The first JH600 in Nanjing?

[bikerdoc]

jkp,
I am bending a rule or two and riding without for a few days. I have carried the sales contract with me as I understand this gives me a bit of grace time. The wife is on the registration detail as I type this and I should have the plate, insurance, tax paid, etc this week. I am really not too worried. I rode the Chang Jiang for 6 months without a plate and the local police only yelled a bit and told me to go get one. Once I got the plate they were happy. I mainly want to be legal so I can ride longer distances as I think I can trust the JH600 modern technology more than the old Chang Jiang 750 WWII technology. More time riding and less time working on it.

I have done nothing to the bike yet. I have a new muffler from Franki and a new shock and springs coming. But to be honest, the Euro model has a pretty decent suspension out of the box. Making it taller may have worked well to improve this from the ride AW had? I am still trying to identify shop to install the new and improved springs and rear shock as I agree it could be better. I was just pleasantly surprised with the standard units.

I am looking at around RMB13000 for plate, taxes, and insurance here in Nanjing so I am holding off on new Panniers and maybe wheels for few weeks. My monthly fun funds is depleted till I ride the bike around a bit and decide the next priority.

Look forward to meeting up with some of you guys in the future for a mountain dirt road ride or two.

DT

Excellent, this is the kind of information that I like to read (cheers for sharing!) so that I can sway myself to bloody well place the order and have 'er turn up a month or so later... I'm lucky in that I can do a fair bit of bike work myself, and have my own garage which is busting at the seams... I also could use the one of the local dealerships to help me put 'er together too. So speaking about garage...

I got home lastnight after having ridden about 600km in the day, and three tank fulls of fuel on my Dragstar. I rode round mountains around Ningbo, back of Shengzhou, Ninghai and a couple of other places. My battery was on its last legs and decided it didn't want to fire up yesterday after being set aside for more than a week. Perhaps it was just to-spite me! Anyway I connected it up with my jumper-leads to my car battery, and still rode the bike round. I tested it out by parking on a hill after an hours running, and the battery was as dead as a doorknob. No big deal I just made sure that I refuelled in gas stations that had inclines or hills. This then kind of set the tone for where I could ride. Rode round Binhai, to Tangxi over a few mountains to Hengxi then out some back roads to Fenghua through to Xikou into Simingshan (huge mountain range over in these parts). This set me up to ride to a BP that's situated on a steep hill on the other side of Simingshan Village. Turn off bike, refuel, wash hands and face, pitstop for a no.1 gulp down some fluids, and try the starter button. No way-ho zay. No worries crash start... and away we gooooooOoooo! Fast forward to around 7pm last night after having ridden round the back of Xinchang to Shenzhen and the Ninghai hot-springs, as I was riding through some back country into a fairly familiar town, when I spotted a gas station that had a slight gradient to the forecourt. I was still on main tank... after having filled a second time throughout the days ride... so thought well better make it 3. Fill the tank (65 kuai, so I was close to reserve) -so good call I think to myself... then what? I couldn't f^%$*n crash start the bike... no matter how many times I pushed, heaved and lugged that 280kg behemoth round... no matter how much I sweated or strained... she wasn't starting, not on that slope, nor the next one I pushed 'er to, or the third one, that was steeper but then turned into a gravel track... finally after about 1 hour of struggling and pushing a few km's out of that town... I got 'er started and a side road that I was sure she'd not start as the slope didn't look all that. But as luck would have it, vrrrroOOOOoommm! you beauuuutyyy!

Opps... <phone call>

Then I rode the next 70km home.

[bikerdoc]

<phone call ends> so where was I....

So I got home, and as I was about get my spare new battery sorted, however there was a little wee snake trying to somehow shrink into nothing-ness (as small as possible) from the white glow of my Dragstar's HID headlight as it sat idling facing the garage... had a little fun with that for several minutes before I got back to the task at hand... swapped over the battery, did some tinkering, then parked the beast in 'er parking spot. Garages... great.

Ahhh... riding bikes... ruleZ....

Texasaggie... I like the meet up with you guys and do some trails and mountains and stuff... I wanted to "jump up and down" like a kid would do and say "pick me, pick me" but the I remembered "argh what the hell aint got the right wheels for that..." (ho-hum slouch back into my chair)... mind you that has not stopped me from riding my heavy Dragstar in places you'd not believe! once rode through a 1km mud section that was deep (up the base of the forks) on a loose metal track in a mountain not far from here, thats gutsy work on a heavy 280kg beast with me an additional 95kg... then me and my mate rode our Dragstars back through it (it was a no exit 30km track)

[euphonius]

...trails and mountains and stuff...

we'll have a Jialing dual sport quorum here in east China in no time. We've got Aggie in Nanjing, Pfaelzer (sometimes) in Fuzhou, and me in Shanghai. And dig this: Another friend's JH600 arrived in Shanghai today (though it's still with the freight forwarder) and yet another friend was filling in his contract this morning.

And then there were five. We'll have to start doing Thursday evening bike nights!

Whaddaya say, bikerdoc?

[TexasAggie]

It is definitely looking like it could be fun!

DT

[ChinaV]

Sure am enjoying your thread TexasAggie, keep it up and you might just convince me that I need one of these in the garage.

Cheers!
ChinaV

[bikerdoc]

Found this post http://www.moto8.cn/viewthread.php?t...&authorid=2652 by chance while reading on motofans.cn and http://motorcycle.sh.cn/viewthread.php?tid=330242 Though you might be interested since it details a lot of JH600 mods that these guys have undertaken...

[TexasAggie]

Bikerdoc,

Thanks for the post! It appears that is AW's JH. I think his bike is even more famous here in China than it is on www.mychinamoto.com! I just got back into Nanjing, the wife is getting Big Blue licensed today and I should have the plate tomorrow. Hopefully I can take some time off work and put some miles/km on the seat over the next week. I promise to have better pictures soon. So far, I am very happy with my version straight out of the box. I have not even replaced the muffler yet. (Although a Laser ordered from Franki is sitting here in my office as I type and I am looking forward to getting it on)

DT

[bikerdoc]

Bikerdoc,

Thanks for the post! It appears that is AW's JH. I think his bike is even more famous here in China than it is on www.mychinamoto.com! I just got back into Nanjing, the wife is getting Big Blue licensed today and I should have the plate tomorrow. Hopefully I can take some time off work and put some miles/km on the seat over the next week. I promise to have better pictures soon. So far, I am very happy with my version straight out of the box. I have not even replaced the muffler yet. (Although a Laser ordered from Franki is sitting here in my office as I type and I am looking forward to getting it on)
DT

Haha. Yeah I thought the mods looked so similar, but I had thought (incorrectly) perhaps AW had done most of the mods himself.

TexasAggie, I think your bike with the two-tone black and blue looks great, and I like the way that the black two-tone paint has been extended onto the panniers and topbox. My only concern would be the quality of the plastic used for the panniers/top box. I've had several types of topboxes which have been made with what is likely to be poor quality plastics which have ended up breaking after a little use and riding. Usually its the riding that vibrates the hell out of them. So far the best quality boxes I've had here have been ADLO, which are a totally different plastic altogether. I even travelled last week from Ningbo to HZ (return) motorcycle market on MoGanShan Lu (I traveled via long routes not using the expressway) just so I could phsycially buy another ADLO 981 topbox. The plastic quality is great and it comes complete with a key operated quick-release mounting base.

As for my idea on a new JH600, I am almost at that point to make that deicision to buy one, however just yesterday I ordered a new CFMoto Jetmax 250 scooter, which will arrive in a weeks time. With this new addition, it's back to having 3 bikes again, so I'm thinking about selling one of the others to make room for a JH600.
I just luv scoots, and find they allow a certain amount of freedom and anonymity thats allowed me to just blend in and access little villages and so forth without feeling out of place. Not something so easily done on a bigger bike. The other thing with the new Jetmax 250cc is it is right up there with loads of new R&D manufcatured by one of the better motorcycle manufacturers in PRC (CFMoto aka Chun Feng), and I'm being a little presumptious when I write that it's likely to be somewhat similar to a Kymco Xciting 250. Time will tell if my assumption is correct. The main thing is a new legal Kymco Xciting 250 is RMB47k versus CFmoto Jetmax 250 RMB18k. I could buy 3 Jetmax's for the price of 1 Xciting.

Plus the top end is around 130km/h, and as most of us know and has been discussed, there are few places where one can do 100km/h and feel safe doing it on a motorcycle in mainland China.

[TexasAggie]

bikerdoc,
You are absolutely correct regarding the panniers and topbox. Franki warned me about this and he was correct. However, I liked everything else with the package. I am sure I will be replacing the panniers and doing without the topbox soon. Until then, I will have to keep duct tape with me! I am hoping I can get some custom make boxes at some point that can attach to the frame the bike came with. We shall see. I appreciate the heads up ont he ADLO brand.

Overall, I am pretty happy with everything on the JH except lack of free time to enjoy the new toy.

Good luck with your scooter. Let me know if you make it to or near Nanjing.
DT

[bikerdoc]

Bikerdoc,
...Hopefully I can take some time off work and put some miles/km on the seat over the next week....DT

A group of us plan to ride Mon-Wed next week around Zhejiang, probably LiShui, Jiande, QianDao Hu etc. 3 days off riding. Maybe you'd like to join us? Grab a few things, ride down to Ningbo to meet up with us Sunday, stay here overnight and leave with us Monday morning. Anybody else up for it?