas.

Hey Andreas,

The cases will be available both in Chna and HK. We are testing them out during our SEA tour and so far very happy with it. We shall make more modifications/improvements to make it more user friendly. Current model is about 41 liters and we are also looking at a 29 litercase. I showed them to Dr. Greg Frazer (the guy who rode around the world 5 times) and he loved it very much.

Enjoy your trip in Butan and see you when you are back.

Regards,

Franki