7 provinces in 7 days

[futianshenzhen]

CIMG0598.jpg
Motokai's boxes, branded 'ourfella - to hell'

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Maturity levels were pretty low that day


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Motokai on top of a mountain


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Stopped by the fuzz. Nice pose!


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This road is in the video 'catching milton'

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDI2NzY1MTE2.html
Catching up with Milton

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDI2NzY1MjMy.html
Big bear this here's rubber duck


http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDI2Nzk2MjQw.html
Leaving Ankang

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDI2Nzk1OTI4.html
Towards Wanyuan

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDI2ODExNDky.html
Dirt track to Piwoxiang

[futianshenzhen]

Tuesday 26th

Left ankang late at 10.30 due to a fairly boozy last night with Craig and Milton. Put in my new NGK Spark plug and she started right up. The roads were great to start, more of the mountain passes and twisties that have been the mainstay of this trip. It was very wet all day though, so had to take it easy. The road was blocked outside of bashanxiang due to construction. There were a couple of long planks over the concrete laying machine but it looked very dodgy so I decided to take a detour. There seemed to be a road heading off towards piwoxiang and it looked more direct so I gave it a go. What a decision that was. The road turned into an insane dirt track, very steep and muddy. It semed like I was sideways most of the time, I don't know how I made it without dropping the bike with those tyres. It was about 30 kms in total and I was in first gear pretty much the whole way, the only thing that stopped the engine overheating were the huge puddles. I didn't check the time but I was there for hours, at one point I thought I'd have to find a cave to sleep in! When I finally got back on to tarmac I stopped at the next town large enough to have a decent hotel, that town being wanyuan just over the border into Sichuan, the 7th province covered on this trip.

The new spark plug has solved the starting issue, obviously the yingang is a bit of a snob and will only work properly with a 25 quai NGK plug. It's about 400 kms to Chongqing from here so should be there early evening. Gonna have an early start to make amends for today's debacle.


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The Jialings received their own private parking areas in most hotels!

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Arrived 6pm, 250 today. 2950 total.

4 policemen and a translator just barged into my room. Rude fuckers. wanted to know who I worked for...so they said...

Went out for gong bao chicken and was mobbed by a load of teeny boppers. They were in the PLA, pissed out of their heads and wanted me to go to ktv. I politely declined and was tucked up in bed by 10.


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Yours truly


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Milton shreading up the dirt

[futianshenzhen]

Wednesday 27th

Left wanyuan at 7 feeling very glad I avoided a night of ktv. Road was pretty nice and twisty until dazhou, thereafter just a normal boring road. Stopped for lunch, as an appetizer I had some whole pickled cloves of garlic followed by 3 steamed buns stuffed with organic pork, finely chopped fresh chives and spicy pickled cabbage with a bowl of congee to fill up with - all for 2 quai! brucey bonus!

Some nice twisties coming into Chongqing, arrived at 4 pm. 430 today, 3380 total for the trip.

Spoke to Raymond who said that yingang have outlets all over northern China and it'll be no problem to leave the bike at various locations for a month each time. This is great news and means I'll be able to cover a lot of ground next summer.

Bamboo found the coolant leak, it was under the water pump. The engine has now done over 20,000 kms so its going to get a full overhaul. Yingang have a better carb which will add a couple of horses and hopefully a engine modification kit coming soon which will add several more.

Watched the long way round team in Mongolia over dinner with bamboo. There's some concern among the team here over my plans to go to inner Mongolia in September, they seem to think I'll get lost and never be heard of again. Hope not!


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Somewhere in Sichuan

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The penalty for failure was quite high on this road

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Watching the long way round over dinner with chief engineer Bamboo

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My new footpeg

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Engine out for inspection - images censored

Thursday 28th

Decided not to go sightseeing in Chongqing as planned, couldn't be arsed. Just hung around the factory instead, bamboo totally dismantled the engine and found very little wear. One cam had some and the water pump but that was it. Couldn't take many photos cos a few companies are trying to copy this engine at the moment. Shineray was the only name I recognised, apparently they have a fake unit in a crosser that has sold quite well, even though it doesn't make anything like the same power.

I'm now at the airport drinking expensive heineken. It's been a great trip and now my mind is filled with ideas for trips in the north. One possibility is xinjiang, I'd ride out through
Gansu and back through Qinghai, leaving the bike at the yingang dealership in urumqi.

[futianshenzhen]

So that's that. The next trip will start on around August the 14th and will be from Chongqing to Hohhot. Does anyone want to meet along the way? I haven't planned the route yet, any suggestions?

[richardktm]

awesome stuff mate, watch a couple so far and wil work throu the rest long way round style, shame about the weather but more great stuff from the Yingang boys.

[milton]

This is definitely a must-scribe thread for me, with Motokai and me both featured in it.
I enjoyed your company totally in those 2 days in Hunan and Hubei, excluding "hao nan ren" bai jiu though.

Your "Go Pikey" videos look tremendous, especially the one with the Jialing biting the dust. Still doesn't seem obvious to me why that had happened the way it did. To avoid similar mishaps I will just keep on maintaining my merry slow pace as always and be content with being the tortoise, not hare, sans getoffs hopefully.

Cheers!

[MotoKai]

....Damn that Go-Pikey!

Milton - Ouch! But thanks.
And not sure what you mean by the tortoise and the hare - I thought it was goat you left for dead in Qinghai?

It was a pleasure for Milton and I to ride with you Tom. The riding, the piking (yeah it's a verb), and day's end beers.
BTW - I'm still thinking it was Crazy Eyes who weixined you at 3am that night in Wuxi.

I've been busy "catching-up" here in Shanghai, but I'll share some photos of our intersecting Rides/Reports tonight.

[futianshenzhen]

Cheers guys, I hope we can do some more in the future. Do you have plans for October week? Joe (on China V's old orange qingqi) and I will be setting off from Hohhot on around September 25th, then riding to Chengdu to fly back on Ocotber 6th. The plan at the moment is to go through Ningxia, Gansu, maybe Qinghai and Sichuan. We are gonna do some camping, particularly in inner mongolia. We hope to meet up for a day or 2 with a couple of mates who are riding a sidecar from western Gansu to around Chengdu.

Tempted?

[milton]

....Milton - Ouch! But thanks. And not sure what you mean by the tortoise and the hare - I thought it was goat you left for dead in Qinghai? ...

That was a preemptive ouch for you. Running over a goat definitely tops that. Fortunately Go Pikey wasn't there to record the act, except your photo of the goat after the collision. By the way, there must be some MCM bylaws forbidding the publishing of that kind of cruel and unusual incident. That was simply sad

[MotoKai]

Rest assured that the photo has been buried.
But if years from now, Julian Assange gets a hold of it...I will not be held responsible.