2011 Easter Ride

[milton]

Great RR.
I found the following picture very interesting:



They don't bother clearning up the board before pasting over with new ones, do they. There were obviously some weddings, a picture of chairman Mao as "bright red sun" for protection, and last but not least, "May God be with us" (以马内利) for future insurance with our Christian God. You probably missed the last one, those 4 Chinese characters are to be read from right to left, if you can read Chinese at all, unlike other posters.
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers!

[felix]

Thanks for the write-up Pfaelzer! I'm almost sure i took the same road last october with ChinaV and Daofei, but we were going the other way from jianou to fuzhou. Looks like we had the same weather too!





Those footpegs are definitely off an XTR. I know them well, they put a giant hole hole through my cheapo boots after 2 weeks of riding last year.

[Pfaelzer]

Hi Felix and ChinaV,

seems we really took the same road...we should call it "foggy Peak Road". Yepp, Galaxy foot-pegs - putting holes into soles? I hope not in you new boots Felix...
AW.

[Pfaelzer]

OK, 2nd day on the road.

The sun came out, a good night sleep, next destination: WuyiShan. Following up the river north - 88km. Our plan was to explore the area there so we took the main road, which was busy at times, industry but also nice towns.




















Getting near Wuyishan, the landscape becomes again nice with tea plantations and mountains. The city has basically two areas. The main city and the "scenic are", where most of the tourist hotels are located and from where it is quick to reach all "scenic spots, which are located in the west of the town.




We discovered on the way, that we lost the cap of the rea-break fluid container. Luckily, the rubber inside was still there and we had not lot all the oil so the break system didn;t draw air in. A quick fix had to do it until the next repair shop.








There are several really busy tourist spots, but being independent on a big with a GPS it is not hard to find very nice little country roads.






We found the repair-shop and I went through their trash in search of a fitting cap-replacement.




Didn't take long to find one, which was almost perfect.




Done.




Of course we gathered the usual crowd and I showed them how to fill up the container, using a paper funnel. The shop-owner sold me his last bottle (1 liter!!!) of break-fluid for "san-she wu quai". I know what I will do back in my work-shop, but for now this has to do it.




" I WANNA BE A BIKER DADDY!!!"

[Pfaelzer]

We decided to make another loop into the mountains before looking for a place to stay. Word was out, that most hotels were booked and were over-charging due to many visitors. Let's see - first some more scenery...
















Modern stone carving. I guess with the electric grinder it takes this guy far less time for some rock-lyrics than in ancient times.




We saw a nice pagoda with a little dirt road leading to it. Turned out that this one wasn't finished BUT - at this time it was totally for our own - nobody around so we climbed up. Great views...
















Guess I will not get this view of my bike easily again.




What a day again - only flying might be nicer but somehow it just doesn't work. Maybe the guy is too heavy and how the f... does this thing fire up?




Some more scenery.

[Pfaelzer]

time for lunch, even a bit late. Nice road-side restaurant with "outdoor dining area". As usual the crowd with the usual questions: Where do you come from? Where does this bike come from? How much is the bike? How many "shi-shi"? Good chance also, to go online and find a hotel. Why not using technology, when it is available?






We found a nice hotel (4-star, and really not that cheap - but clean). Dropped our bags and went on for another loop...




It was getting dark, but we just enjoyed too much riding those small country roads between mountains and tea plantations, passing by small tea-villages.














Buying water and snacks...we suddenly realized, that we were still 50 km away from the hotel - OK - time to set the GPS to end the day.




40 km on small concrete roads up and down some hills in the darkness. Fun ride, no traffic at all but the show was over. Arrived at the hotel late - too tired to go out this night.

Back tomorrow with more. Hope you like the pix.

Cheers,
A+A.

[euphonius]

Another awesome report, Pfaelzer, and I'm sure I'm not the only one awaiting Sunday's episode!

So I see you are filing via Macbook Air. I can't imagine there's wifi in those little restaurants. Are you getting online via GPRS? Bluetooth tether to your mobile phone? Or a separate GPRS USB modem? Whatever you are using, it's effective!

I'll be interested to hear your final verdict on hitting such an "officially designated scenic area" during a high-season weekend. I guess on the one hand it's nice to have friendly people around to help with repairs and logistics, but on the other it must be vexing to have to dodge those fleets of tourists dutifully following their flag-waving tour guides and snapping "I was here" pix at every turn...

Ride safely!

[moilami]

Thanks of the very good report and pics.

[Pfaelzer]

Friends, what a day!!!

First of all, it is late again and we are tired. I will summarize the events of today and edit some more after the trip. Gotta get some sleep, soon you will understand why.

Here the story:
Started from Wuyishan and it was warm and sunny right away. North/east of of town... all I can say is X825 and X 824 - unbelievable country road. Fresh concrete over all sections and very remote places. We had a blast..and a quick electric fix. Check our lunch time pictures - basic food but perfect "ambiente"...
Hit the G205 north, fast and smooth as silk, good for some different kind of fun , hence no pix of this section.
Then Mount Jiang Lang! Never seen something like this. There is a tiny road up to the base of the mountain and we took it. There was a toll-booth but people were sitting inside. I didn't really want to stop, just to hear maybe, that motorcycles are not allowed up there so we just went through - unharmed! Guess it's early in the season... it was worth it and I actually wanted to ride one more time up and down - if not time was already tight.
We now started to make our way back south/east, more beautiful mountain roads and very remote. Took a wrong turn but continued but continued just to find out after 8km that it was a dead-end. We didn't regret it though. That road was not on my GPS.
Took the "right road" and then, coincidently it got dark again - the day is already over? We started to question the GPS for the next hotel - surprise! 40km back OR 120km in our direction.
Back we went to Jiangshan. Since we gotta be back in Fuzhou tomorrow, this location is not exactly good. The GPS says: 480km tomorrow - probably without X-roads. That's the price - but never know. I'll hook up some pictures now and say good night.

A+A.













































Ah, can't decide. Took 280 pictures today so you got more now than planned. Stay tuned and good night again.
AW.

[Pfaelzer]

Another awesome report, Pfaelzer, and I'm sure I'm not the only one awaiting Sunday's episode!

So I see you are filing via Macbook Air. I can't imagine there's wifi in those little restaurants. Are you getting online via GPRS? Bluetooth tether to your mobile phone? Or a separate GPRS USB modem? Whatever you are using, it's effective!

I'll be interested to hear your final verdict on hitting such an "officially designated scenic area" during a high-season weekend. I guess on the one hand it's nice to have friendly people around to help with repairs and logistics, but on the other it must be vexing to have to dodge those fleets of tourists dutifully following their flag-waving tour guides and snapping "I was here" pix at every turn...

Ride safely!

Thanks euphonius.

I am actually using a Unicom WCDMA modem at 80RMB/month. Not bad. It delivers even skype video in decent quality. Besides that, some of the hotels in bigger towns do have internet access in the rooms.

I agree, for us it is not too nice, when things are getting crowded during high season, but TIC and the people in this country seem not to be too sensitive about it. Sometimes I think they even like when it is crowded. For us, we expected it to be more busy and it it would have been too much, well, we have bikes, we know how to escape.... It seems we were really lucky at Wuyishan for being there early in the year. There were toll booths at some places, but people didn't seem to bother. They cashed in on cars at some places.

Hope all is good with you Jeff,
greetings,
AW.