Tuesday, 5 June 2007 - There's a giant smile on my face because I just rode home on my new Suzuki V-Strom 650. Fast forward 6 years, 3 months, 4 days, and 50 thousand kilometers later.



...that giant smile is now on the face of felix, the new owner of the bike.

It's a tough thing to let a loved one go, but I'm moving in a different direction these days and don't have much time for the Wee Strom. The slow creep of the concrete tiled monster has filled much of Guangdong over the years, and I find it takes more and more time and distance to satiate my lust for new adventures. I still intend to hit plenty of mountain bike and enduro trails when I'm in China, but my focus now is on growing my business and moving my family to the U.S. I'll keep the Galaxy TGR and the QingQi QM250 here, and probably look at the FJR1300 or Concourse 14 for a bike in the states.


So felix and I made this deal while I was spending two months in the U.S. this summer. It was all making perfect sense to me at the time, but when I got back to China and actually had to put the plan in motion, well, let's just say I wasn't feeling so great about letting my baby go. It's been pretty tough looking at the big hole she left in my garage and the thought of felix fondling her everyday is still a bit unsettling.

Anyway.... a deals a deal so I had to run her over to Guilin last week. A six hundred kilometer trip that turned into a two day 1300 kilometer farewell tour.



Loaded and ready. I was up far too late just sitting with her in the garage but still managed to get on the road by 6:00 am.



I tried to map out a lot of X roads and goat trails on Google Earth, as usual, China never disappoints.



X383 near Yangshan.



Last "selfie" with my girl.



Rice... imagine that.



Lot's of rain this year so it's very green in GD.



First time I've seen windmills down here in the south.



Still plenty of rural life in northern Guangdong and Guangxi.





I like the wooden architecture, a pleasant change from the concrete boxes.





Clean water... beautiful.



65 kilometers of this. Guangxi has a lot of bad roads.



1 hour delay while they cleared up this landslide. Two choices, wait an hour, or backtrack 2.5 hours on 65 kilometers of road that looked like a bombing run on the ho chi minh trail. I waited.



The very last stop and picture of my baby. I called felix to let him know I was running late and plowed through the last 100k. My last trip had been just like every other... fascinating, frustrating, beautiful, ugly, you know how it goes, and you can also understand why I think the V-Strom is one of the finest motorcycles you could possibly have for the ever changing conditions of China.

Enjoy every minute felix

The stats:

Day 1
Distance 709 kilometers
13 hours 15 minutes
Stopped: 1 hour 22 minutes
Moving: 11 hours 53 minutes
Average Speed 59.63 km/h
Ascending 7862 meters
Descending 7728 meters

Day 2
587 Kilometers
12 hours 54 minutes
Stopped: 1 hour 46 minutes
Moving: 11 hours 7 minutes
Average Speed 52.81 km/h
Ascending 6533 meters
Descending 6485 meters

Cheers!