JH600 - Wet and Muddy in Fujian

[Pfaelzer]

Hi all,

after lot's of traveling and work I finally have the chance to really road-test all recent modifications on my JH600. My wife came up to join me on a nice 3-days tour in the mountains and coast area around Fuzhou. If proofs again - some adventures are right in front of our door-steps and not always 1000 miles away.



Here my two babies in black waiting for me to take them off...

DAY 1



The road choice for us is mostly little back-roads, county-side.



Local bikers, mountain road, rain seems to come up...



View of Fuzhou from a nice "balcony"...







Road work is going on everywhere in China. The rain makes it muddy too. I didn't take (unfortunately) too many pictures of these sections. We had fun, the Heidenau K60's were doing a great job - so did the rear suspension. I was also very happy about the larger rear sprocket, which gave me enough torque, also at low speed when things were quite slippery.





Romantic country-side.





Different road qualities - even rainy, temperatures were quite up around 28C.



End of day 1. First duty - take a shower - including gear.



We found a nice hotel in Minhou. Luckily there was a manager who could speak english, so ordering food and all was easy.







Trying to buy some desert wasn't that easy - but everything is possible in China (I know, there is somebody around who likes to add "...but no frickn' thing is easy")











"NO ENGLISH!!!"





What a day...

[felix]

Lovely stuff so far, please continue!

If proofs again - some adventures are right in front of our door-steps and not always 1000 miles away

It's easy to say that when you live bang in the middle of the biggest mountain range in eastern china. I think that if you lived in xuzhou, for example, you would quickly get bored of the adventures that don't involve 1000 km.

[Pfaelzer]

Day 2

Getting out of a bigger town is always a bit challenging. No pictures taken. Then we continued south towards a town called Yongtai. The weather as on day 1, first dry then wet.







Different road conditions, nice scenery.







Again road work...











The towns are looking different to Dongguan...



...this is a main road.



A little coffee break in a nice convenient shelter form the rain.



My two "Tourfella's"...



For anyone who can read chinese - this is from my always caring friends at the office. Emergency information... Well, I hope we will never need this.



Having a coffe - but actually dreaming of a cold beer. As mentioned before, even it doesn't look like - but it was a hot and wet day.







Nice little side-roads...



...the main road below.



The valley of Yongtai - this is a scenic area with a nice Hot-spring Hotel (it was too early in the day for us to check-in here) and hiking trails up to some nice mountains.







As usual in scenic areas, they charge if you want to use the trails. Too hot for us to even thinking about climbing these steep stairs.





The usual funny translations...

[Pfaelzer]

We continued through this really nice valley to this tourist place - which was thanks to the rain totally empty.



LUNCH TIME!!!




Well, how to order food if you have hardly any idea of the language? Go to the kitchen and see what they have. BUT- take a close look otherwise: Ok ,we needed some soup. The word is "tang" - sure. The waitress understands and lists up a lot of Tang's with different names added to it - of course we didn't understand any. In the end I asked my wife to just try one. So when the waitressed finished her list I asked here again and the first Tang she mentioned, I made clear, that we wanted that one... Let's see - surprise. We love Chinese food.



But first some tea...



Bamboo sprouts, vegetable, rice,...all we could see in the kitchen.



The soup!!! Not REALLY what we expected - you can clearly see the hand of the frog on the spoon...



...let's enjoy frog soup then. Hmmm tasty. I couldn't convince my wife to give it a try. The taste was actually not bad.



We saw the other candidates on "death row" on our way out...



We continued the trip in a really fantastic landscape - and on good roads, first...











The road got rough again at times - but fun to ride. The suspension is eating up all my riding mistakes.



The bike gets more color.





Another typical coffee break. in the mountains above Putian City.





This is another project. Obviously, the front fender cannot deal with the 21 inch front wheel conversion. Mud and water everywhere. I need to launch a fender extension project.



Late afternoon, a little Typhoon had passed through - now the air is clear and clean.









We visited the South Shaolin Temple near Putian. They say the place has got an over 1000 year history but the buildings were destroyed several times. For me - as a Kungfu Movie fan - the experience here was a bit disappointing. However, the nice ride up was more than compensating.







Dinner was good. We didn't take a chance this time and rang up a friend who placed the order for us.



Romantic hotel room at a very reasonable rate. Good enough for a nice sleep after a long and great riding day and also for drying our gear.

[Lao Jia Hou]

Fantastic Ride Report Andreas with great photos!

I am really interested in hearing more about your suspension. I've read (over and over a hundred times) your JH600 modifying thread, and find your on-road testing to be valuable.

Those look like nice helmets - do they have bluetooth for rider / passenger communication?

Thanks
Richard

[SabineHartmann]

I love this ride report! expecialy when it comes to the food part!
we also only have very limited Chinese Language skills and something like your frog soup happens to us very often. I have learned something during our beeing in China.
the 1. dish they offer mostly is the restaurants special, that is why I make a "yes sign" at the 5-8 they are mention.
and another "surprise" Pfaelzer now has a face for me.
Danke schoen!!!!
Sabine

[ChinaV]

That's Awesome

Thanks for sharing another great ride with us, is your wife going to get a JH600 of her own?

Cheers!
ChinaV

[euphonius]

Ja! Vielen dank indeed! Great ride, and a great report. Nice to know how the Jialing performed OK two-up.

cheers

[Pfaelzer]

Hi Richard,
What do you want to know about the suspension? It is more firm and less "swinging" than the original part. I ordered it a bit on the harder side (Wilbers can tune the spring based on your needs) because I have traveling with luggage and 2 up in my mind. It is surely an improvement on and off road. Cornering fast on road and hitting a bump it typically shakes up control a bit and you hit the main stand - this behavior is improved as well. Best is to come to Fuzhou and test ride...

As for the helmets, actually nothing special, an old Arai, which my wife used in Hong Kong on her Vespa and mine is a Zenith, which I got from the Guangzhou motorcycle market. No bluetooth.

Cheers,
AW.

[Pfaelzer]

Hi Felix,

one more day to come soon. Different that the first days. About adventure - maybe you are right, I don't know Suzhou... Guangdong and Fujian only. Good luck anyhow.


AW.