The Great Ride of China- Attempting to ride through every province in China

[Bucko]

Hello My China Moto members!

I just wanted let everyone know about a trip my girlfriend Amy and I have just recently set out on a little over a week ago that we are calling The Great Ride of China.

On July 19th, we left from Beijing on a CFMOTO 650TR to travel in a counter-clockwise direction, up towards Harbin, across through inner mongolia, towards Xinjiang, into Tibet, up north towards Qinghai (the east of Tibet is closed to foreigners) and then down and around the southern provinces. We're looking covering around 25k-30k kilometers on the trip and it should take us a little over 4 months.

At the moment, we've covered about 2000km and gone through 5 provinces as we arrived in Harbin yesterday, our eastern most point on the trip. Tomorrow we'll be turning north west towards Inner Mongolia and the Russian border before moving west. Really looking forward to the grass plains of inner mongolia!

If there are any riders here in the Dongbei area and you haven't ridden much around Liaoning, I highly recommend it. The roads are probably the nicest I've seen in China so far, and much of the time they were lined with sunflowers which made the air extremely fresh smelling! (A nice change from Beijing smog). Two routes I would recommend in particular are the G305 that cuts across the Dalian peninsula and then the 319 east out of Dalian which winds around the Yalu river and borders North Korea for a good bit of time. It eventually meets up the G201 which parallels the expressway and is really spectacular riding including some great mountain twisties.

I'll be trying to post updates here, but time is scarce of course, so it'll probably be closer to every 2 weeks. We do try and post pretty regularly on our weibo and other social accounts (weibo is @骑行中国爱心之旅）and we also have a website www.thegreatrideofchina.com. We are having some page load issues at the moment so please excuse any lag while we get that figured out! On the site though we have pictures updated regularly, a GPS track that we update daily as well as trip stats such as mileage, days, provinces, etc.

Finally, if there are any riders out there who we may happen to cross paths with, would be great to try and meet up on the road!


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Got hit with quite a bit of rain, but not enough to dampen the spirits!
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A sobering reminder to not take the twisties too fast
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Another motorcycle traveler from Guizhou with a 摩托迷 group
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View of North Korea near Dandong
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[Lao Jia Hou]

I just wanted let everyone know about a trip my girlfriend Amy and I have just recently set out on a little over a week ago that we are calling The Great Ride of China.

Best of luck to you - looking forward to your updates!

If there are any riders here in the Dongbei area and you haven't ridden much around Liaoning, I highly recommend it. The roads are probably the nicest I've seen in China so far, and much of the time they were lined with sunflowers which made the air extremely fresh smelling! (A nice change from Beijing smog). Two routes I would recommend in particular are the G305 that cuts across the Dalian peninsula and then the 319 east out of Dalian which winds around the Yalu river and borders North Korea for a good bit of time. It eventually meets up the G201 which parallels the expressway and is really spectacular riding including some great mountain twisties.

Totally agree with this. The peninsula is very nice, and the NK border ride is interesting, as are some of the routes North through Liaoning. Jilin & central Heilongjiang (i.e., around Harbin, not so nice).

View of North Korea near Dandong
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Are those the empty "display houses" that were built about 10 years ago, just outside Dandong by the Great Wall? My trip along the border route made me uncomfortable more than once, accentuated when a Chinese border guard warned us not to stop in certain locations, as the NK border guards have been known to take random pot shots across the river. Nevertheless, a great experience that I try to encourage other riders to enjoy.

Again, best wishes on your great journey!

[Bucko]

Glad to hear others have enjoyed this ride! Those houses were ones we saw on one of the boat rides "into" North Korea. Apparently they are barracks for the navy around there.

We actually had no problems with security or anything like that on our road. Maybe things have lightened up a bit recently for whatever reason. When we went on the boat too one of the other passengers brought along a carton of cigarettes to throw on to shore to some of the local NK military personnel. So maybe the cigarettes are working to pacify them!

[bikerdoc]

Read about these exploits and coming RR a week ago on CFMotoClub. There is additional coverage about this also on CFMotoClub as well as Motofans

Looking forward to another group of riders giving both themselves, the 650TR, and Ch!na a good workout.

'scribed...

[Bucko]

Thanks bikerdoc! and thanks for following along

[futianshenzhen]

Good luck on the ride Bucko, sounds sick! I'm also working my way round all the provinces, albeit much more slowly, by the end of the year I should only have Tibet and Taiwan left to do. I'm especially looking forward to hearing about your Tibetan experience and would love any tips and advice you may have on permits etc. happy riding!

[Kernalpanx]

If you want to know anything about Tibet visas and travelling check out http://www.thelandofsnows.com and he responds to emails promptly.... Cost me 3 years ago for 30 days including lodging guides and private vehicle about 45000 rmb
Forgot to add ... That was between 3 of us.

[Bucko]

We finally got a video together of our trip around China that we finished this past December. Took nearly 5 months worth footage cut down to a 5:30 minute teaser/trailer. We were very fortunate to see all the amazing things (as well as some of the not so amazing) around this country. Also, forgot to mention that late last month we officially got the certificate from Guinness! The official final distance recognized for the record was 33,357km.Links to the video:YouTube link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0kuUkNRFQ8Youku link: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjc0ODczNjky.html

[centralmoto]

We finally got a video together of our trip around China that we finished this past December. Took nearly 5 months worth footage cut down to a 5:30 minute teaser/trailer. We were very fortunate to see all the amazing things (as well as some of the not so amazing) around this country. Also, forgot to mention that late last month we officially got the certificate from Guinness! The official final distance recognized for the record was 33,357km.Links to the video:YouTube link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0kuUkNRFQ8Youku link: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjc0ODczNjky.html

nice trailer, when are you gonna post the whole movie to youtube and youku?

[Bucko]

Hey centralmoto,

Glad you liked it! We're hoping to use the trailer as a way to start talking with some production companies, web portals, and tv channels. Some have already expressed interest so hopefully something will start moving on that in the not too distant future!