Motokai's Inner Mongolia Ride 2011

[MotoKai]

With the Summer temps cooling I used the opportunity of a Beijing business trip to arrange a last-minute ride to Inner Mongolia.

On Aug-8th I rode the JH600 to the Shanghai South Train Station where I emptied the tank and handed the bike over to CRE for about RMB 550 (which included RMB 5,000 insurance in case there were any damages during delivery).

I arrived Beijing a few days later, then on Saturday I taxied to Beijing Station to collect the bike. I pushed her to the nearest gas station for a fill-up and then rode back to the hotel to pack the new Tourfella boxes with supplies for the next 9 days and off I went.

Sticking with the philosophy of Steinbeck that the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, I didn't have a fixed route. The general plan was to first head to Chengde, then just ride up into Inner Mongolia following the S-Roads (省道) and take as many off-roads as possible, which would allow the opportunity to keep testing the JH600 on as much different terrain as possible. At one point Time's evil head would appear and remind me to start making my way back to Beijing thru Hebei, enjoying the mountain twisties along the way. But road reality is always the best of trip planners, and on Day-1 out of Beijing the JH600’s stator fried which landed me a 2.5 day stopover in Chengde. At times there were thoughts of trucking the bike back to Beijing, but alas new parts arrived from Hefei via China’s mystical kuaidi express system and back on the road to Inner Mongolia I was.

So, time has come to do the Ride Report. I’ll post some of the highlights soon enough, but in the meantime here is a compilation of photos and video clips from the ride.

WARNING: For those who do not like to watch trailers before seeing a movie that is just released, DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO!
I’ll get to the RR soon.

For others who dare watch, grab a coffee or a beer....it's a long one (20mins).



Route: Beijing Train Station – Chengde – Weichang – Xilin Hot – Sonid Youqi – Zhangjiakou – Dishuihu - Beijing Train Station
Duration: 9 days (6 days riding + .5 days pushing + 2.5 days waiting for parts & touristing in Chengde)
Distance: 2,300 km (2,290km riding + 10km pushing)
Mechanicals: 1 fried stator
Flats: 3 (2 patches, 1 tube replacement + 1 big surprise)

[ChinaV]

Hurry up, I want to see the full sized version of this one





Cheers!
ChinaV

[ZMC888]

Cool video, worth watching and loads fast!

[Lao Jia Hou]

Hurry up, I want to see the full sized version of this one

Heh heh ... I agree! I noticed that too.

"fried stator"? I'm thinking something else may have overheated that caused him to spend a couple of days in one location.

Fantastic video production Motokai. Really top quality stuff. Thanks!

[euphonius]

Yes, she can fry my stator any time.

Awesome shooting, and awesome editing, MK. If the NBA season truly is lost, you can freelance as a video producer. Thanks for a fantastic Dokument.

cheers

[felix]

That was a class watch motokai, seriously great stuff! Your best yet. You really put some forethought into it too, like the shot of you riding past the camera. I guess you had to set that up with a tripod and ride past it once or twice!

That shot where you're on the hard shoulder riding past the miles and miles of trucks is mind boggling. Poor bastards...

[MotoKai]

Thanks for the comments guys. There were so many amazing and beautiful moments on the ride, so this was the ideal format to preserve the memories.

That was a class watch motokai, seriously great stuff! Your best yet. You really put some forethought into it too, like the shot of you riding past the camera. I guess you had to set that up with a tripod and ride past it once or twice!

First time I shot myself riding. After riding on these long-ass straightaways thru the desert and grasslands you start to play a bit. This was one of the activities I came up with. I didn't have a tripod so I laid the cam on a highway marker (those little concrete stubs protruding out of the ground - hence the low to the ground angle). For the 2 shots like this, I just did one fly-by then back to pick up the camera. There's absolutely nothing out there. It's moon-like, so no worries about traffic or someone stealing the camera!

That shot where you're on the hard shoulder riding past the miles and miles of trucks is mind boggling. Poor bastards...

Yeah, I was the poor bastard for about 2 hours riding on the G110 which sits a about 200m to the north and hugs the Expressway thru the valley and hills. This road belongs to Dante's Eighth Circle (Fraud): The fraudulent—those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil—are located in a circle named Malebolge ("Evil Pockets"), divided into ten Bolgie, or ditches of stone, with bridges spanning the ditches.

I was too busy navigating the Bolgie, coal trucks, potholes and ruts to truly capture how evil this road is. It's completely filled with trucks. You can't get angry at these guys (this is their world where they're just trying to make some cash to survive and you are a visitor). But nonetheless the pollution, the bottoming-out, the strips of construction with even deeper tire ruts (pits) and increase in fumes inhaled due to the lower speeds of the trucks which you need to navigate past can drive you mad.

So for me, escaping this hell and getting onto the Expressway to witness another hell (for the truckers) was a certain ironic sympathy. From the video, you'll see I was making good progress on the Emergency Lane, but this soon ended and I was forced back onto the G110 for another 2 hours.

[MotoKai]

Hurry up, I want to see the full sized version of this one

Here you go....


EDIT: Oh, sorry. Uploaded the wrong photo

Anyway, the backstory on 小Motokai was.....
As you can see from the video, this little guy was enjoying being the subject of Motokai's camera for the first few shots. After flashing a few V-signs with his fingers he demanded I process the pics on the spot and give him the photos I just took. I explained the limitations of my camera and its inability to process photos, which was the catalyst that turned him into something that more closely resembled Motokai!