Beijing-Xanadu-Beijing October 2012

[lobotomous]

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
And 700 years later Lobotomous and Fahni ride across a muddy field to dodge the guards on the gate.
Barry should have been there, too, but he fried his clutch on the sandpits of Inner Mongolia.


The three of us set off from Beijing on 4th October: Fahni on Jialing 150, Barry on Jialing 600, Lobotomous on QianJiang 150.
Found great camping spots on the first two days.
On day three, following some very sandy sections we ended up in a remote village with Barry's Jialing refusing to go uphill.
Tried various things to get the clutch to bite, but was starting to look (and smell) like a serious problem.
Thank you to LaoJiaHu, whom we managed to contact through one of the locals - they had a cell phone that miraculously worked by balancing on a coffee jar at a certain angle. It felt a bit like consulting an oracle and LJH came through with some wisdom about resurrecting clutch plates using coke. But we decided to get the bike to the next village before opening it up as there was really nothing we could do where we were.
After getting a local mechanic to open it up, we confirmed that the clutch was dead, that spare parts would take maybe 2 days to reach us, and that the whole village didn't have the 8' socket wrench needed to get the retaining nut off; so Barry set off on another truck back to Beijing.
Fahni and Lobotomous continued and eventually made it to ShangDu on day 5.
Quite an adventure. A lot of cross-country and off-road. Highly recommended.

Video on 56.com for China viewing.
http://www.56.com/u88/v_NzQ5NjYwNDU.html

and for everyone else, on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIm_Tlw1MIQ



Sorry for the shaky handheld camera work, but it gives you an idea of the roads.