Second best couldn't be better

[lightend]

yeah, i have been on a few times but as i live out of the way and tend to stay away from bigger citys, i am withdrawn from english contact (which is crap as my chinese is crappy lol) (but its the way i like it)
http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=%E...&t=h&z=6&via=1

i will be riding this route (without gps) i expect it will take around a week (due to crappy chinese and no gps)(plus me being a floppy dick and getting lost)

i do like ot read ride reports but never really comment on them, much better to just read and get lost in my imagination, I hope all goes well for you in shanghai and you drudge up as much information as you can remember about the ride you had :-)

take it easy bro

[corporal_clegg]

yeah, i have been on a few times but as i live out of the way and tend to stay away from bigger citys, i am withdrawn from english contact (which is crap as my chinese is crappy lol) (but its the way i like it)
http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=%E...&t=h&z=6&via=1

i will be riding this route (without gps) i expect it will take around a week (due to crappy chinese and no gps)(plus me being a floppy dick and getting lost)

i do like ot read ride reports but never really comment on them, much better to just read and get lost in my imagination, I hope all goes well for you in shanghai and you drudge up as much information as you can remember about the ride you had :-)

take it easy bro

Cool, looks like a nice route. I would advise you take a trip into the mountains around huangshan tho. Particularly that s325 i think it was from my last post. Also it would be worth your while gettin a gps. The stock gps in my phone was indespensible. Phone was less than 2000, and i bought it just for that reason and have been learning ever since all the great things i can do with it.

[corporal_clegg]

Day 8: To CHizhou

In the morning on a supply mission (namely tape for our rapidly deteriorating saddle bags) I was amazed by the power coming from the little QingQi. She was very happy to be unburdened so I suited up and took her back the same route we came for one last burn around that brilliant mountain road, we would be leaving the mountains today. I decided to head for one of the scenic spots I had seen posted on the way in. The turn-off for the spot coincided with an exact loss of road. The road was basically a relatively flat layer of rocks two lanes wide. On another bike I may have passed it up and dreameded forever of the wonderful sights in store for me at niubi something-or-other, on the Enterprise however it was another chance to go where no man has and we tore accross them rocks like-it-aint-no-thing. Felt like I was driving sideways most of the time. Very entertaining, something which niubi was not. At the end of the road was a line of shops and small restaurants, I had to laugh. There was no amazing scenery, just a pitstop for travellers to unload some of their money on the local industry before going back on their way. Hit some more offroad bits and pieces, as you do, on the way back to the hotel.

The plan was just to get out of the mountains and then doss around off-road on the way back for five more days or so. We were already battling with waning enthusiasm and a desire to get the most out of our trip when the last straw was lain. While Ms. "Sugar and spice and all things nice" Clegg amused herself taking pictures of dead animals and insects I was a little overzealously attacking a grass mound when I dropped the bike, this time on my leg. The fore-pegs gave my leg a pretty respectable gash, the one of the rear pegs had warped its holder and was hanging limply. All this aside the bike wouldn't start! I was beginning to see that the QQ was not indestructable after all. While trying to flag down some help on guy stopped in a small (empty) pick-up just up the road and we couldn't believe our luck. He took off before I could reach the truck, leaving us to muse awhile on the finer points of a "communist" society. I would take a paper tiger with a pick-up over a comrade with an acute sense of self-preservation anyday. Anyway eventually I caught a lift into town and brought a mechanic back with me, he did some fiddling and bending, tightened the rear brake (this is important for later) and sent us on our way... no charge. Up to this point we had not paid for any repairs on the bike.

We were pretty broken by this little mishap and vowed to ride the 318 all the way home. No more stop off's. Then we rolled into ChiZhou. This is the single best city we have ever been to in China. Medium sized, clean, cheap. We stayed two days. Rode around the various sights that were on offer. We highly reccommend this city to anyone travelling in the area.

After ChiZhou since we were already on the G318 (600 or so km from Shanghai) we decided to see how fast we could make it home (or how fast we could make it back there next time). It was a great big straight road with perfect tarmac except for two inch deep squares cut out here and there for no apparent reason. These can be dangerous when you're taking a corner at speed. Anyway we got lost and our hopes were shattered as we realised that the 318 turns into an expressway for a couple of long strectches. Negotiating the country roads ate up much of the day and our enthusiasm and by the time we reached ChangDe we decided to call it a day and make shanghai in the morning.

Here's one drop step-by-step







That drop gave the qinqqi it's first visible damage. (It's a mess now, I have vowed to get a new body kit and never drop it again)



Grazing on the mound that was to break us



Road from the morning... what fun!



One from the dead stuff collection



Our hero



We found this little starlet dancing the night away in the club we went to in ChiZhou that night... only in China lol

[Serpentza]

Hey man. Never seen you on the forum before. Where you plannin to go for your trip. We did the same with the paper actually, we wanted to travel as light as possible. Back home now doin the ride report from notes and pics. Would've done it in hotels along the way but forgot the camera cabels. Our trip after we modified (will post the route at the end) was 1400 on paper, ended up being 2000 with offroad and being lost almost every day. Just got oruxmaps on my phone now tho so that'll never(rarely) happen again.

Brave man to do everything on paper.. that's what smartphones are for... if you plan beforehand and upload some maps onto a server you can access them from anywhere from any smartphone or computer, The info is all here on MCM, but I'll detail it when I finally wrap up the Fujian ride report..

[euphonius]

This thread just keeps getting better and better. What surprise lies around the next corner???

Looking forward to my first trip to Chizhou...

thank you thank you!

[corporal_clegg]

Brave man to do everything on paper.. that's what smartphones are for... if you plan beforehand and upload some maps onto a server you can access them from anywhere from any smartphone or computer, The info is all here on MCM, but I'll detail it when I finally wrap up the Fujian ride report..

Lol, what are smartphones not for? I'm still upgrading my whole life into smartphone format, no more bits of paper, in fact no more books at all, no pen in my bag at anytime.... By on paper i meant in the planning stages tho.

This reminds me of a great quote by some football manager about one of his players, maybe somebody can give credit, i can't remember the names or the exact quote.

"On paper he's not such a good player but he 's much better on grass."
sounds like a Steven Gerrard type

[corporal_clegg]

The needle and the damage done



Great hotel with boss in ChiZhou, very helpful and nice



Pics from CHiZhou













ChangDe wasn't a great place in any respect but the people were very 友好。Some guy invited us back to meet his wife and kid. No pics of that tho.


Hold my baby

[corporal_clegg]

In planning the trip we had been working under the assumption that we would certainly take a fall at least once. On the last leg of the ride having not really come off yet the time was well nigh. Were made all the more aware of it by the incessant rain. Less than 200 km from Shanghai as I was braking behind a car that was turning left another car decided to turn left too and swung into my braking distance. A combination of water, lack of experience/space and a very tight rear break slammed all three of us on the wet tarmac. Luckily we had full gear on. Liza's wasn't tight enough on the knees so she was hurt a bit but she's had worse of a push-bike. All body parts in check we grabbed our stuff off the road. Relieved to be unharmed, tho a little shaken we sat a moment, something buzzing in our peripheral hearing about 110 and police. I went back to the spot to take a picture of the bike and move it off the road while the offending driving was waving his phone around witth 110 on the dial screen. I was telling him we were ok and there was no need for that when he pointed to some damage on the back of his car, I hadn't even felt it hit. I looked from the spot on my bike where my license plate is supposed to be to the car and back to the bike and realised that we had a problem.

We set the bike up and were ready to just take off but a crowd was surrounding my escape route and, no matter how many spectators i told to piss off, more arrived and there was no way out. We had to talk. He reckoned the damage was over 2000 worth. He called a mechanic from accross the road and told him to tell me the same. Right in front of me, even tho I spoke to him in Chinese he went ahead and tried it anyway. The mechanic told him 1000 and then told him to tell me 2000, I was standing right there. Idiots. Anyway, we gave them what we had on us (the lower figure), there was much argueing and interception of key turning and eventually I told him we were on our way to Shanghai to go home (he thought I meant abroad) and he let it go, we were happy to be out of there. I think he was happy with his money too. Damn Chinese love to make a scene tho don't they.

We stopped to get something to eat and gather our wits and turning a blind corner back onto the G318 we found a car driving the wrong way right into the radius of my turn. I tried to swing it back out but lost grip again and crashed into his front bumper as we slid. He tried half heartedly to tell us we were driving too fast (which we weren't) while Ms. Clegg unloaded all her fury at the last driver onto this guy. Wasn't much to argue about tho. We broke his front fender. We just told him to go and we regathered strength. It was still raining and felt very dangerous but we wanted home so bad we pushed on.

We stopped for a toilet break and as I stopped the bike in a bit of mud we all knew we were going down but I did nothing to stop it. To add insult to injury Ms. Clegg was accosted by a swarm of mosquito's as she squatted. 15 bites in the time it takes to take a leak. Then she had to sit on the bike all the way home, poor girl.

Finally just to top it off we almost got slabo'ed by some young girl who hopped the barrier in the middle of the road and, without lookin, took off running across the huqingping toward her mother on the other side. Luckily we missed her. She would've been a perfect end to our day, trip and time in China. We couldn't have been happier to be home.

You know they say all's well that ends well but the opposite is not neessarily true. Can't wait for the next trip

Thanks for reading

p.s. She still rides with me, if you can believe that

Me taking my bike from the crash site. You can see his bumber kindof coming off. He left his ar right there in the middle of the road the whole time. Unbelievable



Me partaking in one of the last bit's of bona-fide nature before shanghai



We stopped outside a Chevvy shop and they invited us in for tea. Only in China

[corporal_clegg]

[MissRose]

p.s. She still rides with me, if you can believe that

I'm FEARLESSS! not....

Well written Corporal, sir! But I think you could've made it a bit more exciting with some suspence!!!!
And also, all you guys reading, all three times I landed on my knees...!