Beijing, Hebei, Inner Mongolia - six days, five nights

[chinabiker]

We started the day with only a light breakfast - just coffee



"Camp Charming" 1


"Camp Charming" 2


After some kms, we had to make a little detour - the road was blocked due to a massive rock fall, continued on a minor, but perfectly paved, road South. On a bigger road, but very low traffic, we made our way East and took a small mountain road on tar and concrete, before we hit the one we have been on on the first day. After we had our daily off-road section, we eventually reached another main road. Further East we went, before turning off onto a minor road, where we made a short lunch stop.



At lunch


Isn't that a nice sculpture


Sorry for not having too many pictures of this day, but we have been too busy - burnig petrol

After the break we headed further North, almost into Hebei, and crossed two more little passes, before we finally hit G111, which we followed South towards Tanghekou. We had arranged to meet our buddy Kurt, who initially wanted to join the trip, in Yunmengshan, where he knew a nice camping spot. We met at the entrance to the park, from where we rode up a dirt road after paying a small fee - anouther tourist trap?
Probably on weekends it is a trap, but we were there on a working day and therefore alone. Kurt came by car and had enough space to bring cold beer, fresh meat, bread, wine, the grill and charcoal. "Camp Luxury" was born.



"Camp Luxury"


Preparing salad and garlic butter


Yes, ChinaV brought a tripod


BBQ


It wasn't cold but still felt good


Never without - thank's to the "fire man"

[chinabiker]

Light breakfast again - 2 coffee



Good Morning


"Camp Luxury" in the morning


Breakfast - eeh, coffee preparation


We left the park and rode down South to the suburbs of Huairou, a Beijing satellite city, where we re-fueled.
From there we took the expressway to reach an area with some mountain roads, the last highlight of our trip.
On a narrow, but perfectly paved road we reached a turn off to a concrete road up to a temple.



Entrance to the temple


We will now make 500 m in altitude within 4.5 kms.


ChinaV on his way up ...


... but not without another great wall site.


The "Beijing Snake"


There was a huge parking lot once we reached the top and we took some more pics before we went back down.



Bikes in front of the temple entrance


If you want to make great pics, you sometimes have to bring yourself into a good position for the shot.



Good positioning or praying to the biker's god


We snaked down again and continued our way across the final mountain



Snaking down


The final descent


After the final descent we stopped for a cold drink before we headed for the expressway back to Beijing. Luckily they don't time you between toll stations Early afternoon we returned the bike and went to un-pack, having a real shower and meet up with some other riders for beer, Pizza, exchanging tales and pictures.


Now, this was it - some statistics and map stuff to follow.


safe, have fun - rubber down,

ChinaV, chinabiker

[ChinaV]

WOW!! Great report.....thanks for doing ALL the work . Sorry I fell out of touch, spent the last three days moving to a new house and getting life sorted out again, most of it was moving the garage stuff .

The entire experience up north was incredible, everything from the airport to the ride report was first class. Special thanks to Andy and Kurt for making the whole trip fantastic.

A lot of "first time" experiences for me on this trip.....

The rental of "Miss Piggy" was great, first time on a big Beemer through every kind of possible condition. I was impressed with how capable and versatile the bike is, and wouldn't hesitate to own one if they become available with dealer support in Guangdong.

Nine years in China, and my first time seeing the Great Wall, the real deal, not some reconstructed tourist sight.

First time camping in Asia, fifteen years since I last slept in a tent.

First time getting caught by the camera falling over... I actually tipped three times during the trip and somehow managed (adrenalin) to pic up the fully loaded beast.

One of the big differences up north was the quality of the road surface. Almost everything down south is concrete, but they seem to prefer black asphalt up north, very jealous of some of those roads. The south has a tight enclosed feel to it from the lush vegetation surrounding everything. Up north, it feels big and open. The vast expanses of Inner Mongolia were an interesting mix of grassland and encroaching desert. We had first hand experience of the 60 kph winds that rip away the top soil, it's a nonstop struggle to maintain the farmlands throughout the region with the constant fear of drought. The locals are hard people living in a harsh environment, their warmth and hospitality never ceases to amaze.

As you can see from the pics, quite a variety of everything, and none of it that far from one of the biggest population centers on the planet. That's the beauty of China .

In the last month or so, I have covered about 3000 kilometers with fellow MCM'ers franki and chinabiker.... Probably wouldn't have happened without this sight, so I owe a bit of thanks to CrazyCarl for helping all of us stay in touch with each other. This is what it's all about folks..... riding and friendship

Although it will be tough to match the Beijing crowd for their hospitality, the door is always open for you here in Guangdong.

I put a gallery of my favorite pics from the trip here.



Cheers!
ChinaV

[CrazyCarl]

It looks like an excellent time! So what's this I hear about you using a Canon?


CC

P.S.- You've got quite a few nice pics in your gallery holmes. When you have a moment, consider choosing a couple of your best ones and sticking a comment or two on them.

[DanKearney]

phlpftt, ribfltts shfllts exlfppt!

Oh, sorry, I have to wipe away the drool. . .

Thats better, let me try again.

Flippin excellent ride report guys!

I feel like a dog on a leash that is too short to reach the t-bone steak just inches from my face. What an excellent ride. I love your "follow the power lines" and see where they go philosophy.

As I inch my way closer to Beijing, I'm mentally preparing for some good riding. I re-viewed my "Dual Sport Riding Techniques" dvd this evening in the hotel room in Hangzhou, and will re-view the "Advanced DSR" dvd sometime before I reach BJ next week.

I'm hoping for any good riding, but it looks like there is no shortage.

Cheers, and thanks for sharing.

Dan K.

[SabineHartmann]

Sorry that it took some time, I hurried up as fast as I could.
............and, what`s always written?: all faults are mine!:



because of some technical difficulties I was`nt able to export in HD, sorry! My Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 could not handle ChinaV`s HDV Videos.

[chinabiker]

Sabine, thanks a lot for the video, great cut and music

I owe you one or two

[ChinaV]

Thank you Sabine for the time you put into the video, another fantastic production.

All of these new HD video cams seem to have different codecs and I'm sure it makes editing a bit difficult. The footage is 1080P, so unless you have a supercomputer, editing is a very time consuming process.

I owe you a few when I come back to Beijing.

Cheers!
ChinaV

[CrazyCarl]

Sabine, excellent work! You guys owe her big-time! That's A LOT of work!

Nice job with integrating the live tracks like Lorne's "Holy Shit, it's 10 o'clock?" and then the engine sound at the very end. That same sound could be used to start the video as well. If you're totally bored with nothing to do, you can go through the clips and extract whatever audio sample you think are good. This way you create your own sound library for future use!

There's some excellent ride reports cranking out now that the weather is better. You guys know how to make a former expat jealous!


CC

[chinabiker]

Finally I managed to do the maps and some statistics and a kmz is attached.


Day 1

Start: 09:14
End: 19:34

Distance: 256 km
Duration: 10:20 h
Overall average: 24.8 km/h

Riding Time: 06:25 h
Riding Average: 39.9 km/h

Max. Alt: 1188 m

Cumulative Climb: 5701 m
Cumulative Descent: 5032 m



Map



Altitude Profile


Day 2

Start: 08:43
End: 16:20

Distance: 236 km
Duration: 07:32 h
Overall average: 31.4 km/h

Riding Time: 05:12 h
Riding Average: 45.4 km/h

Max. Alt: 1640 m

Cumulative Climb: 4011 m
Cumulative Descent: 3401 m



Map



Altitude Profile



Day 3

Start: 10:53
End: 18:27

Distance: 232 km
Duration: 07:34 h
Overall average: 30.7 km/h

Riding Time: 05:15 h
Riding Average: 44.3 km/h

Max. Alt: 1616 m

Cumulative Climb: 5744 m
Cumulative Descent: 5119 m



Map



Altitude Profile



Day 4

Start: 08:38
End: 18:15

Distance: 136 km
Duration: 09:37 h
Overall average: 14.1 km/h

Riding Time: 05:23 h
Riding Average: 25.2 km/h

Max. Alt: 1163

Cumulative Climb: 5116 m
Cumulative Descent: 5374 m



Map



Altitude Profile




Day 5

Start: 09:03
End: 18:36

Distance: 221 km
Duration: 09:03 h
Overall average: 24.4 km/h

Riding Time: 05:02 h
Riding Average: 44.0 km/h

Max. Alt: 1092 m

Cumulative Climb: 5185 m
Cumulative Descent: 5015 m



Map



Altitude Profile




Day 6

Start: 08:38
End: 15:05

Distance: 251 km
Duration: 06:27 h
Overall average: 38.9 km/h

Riding Time: 04:11
Riding Average: 59.9 km/h

Max. Alt: 1017

Cumulative Climb: 3260 m
Cumulative Descent: 3932 m



Map



Altitude Profile