Black and Blue in Taihang Shan 太行山

[Barry]

Day 3:

[Barry]

Day 4:

















Obvriously he wanted to get his picture taken together with the blue bike.

[Barry]

Day 3 - Bonus picture:

Milton with his "JH600 Desert edition", recognizable by the sandjob and the floating blinkers! (All credits go to Motokai for taking this picture)

[milton]

Day 3 - Bonus picture:

Milton with his "JH600 Desert edition", recognizable by the sandjob and the floating blinkers! (All credits go to Motokai for taking this picture)

You wouldn't miss the opportunity of bringing this up, would you? the Desert Storm version of the glue bike.
Sand is the opposite of glue, definitely not a good friend of mine. But the dusty, old and intrepid Milton survives always!

[milton]

Day 5:
Longmen Grottos
Without Felix we didn’t really have a plan for the day other than visiting the Longmen Grottos. Were we to go to Xi’an after visiting Longmen Grottos? Or go up north to Hukou 壶口 for the second largest waterfall in China where Yellow River displays its full volume and power? We decided to put off the discussion until after the Longmen Grottos.

For breakfast, we had lamb soup with mo 馍， the toasted bread you drop into your soup. This was the kitchen that fed us. Everything was handmade:




To me personally Longmen Grottos was the highpoint of this trip. It consists of an astonishing collection of 1350 caves, 750 niches and 40 pagodas, which altogether contains some 110,000 sculptures. It represents 500 years of progression of the Chinese stone carving art.

Earlier examples of Buddha images:




Another example of happy Buddha, which looks quite a bit different from the later day standard image of Buddha:




Some small sample of Buddha images, made shiny by people rubbing it for good luck and protection :




Now they are more Chinese looking:




Then there are lots of caves dedicated by the faithfuls over a thousand years ago:




The most impressive exhibit was the splendid and huge Fengxiansi 奉先寺(Ancestor Worshipping Cave), the culmination of the grotto art, carved between 672 and 675 for Empress Wu Zetian 武则天. Before its renovation, it was really an oversized “cave”:




The Buddha in the middle is 17.14m in height with 2-meter long ears. The image of Buddha presented here is in the mature style that this particular art form finally settled on with the Buddha looking Chinese with little Indian vestige.









The left 2 statues are eroded beyond recognization:





From a distance the Buddha peeked at us from behind:



After Longmen Grottos, the blue bike was really getting sick and gushing oils. After fooling around with some silicon sealant in vain, we gave up around 4 pm. For about 2 to 3 hours we were there by the road side there were a few local bike enthusiasts passing by and offering help. Finally we made friend with a local biker on CBR 400 who happened to run a “dealership” of assorted bikes of questionable origin. We took up his offer and loaded the blue Jialing to the bike ambulance:



It turned out that the gasket wasn’t missing. It was simply forced into the engine housing by the impact created when the chain guide fell apart and thrust into the sprocket housing. This is one of the cancerously bad designs that has caused many JH600s broken chains and exploded front sprocket housing. Fortunately for the blue bike the disintegrated rubber parts of the chain guide didn’t clobber the front sprocket housing or break the chain, but pushed the gasket into the housing still in recoverable shape. So taking it out of the housing and reinstalling it was all that were required to put the blue bike into its former slow running state.




We had our bikes thoroughly washed after the repair and checked into a Motel 168 afterwards. At night we took time to visit the Luoyang night fair and mingled with locals.

[MotoKai]

Day-5 (More Pics)

Notice the "windows" on this mountain?
This is a tunnel we rode thru, filled with coal trucks!


Take a look at those Grottoes!


Milton once again assisting with the ordering... 好吃！


This time "Glue" didn't work.
Pink stuff is the silicone, and the black rubber piece is the "missing gasket".

[milton]

Day 6 and 7:
Going home

According to our newly acquainted Luoyang friends, there were many nice bike routes to the south of Luoyang. However, without Felix and not certain how best to train the bikes, Motokai and Barry decided to wrap up the trip and head our separate ways home on bikes instead of putting them on the train. As a good team player I went along with the plan. Motokai consulted the Google map and came up with a straight route for Shanghai.
The ride going home was quite uneventful as expected.

Not willing to pay the entry fee, we passed by the famous Shaolinsi 少林寺, the mecca of Chinese Kungfu, at the foot of Songshan 嵩山 without seeing Shaolinsi:



Day 7:

Almost immediately after getting on the expressway Motokai had a flat. By the time I’d found out about his misfortune I was already 150km ahead of him. Through a SMS conference, we decided to go our separate ways for Shanghai. I was told previously that going across Yangtze River through the expressway was rather difficult, so I opted for G40 from Nanjing and headed for Nantong 南通 to trace my way back to the same ferry I used on the first day.

Along the expressway the Rapeseed was in full blossom. Getting really bored of riding on the expressway and trying to get a better view of the rapeseed blossom, I exited earlier before reaching Nantong 南通.

The view from the expressway is always less than optimal and confined:



After exiting, the same rapeseed blossom becomes more enjoyable:







From the ferry going back to Shanghai, the Yangtze River was just as muddy as the Yellow River:



I was safely home by 7:00pm. It had been a highly enjoyable trip with 2 wonderful riding buddies. The bike performed well. The 3.0 ECU upgrade had also proven itself.

I can now cross out 黄土高原 from my bucket list.

[Lao Jia Hou]

It had been a highly enjoyable trip with 2 excellent bike buddies. The bike had performed well. The 3.0 ECU upgrade had also proven itself.

Great report guys! Looks like you had a lot of fun. Start of a great riding season.

Glad to hear that the 3.0 upgrade is working on your bike.

Seems like all that remains is to source is a better quality chain guide. So far (fingers crossed), I have not experienced any advanced wear/tear on mine (still original).

[MotoKai]

Days 6 & 7: In hindsight it would have been more fun banging around the mountains for another 1.5 days, and training back which was Milton's original idea. Slabbing ain't fun. He was indeed a team player to agreeing with the 1,150km ride back to Shanghai from Luoyang.

Shaolin (MCM style)






The Expressway Flat

As Milton mentioned, he rode about 150km ahead before realizing my dilemma. This meant I had to sort out the fix solo.

Rode the flat approx. 200m to the nearest overpass. Parked the JH600 and jumped over the guardrail and scaled down the embankment to a farm road, then out to the nearest shop to borrow a couple of wrenches (Barry had the 27mm wrench with him on this trip - from now on I will ride with one too). When I got back the Emergency Highway Team was there inspecting my bike. They were nice enough to lay out traffic cones for my safety while wrenching on the expressay ;)

They were mostly concerned with why my motorcycle was parked against the traffic. I had to explain that for safety reasons I'd much rather wrench FACING the oncoming traffic!

After getting the wheel off, it was back over the guardrail, down the embankment where I took a sanlunche out to the nearest intersection to flag down a mianbaoche. This vehicle took me to the nearest moto shop for the fix (I had a spare tube with me, but not a mini tire pump compressor). Then did this in reverse, back to wrench the wheel back on. But this time the Emergency Highway Team was replaced with Police. They were nice, asking me questions on my destination, about the bike, etc. They took photos of me putting the wheel back on, then wished me a safe ride = 安全第一! [I wish all Expressway Police were this friendly!]

[998S]

Absolutely fabulous trip, great to see and read as ever!
Was in Hebei myself, loved the donkey food!