DanK's China Adventure Report

[DanKearney]

Greetings All,

My wife Yuan and I were in Shanghai up until yesterday afternoon. Winston Sa graciously invited us to come by and visit his shop, so we swung by in the early afternoon.

What a great shop. The rebuilt and customized Changs he has on sale are beautiful. We spent some time talking bikes and discussing their upcoming ride to Tibet. If only I had the time, I'd love to make that trip.

We also met Peter (Sorry Peter, I didn't catch your last name) who's a transplant from Germany. He works with Winston at the shop. He'll also be going on the trip to Tibet. Winston told me of Peter's recent solo ride on his CJ from China all the way to Pakistan. There are some great photos of that trip framed and hanging on the shop wall. Peter's rig really looks the part too.

Nick Barton came by also and treated us with a short CJ ride to lunch. Seems Peter and Winston are not the only globe-trotting riders hanging out in Shanghai these days. Nick's also been in China for years and has lived in the U.S. and of course his native U.K. Like me, Nick has trouble with the local language, so we hit it off well. Thanks Nick for taking the time to ride out and meet us. I felt sorry for you as we battled (Well, the taxi driver battled) the horrendous traffic to get us over to the train station for our short ride to HangZhou. I'd hate to be clutching along a 3mph in traffic on the bike.

BTW, the train to HangZhou is a very modern high-speed one that reached up to 175kph on the way. A smooth and interesting ride.

Anyway, no riding photos to share yet, so here are a few shots of Winston's shop in ShangHai. Sorry Winston, when I was taking these parting shops you were too deep in dealing with customers for me to bother you for a pic.

Cheers,

Dan K.


CJ Sidecars - That's Peter's bike on the left, with the dual spare tires








That's Nick on the left (He owns a few Guzzi's also), and Peter on the right