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#11 Re: Chengdu - Kunming via Litang, Tiger leaping Gorge and more10-20-2013, 05:09 PM
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This was actually taken as I was failing to reattach Paul's brake properly after another puncture which resulted in catastrophic failure and no rear brakes for the rest of the day. A fact he has still not forgotten to this day!
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Tim and Missy somewhere on the road to Zhongdian
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Cool village
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After 4 punctures and about 16 hours on the road we finally arrived in Shangelila very dusty and thirsty
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I stayed in a cool guest house there the year before so we got stuck into curries and drank til they chucked us out
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#12 Re: Chengdu - Kunming via Litang, Tiger leaping Gorge and more10-20-2013, 05:33 PM
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More punctures...this time a front so less hassle
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Another one on the road to Shangelila....they were a massive hold up and a reason why I now go tubeless
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Tiger leaping gorge
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The landslide that stopped us in our tracks. We found a place to store the bikes and hiked to Sean's guest house
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Our entry into Sean's guest book
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#13 Re: Chengdu - Kunming via Litang, Tiger leaping Gorge and more10-20-2013, 05:39 PM
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Hanging out at Sean's
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Sean and Nick
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Next stop was Lijiang then on to Dali where we stopped for a week
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We stayed in town but were hanging out with the hippies in some weird commune type place...they loved us
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Fun and games
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#14 Re: Chengdu - Kunming via Litang, Tiger leaping Gorge and more10-20-2013, 05:48 PM
That's all for tonight. It was a fantastic trip on really crappy bikes but that's sometimes what it's all about. We were going up those huge mountains in first and second gear, my bike was a 110, the others had 125s. We would have bought some local carbs had we not been on a serious budget but looking back it was all part of the adventure. I'll have a look through the photos again tomorrow and write some more about the journey itself
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#15 Re: Chengdu - Kunming via Litang, Tiger leaping Gorge and more10-21-2013, 12:45 PM
You lot were a fucking disaster, incredible that you even made it past the chengdu outer ring. And that's what it's all about. You don't remember the trips where everything went well because those are no fun. Nothing more satisfying than beating the odds.
The location also helps. That's the part of the world where i did my first serious bike trip too. I have yet to ride somewhere as beautiful.
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#16 Re: Chengdu - Kunming via Litang, Tiger leaping Gorge and more10-21-2013, 01:38 PM
fantastic report mate.. that photo where you are all covered in dirt is priceless .. is this the trip where the paul's had a tazer fight??
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#17 Re: Chengdu - Kunming via Litang, Tiger leaping Gorge and more10-21-2013, 02:35 PM
That's a tour you guys will tell your grandchildren! ;)
Shame on me, i live in Kunming and never got the time (also i hate busses) travelling further than Dali... but watching your pics and reading trough your report, i will do that soon.
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#18 Re: Chengdu - Kunming via Litang, Tiger leaping Gorge and more10-22-2013, 03:08 AM
Yes mate we were very inexperienced, it took years and riding with people like V to see how much kit and preparation is actually preferable, although as we showed even a bunch of pissheads on crappy bikes can make it quite far!
I'd like to redo that route one day, maybe even by mountainbike...
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#19 Re: Chengdu - Kunming via Litang, Tiger leaping Gorge and more10-22-2013, 03:13 AM
Yeah it's one of my all time favourite pictures too, that ride into Shangelila was by far the hardest day with all the punctures and dirt roads. We arrived pretty late, maybe 10pm and my lights weren't working at all so I was following Tim. I remember a few kilometres north of Shangelila we were riding along a road with large mounds of sand on the right, some douchebag blinded Tim with his full beams and he went right into the sand. He made it through about 3/4s of the way and just managed not to go over the handlebars. He was lucky not to be injured and the only casualty on the bike were his crash bars which got bent right back. luckily Missy wasn't on the back at the time.
Here's some stills from the tazer incident! It wasn't so much a fight more of a test, we wanted to find out how strong the thing was and ozzie Paul volunteered, although there may have been a couple of extra 'tests'
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#20 Re: Chengdu - Kunming via Litang, Tiger leaping Gorge and more10-22-2013, 04:58 AM
The bikes were all standard 125 taxi bikes apart from mine which was originally a 90cc turd I bought for 500 RMB before putting a brand new 110 into it. They were all woefully under powered for the trip and really struggled with the altitude as well as the dirt roads and punctures which meant we found it incredibly difficult to cover more than 200 kms a day.
As for the lack of proper riding gear - after arriving as human blocks of ice in Litang we stopped for a rest day and hit the army surplus shops in a big way. We kitted ourselves up with wellies, rugby socks, waterproofs, polo neck jumpers and gloves. If memory serves me correctly Ozzie Paul even bought a splendid pair of furry chaps! Sadly no photos of them though!
From Litang onwards we were a bit warmer than we had been and the only major incident was a nasty invisible oil spill in a tunnel on a bend. I was at the back as my carb was still playing up but I arrived on the scene to see Nick flagging me down. Apparently Tim and Missy had gone down first closely followed by Ozzie Paul and the three of them and bikes went sliding on their arses together through the tunnel, Tim and Missy still attached in their 2 person bike condom! Nick was following closely behind and managed to slow down enough to avoid losing control himself and then doubled back to warn the rest of us.
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