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  1. #1 Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong 
    C-Moto Guru Serpentza's Avatar
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    As I write this, I'm sitting indoors at a lovely warm coffee shop sipping a great big coffee and looking outside at the miserable weather, a slippery sheen of icy water covers my bike and I'm in no mood to ride home just yet...

    It all started with the idea that Tom (Capt'n Pikey) Myself and beer girl were to ride to YangJiang (somewhere near Hainan).. The idea was that we'd be arriving somewhere with sunny beaches or at the very least nice enough weather to chill out for a few days and enjoy the Lunar new year since the (almost) Southern most part of China should be the warmest place to be in China.. the weather was looking good, just a week before the trip we were having warm sunny days in Shenzhen, I'd spent a few weeks fixing up the CB and getting prepped for the trip.

    Prepping the CB:

    I'll have the vids on youku this evening, but here's a picture of the finished product:



    New front wheel, new forks (well new tubes and innards), new front calipers/brake pads, new plastics (Rear cowling, front mud guard), new regulator, new crash bars etc.

    It was promising to be a good trip, the CB had never been in better shape.. and with the new front wheel she was smooth as silk and handled wonderfully...

    [Next up] - A bad omen
    Last edited by Serpentza; 01-25-2012 at 01:01 PM.
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  2. #2 Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong 
    C-Moto Guru Serpentza's Avatar
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    Shortly after the above picture was taken I headed out to meet up with the rest of the Shenzhen Biker gang (RichardKTM and Capt'n Tom Pikey), our bike fixing session (Thanks to Rich for all the help with the brakes) soon ended up being a drinking session as it usually does.... anyway long story short, sometime in the wee hours of the morning I was rolling around on the ground in the rain winded and rather upset that my nice shiny new fixed up bike was all bent and scraped.





    [Always wear protection... this could have been my face]

    About 2 days of hangover and dented pride recovery later I managed to bang the CB back into shape (it wasn't that bad really, bent handlebars, instrument cluster snapped in two, speedo cable torn out, crash bar bent, exhaust scratched up, headlight damaged etc), a few hours later she was looking almost like new (except for the electrical tape holding the instrument cluster together).



    [After being banged back into shape]

    .. I had seriously thought about giving the trip a skip after my little fall (it wasn't that little, my watch was torn off my arm, my jacket ripped almost in two, my right eardrum rather badly hurt and a little road rash here and there), but I'm not the sort to back out of a trip, besides I couldn't wait to get my CB out on the open roads to test the new front end.

    Sunday morning 8am and everything was packed onto the bike, we were going to head out and meet Tom somewhere near Huiyang, from there we'd head up "Martin's road" a lovely fast straight road that leads all the way to Huizhou.

    As you all know... Bikes aren't allowed in Shenzhen and it takes a bit of creative riding to get out of Shenzhen and into the "bike friendly" areas, there's a big police checkpoint that needs to be passed which can be hairy at the best of times.. and as luck would have it as I was apporaching the checkpoint, my clutch cable snapped...


    [I hate this bastard thing]

    I managed to make it through (kicking through the gears gently) and for some reason the lights were all green for a ways until finally I reached a big intersection and had no choice but to stall.

    At this point we were only 50kms into the trip and already I'd suffered a big setback.

    I sent Tom a message and asked him to meet me where I was since I knew he had a spare cable for his Yingang (and since the Yingang is basically a copy of a CB I was hoping it'd fit).

    ... I wasted no time, got off the main road and started asking around for bike shops..

    Since this was Chinese Lunar new year's eve things weren't looking good, all the shops were closed.

    [Coming up - a solution]
    Last edited by Serpentza; 01-27-2012 at 04:39 AM.
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  3. #3 Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong 
    C-Moto Senior richardktm's Avatar
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    I knew that 2nd bottle of Saki was one too many... we planned a dirt bike trip and only managed two days riding.. we got wet and seriously cold on tuesday even riding up crazy rock climbs and getting stuck in ravines didn't warm us up, i was shaking like a dog with distemper by the end of the day.. are you back in shenzhen yet?? if not ride safe and wrap up warm!!
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  4. #4 Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong 
    C-Moto Guru Serpentza's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by richardktm View Post
    I knew that 2nd bottle of Saki was one too many... we planned a dirt bike trip and only managed two days riding.. we got wet and seriously cold on tuesday even riding up crazy rock climbs and getting stuck in ravines didn't warm us up, i was shaking like a dog with distemper by the end of the day.. are you back in shenzhen yet?? if not ride safe and wrap up warm!!
    Thanks mate, all good and back now, Tom should be back tomorrow, just banging out the ride report.. and there are videos
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  5. #5 Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong 
    C-Moto Guru Serpentza's Avatar
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    I followed some directions down a back street and to my surprise, the only shop open on the street was a small bike repair shop.. he asked me what sort of cable I needed and I said "one for a Honda", he sold me a cable for 10RMB which looked like it may work, I ran back to the bike and started installing it.. as I was installing it, Tom arrived looking a lot more padded than usual, he was wearing 5 or six layers of clothing (including his raincoat) under his riding jacket.. I thought he was going a bit overboard since I was just wearing a T-shirt under my leather jacket and nothing other than boxers under my riding pants... (I was seriously unprepared).


    [Tom and Beer Girl all nicely wrapped up in multiple layers of clothing]

    Anyway, back to the problem, The new cable seemed to fit, but the wire was too long and well it didn't work. Tom's spare cable fit perfectly as if it was made for the bike... however he didn't want to part with it unless he really had to, so once my bike was up and running again we all rode to the bike shop and eventually found a cable that worked, I bought an extra spare and we continued on.

    [Coming up - The weather takes a turn for the worse]
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  6. #6 Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong 
    C-Moto Guru Serpentza's Avatar
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    Video:

    Worst Trip Ever - Part 1

    On Youku is SD (Shit Definition) for those of you in China



    On Youtube HD for those lucky enough to have access


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  7. #7 Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong 
    C-Moto Guru Serpentza's Avatar
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    We rode on without issue for a while, stopped off to fill up with petrol before leaving the main roads and heading into the "Mountain areas", to my surprise the CB had used a lot of fuel, I'd been taking it easy but still used up 10L in the 130odd kms we'd traveled... so I put in 70RMB +- and Tom put in a depressing 34RMB into the Yingang... (I suppose the CB is a 4cyl 400cc compared to his 1cyl 250.. but still).


    [Tom Parking the Yingang]

    Anyway, we started hitting some what would normally be awesome roads... lots of twisties, lots of sweepers all through lovely tree-lined roads... problem was that it started raining... the wet combined with the cold really did a number on me (don't forget I wasn't wearing anything other than a T-shirt, a pair of gloves and a small scarf), my gloves were soon soaked and my hands started to cramp up... it got so bad that I was having difficulty using the clutch since it was too painful to use my hands, we got to an intersection and decided to cut out the scenery and get to the nearest town.. which happened to be Zengcheng.. it was only an excrutiating 35kms away from our current location.


    [Beer Girl standing in the cold outside a Zengcheng bike shop]

    We had hoped to stay in a 7days inn that Tom had used before.. but when we arrived it was shut down.. a search on Google maps got us a few results and I led the way to what looked like a promising place.


    [Spot the Tom - Outside the hotel we stayed in]

    The hotel we found was wonderful, cheap and nice, RMB100 for a room (130 for a double) and it was on the main street. After unloading the bikes, locking them up in the alley next to the hotel, we retired to our rooms to warm up, freshen up and get ready to go out for a drink, we'd only done a about 220kms that day.. far short of our goal..


    [Watch the video in the post above to see this guy try and start his unhealthy bike]

    Tom knew of a place that served draft beer, and after having a few of the bottled veriaty, we went in search of it.. we found the place but it was closed due to the new year, luckily there was another place open nearby and we settled in for dinner.. the food was great (or maybe that's just because it was hot).


    [Good warm food.. sitting outside in the freezing cold]

    After a big meal and quite a few beers it was getting even colder.. so we hurried back to our hotel and the heaters within, we'd be woken in the middle of the night by the hotel staff asking us to move our bikes.. but that's a story for the next entry...


    [Cold, wet, deserted streets]
    Last edited by Serpentza; 01-27-2012 at 04:40 AM.
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  8. #8 Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong 
    MCM Chinese fellow td_ref's Avatar
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    Hey Serpentza, what caused the big fall? Glad you are OK.
    同志仍需努力
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  9. #9 Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong 
    C-Moto Guru Serpentza's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by td_ref View Post
    Hey Serpentza, what caused the big fall? Glad you are OK.
    Thanks for the concern, it was my fault, I shouldn't have been out test riding in the wet with an over-inflated front tyre and all that beer didn't help :P
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  10. #10 Re: Worst bike trip ever! Guangdong 
    Senior C-Moto Guru bigdamo's Avatar
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    Hey at least you can celebrate Australia day with more beers.

    I'm thinking of celebrating Australia day with the quaint Aussie tradition of getting extremely drunk and then skiing down the local ski resort nude except for the Aussie flag draped around me.See what happens. Has warmed up to a balmy -18 now.

    I bet the Chinese will love that.
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