Fahni is going the distance from Chengdu to Xi'an

[fahni]

Day 12 & 13: In Xi’an and Bing Mayong

The next day, I slept in and then wandered to the famous city walls where I did the full tourist program including a 1,5h bicycle ride. After that I went to the History Museum and then sorted out my flight ticket. In the evening I met with another friend of mine and later on, felix joined us. It was a great evening and felix agreed to show me a nice little road through the mountains to the Terracotta Warriors the next morning. I went home earlier than felix and after some confused text and email messages we met the next morning at a roundabout at the southeastern end of the city. Felix brought his colleague from Shanghai Sideways (which was actually from Chengdu if I remember correctly) as pillion and we started off via the expressway before felix took us into the mountains.

Right at the beginning we stopped at a little yaodong, the traditional loess earth cave dwellings for which rural Shaanxi is famous. The farmers lady showed us happily around her caves and felix’ colleague was happy to help with interpretation. This was so great because otherwise I would never had this opportunity to talk to some normal farmers from that area.

Felix and colleague(s) by fahni, on Picuna


stables by fahni, on Picuna


entrance to the yaodong by fahni, on Picuna


entrance to the yaodong by fahni, on Picuna


inside the yaodong by fahni, on Picuna


chopping board by fahni, on Picuna






After some water and chatting, we continued on small rural roads through the mountains and suddenly, my chain fell off. The rear sprocket had been kind of loose for some time but no repairman had bothered. Now, one nut was missing completely, the chain was sagging after not being tightened for maybe 1200 km and so off it went.
Felix was back quickly and I made a fool out of myself for trying to get off the sprocket completely to put on the chain again instead of putting on a bit and then thread it in via spinning the wheel. Just as if I had never put on a chain on a normal bike… Stupid!

Anyway, it was an easy fix with two of the four bolts on the sprocket still super tight and knowing that I only had to go a couple of km before arriving at the Imperial Tomb and then there would be lots of repairman. So I followed felix further. We checked out a small dirt track that led into nothing and finally arrived at a little folk religion temple on top of the mountain. It had a prayer hall for Buddhist deities and one for Daoist ones. But when we asked the monk if the temple was Buddhist or Daoist he replied that this viewpoint was not correct as it was actually devoted to Nüwa and Fuxi, a kind of founding couple of the Chinese Civilization. And these two are much older thus being above Buddhism and Daoism. Very, very interesting.

Nüwa and Fuxi by fahni, on Picuna


chinese zodiacs in the buddhist part by fahni, on Picuna


the daoist part by fahni, on Picuna



Felix didn’t have time to join me for the terracotta warriors (and I am sure he has seen them pretty often) so I said good bye to the two of them. It was really nice riding with felix and I recommend getting in touch with him when you get to Xi’an. He really knows his backyard.

The Bing Ma Yong were not as overcrowded as I expected them to be. I took my time and tried to get a feeling for this incredible display of wealth and power. I did not take any pictures because most people know the pictures and my little snapshots would do this miracle no justice. But for me as a Sinologist, of course the visit to the Bing Ma Yong was a must do that I finally was able to strike off my list.

On my return I stopped to get a new nut on that sprocket bolt and have the bike cleaned before I picked up my luggage at the hotel and moved in with a friend of mine for the last night. I had some Xi’an delicacies before we resorted to beer and chatting later in the evening.

The next morning it took me a long time to get everything settled and all my stuff organized for the shipping. Basically it was helmet, tools and gear on the bike and the rest via airplane. Then I fell victim to the Xi’an traffic again and arrived at the train station latish. But check-in was no problem. I was only surprised to learn that the bike would not be weighted but the displacement of my bike would be calculated as weight. Well, my bike with full top box weights about 138 kg so not much damage done when calculating it at 150kg But what it must cost to ship a big displacement bike!

I arrived at the airport right on time and after a short delay flew back to Beijing.

[euphonius]

Excellent final chapter, Fahni. Many thanks for a brilliant report.

As a postscript, would you mind giving us some details of the shipping of your bike to Beijing from Xi'an? For us in Shanghai, shipping by train is a brilliant ticket out of the endless city, but the formula for calculating rates is based principally on weight, not displacement. Recently Motokai and Milton faced a similar situation in Urumqi, but managed to persuade the railway shipping desk to dispense with the displacement rules and just use weight, which of course is far more reasonable. We can rail-ship our 600cc Jialings, which weigh in at 200kg with racks, to Guiyang or Kunming for 700 rmb or so, including insurance, then meet them by plane or train. Motokai and Milton recently shipped to Changsha for much less than that (watching their progress on Motokai's GSM GPS anti-theft tracker).

In other words, your conjecture that bigger-displacement bikes are far more expensive to ship is misplaced, at least when we load them here in Shanghai. It would be great to round up information about shipping by train and/or truck in one thread. The earliest and longest such thread is Bike on a Train?

Thanks again for sharing your epic ride, and I hope this encourages others to consider longer tours, whether solo or in groups!

Cheers

[fahni]

Hey Euphonius,

I posted some information in the thread you mentioned. I believe, it would have been possible to talk the guys in Xi'an into calculating the actual weight but for me there was no point in haggling about 12 kg.

It was a really nice ride. Of course, I had my ups and downs but I am glad I did it. For me it was something special because I only started riding in earnest about a year ago and had not much experience to refer to when planning and considering questions like spare parts, mileage per day, etc. That is why MCM has been such an incredible help. Thanks to all the posters out there!

I have to say, though, that riding alone can get quite boring at times (even when listening to music or podcasts via BT headset). If I had the choice, I would definitely prefer ridding with company over riding alone. Let's hold your fingers crossed that my gf really gets into M/Cs and will join me on the next long one! (which will probably be Xinjiang or Yunnan)

[euphonius]

...I have to say, though, that riding alone can get quite boring at times (even when listening to music or podcasts via BT headset). If I had the choice, I would definitely prefer ridding with company over riding alone. Let's hold your fingers crossed that my gf really gets into M/Cs and will join me on the next long one! (which will probably be Xinjiang or Yunnan)

She'd better get into it -- you already bought her a companion bike, didn't you? I guess that's the Holy Grail -- a GF who loves piloting her own bike! Good luck!

cheers...

[Axelinchina]

Hallo Thomas,

nice report. I was already guessing that Fahni must be you, but was not quite shure.

Axel

[fahni]

Hi Axel!

Nice to see you on the forum! Have you already introduced yourself and your adventures in India in the "welcome to MCM" section?

@ euphonius: it is not that she does not like to ride bikes. We started riding together and did a lot of trips together already. It is just that our preferences are different. First, she likes to bike to get somewhere, not for bikings' sake. Second, I think she would be much more happy with a street bike with higher top speed...

We will do a 5 days inner mongolia trip during the October holidays together and I am very much looking forward to it. Just have to make sure that I don't lead her into too much of offroad terrain or else i will end up riding both bikes taking turns just like last weekend when the road ended in a dried out mountain creek...