National Day Ride 2010 (Anhui + SW Zhejiang)

[MotoKai]

After bad weather reports over Mid-Autumn Festival sent me to Shaoxing rather than the planned Anhui ride http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/sh...hlight=motokai, I finally got out west of Shanghai over National Day with 5 days of flawless riding weather.



My route took me west of Shanghai on the G318 thru Zhejiang and into Anhui. There was about 200km of decent tarmac passing Huzhou and onto Guangde - well not quite onto Guangde. About 20km east of there I found the road disappearing from under my front tire. It was packed, dry, hard road with lots of potholes. With mostly highway mileage logged onto the JH600 in Shanghai and Zhejiang this was her first test of crap roads, and I thought it would be fun as well. And for how long could it last? 10km perhaps?

This was my "hard" lesson in how Chinese repair a road. They don't do it in small sections, but instead take a mad length of anywhere from 50km to 200km and tear the the whole thing apart. In this case it was 100km of dirt, mammoth holes, dust and yes...mud and more mud.

While riding thru this (and deluding myself that the bad roads were going to end just around the next bend) I intellectualized the need for some notification system on how to avoid vanishing roads when trip planning - because Google Maps doesn't yet offer this. Thanks to ChinaV, there's now a thread discussing this topic: http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/sh...ghlight=chinav

I pushed on closing off Day-1 in Xuancheng:
Distance: 326km
Riding Duration: 6hrs
Avg Speed: 54.4kph

Motokai's First China Mudbath

[MotoKai]

Day 2 would be a short sprint to the mountain area of Jiuhuashan (1324m). Jiuhuashan is "the other Huangshan", which is less crowded with 99 peaks of amazing views in all directions - including mouth watering mountain twisties that are closed to motorcycles. Sorry guys!




But this little rule was conveyed to me only after I found the road up to the top where the hotels are. At the gate the police jumped out at me from every direction with a confused look on their face asking how I got up there. I rode of course. They explained that it's been a few years since they allowed motorcycles up the mountain, and the last guy who tried that day was sent back down. After a nice chat with them and explaining that I already booked a hotel they were friendly and decided it would be okay for me to stay provided I left my motorcycle with them. So I called C-Trip quickly and booked a hotel! ;)





Have to include some gratuitous photos of the spectacular nature and scenery of Jiuhuashan. Back in the Tang Dynasty there were 3,000 monks and nuns worshiping in over 150 monasteries here!






With the tourists, comes the RMB! (Weather was good, so it was a good week for the monks)




Day-2 ended with low mileage but very sore legs from hiking:
Distance: 143km
Riding Duration: 2hrs
Avg Speed: 71.5kph

[MotoKai]

The plan for the next day would be RIDING! Now with my bike back from police custody, I would ride the S103 south past Huangshan Mountain Area and thru Huangshan City onto the G205 and the G320 to Southwest Zhejiang to meet a friend living there. This would need good WEATHER and good ROADS. It was a sunny day, which meant I already had one requirement taken care of.

So it was back down the mountain.

[MotoKai]

Then into the Jiuhuahsan valley with the morning fog.




And south on the S103...




Mulepower vs. Horsepower





This was supposed to be a sign of what I would expect on the G205


Welcome to the G205. Still sunny but now things will change....




After kilometers of mud, then dust and holes there was a 3m wide slab of concrete that would come and go. When it would end it was dirt and gravel.
Because it was so beautiful, I didn't really mind even though I was losing sunlight with the low speed.








Then came the mountain climb when this 3m slab of road was all I had between me and the cliff edge.

[MotoKai]

As the roads challenged, the speeds slowed and the sun set...I wasn't going to make it to my friend's place. So riding thru the dark I stopped at the first city I could find - Kaihua, Zhejiang (close to the Jiangxi border). Was a solid day of riding nonetheless:

Day-3 (Kaihua, Zhejiang)
Distance: 317km
Riding Duration: 9.25hrs
Avg Speed: 34.3kph

The next day would take me a bit further south to the G320 then back north, looking for a place to spend the night before heading back to Shanghai the following day.

And it here that I found the S210 between Pujiang and Tonglu (no photos, sorry - but I'll be back).
It was Europe-like. A beautiful mountain road winding road thru a valley with many tunnels and devoid of Blue Trucks and farm equipment. It's one of those roads where you can open it up in 5th, and downshift to 4th for the wide corners then back to 5th. Smooth and fast with magnificent views. Mark this one on your map if you're ever in Soutwest Zhejiang.

Day-4 (Fuyang, Zhejiang)
Distance: 348km
Riding Duration: 6.5hrs
Avg Speed: 53.5kph

Fuyang sunset and hotel parking!

[MotoKai]

Day-5 was slabbing back to Shanghai thru Hangzhou. There are no motorcycles allowed in Hangzhou but I somehow wandered off the G320 unintentially and found myself riding right thru downtown. But without event made it out the otherside and back to Shanghai.

Day-5 (Shanghai)
Distance: 245km
Riding Duration: 4.5hrs
Avg Speed: 54.4kph

Trip Totals
Distance: 1,379km
Riding Duration: 28.25hrs
Avg Speed: 48.8kph