Greetings all,
I'm posting some photos and a bit of info regarding my solo tour of Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang provinces that took place in July.

Bike: I picked up a Zongshen 200gy from my little Gansu province town for 8,500 rmb. A Chinese friend of mine helped work out the deal that included plates and licensing. The shop didn't exactly go out of their way to get it into great running shape before handing it off to me, and I also had a broken camshaft early on, but other than that, it was extremely comfortable and a decent choice.

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Eastern Gansu proved to be quite difficult to get across. I dealt with a lot of rain, road construction, bad roads and disappearing roads. However, it also provided me with some of the most exciting motorcycling of the trip. I had to readjust my route quite a few times, but essentially I traveled along 312 from Pingliang - Lanzhou. From Lanzhou, I headed on 213 to Dongxiang, Linxia and then broke off to arrive at Xiahe. Although difficult at times, I highly recommend the journey to Xiahe. Especially for those who have not been to other Tibetan communities.

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One of the greatest scenery days of riding took place from Xining, Qinghai to Zhangye, Gansu on route 227. This route is well constructed and also sees a bit of truck and tourist traffic, but certainly worth it.

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Catching 312 again from Zhangye, traveling the length of western Gansu was pretty smooth until Dunhuang. Many sections of 215 south of Dunhuang were under construction and proved slow going until I hit Qinghai via 305. Both 305 and 315 in western Qinghai were well constructed roads, but there's a lot of nothing. I'm thankful I didn't have any mechanical troubles during that section.

I entered Xinjiang from Qinghai on route 315 with some trouble again due to rain mixed with poor construction detour roads. Eventually I rolled out of the Altun moutains and into the desert. Route 218 through the desert was quick, but lacking scenery, so I jumped over to the trans-taklimakan desert highway as well for a peek. 314 between the desert highway and Korla is hell due to trucks. I rode it all the way to Urumqi (arrival pictured below) and decided to do a northern trip rather than a western journey to Kashmir. Mostly this was due to time limitation and I didn't want to rush a trip to Kashmir. So pictured below is the beautiful landscape of the Altay mountains. This area is worth getting to, but can be quite touristy around Kanas lake. Also, be careful which road you take from Burqin, as the 227 route will take you too close to Kazakhstan, which the border police won't like.
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