Eastern Hubei

[Dan H.]

Three China-based members of mychinamoto - myself, JamesW and Albion - spent three days exploring (i.e. getting lost in) eastern Hubei province.

JamesW and Albion were on Zongshen GY200's (aka Sierras) and I was on a Zongshen GY125 with a 150 engine. The bikes peformed well. My 150 couldn't go so fast up twisty inclines, but then again I'm a newb to motorcycles.

Out there in the countryside, motorbikes - and bike repair shops - are everywhere! When we stopped in a town, within seconds we were surrounded by a crowd of curious, friendly locals, asking about us and our bikes.




Navigating was a bit tricky, because our road map showed the roads with numbers, but in the real world the roads rarely have signs, and the locals usually don't know the numbers either. In my experience, when asking Chinese folk for directions, they'll readily tell you which direction to go in, but when asked how far to go in that direction, they'll only tell you something vague like "not far" or "far".












Wherever we camped, the local villagers would come out and ask what we were doing. As soon as we told them we were travellers on our way to so-and-so, their confrontational tone would immediately melt away into smiles and friendly talk. We were even offered meals and places to stay.




Starting the day off with a hearty breakfast: egg and tomato with noodles.








Mud? CHECK

[DanKearney]

Dan,

Looks like the makings of a good trip. Vague destination, uncertain directions, and a few good friends. Loking forward to seeing more.

Cheers,

DAn K.

[chinabiker]

Nice to see some more exploration and camping going on

As you say, we also made only positive experience with camping. Usually the locals come along, curiously watching, but that's it. Got a camp fire ?

Are we going to see some more

[CrazyCarl]

Hey guys! Looks like another great ride on MCM! Got a map available of where you went? Any more rides planned in the future?

Also, who was the dude in the following picture who went down in the mud?




CC

[JamesW]

Uhhhh...that was me, not my finest moment in the saddle I'll admit...but made for some great fun riding and a good photo opportunity! Some seriously deep mud tracks between some of the villages, it had been raining fairly heavily in the days prior to our trip (we actually set off on the Thursday afternoon in rain...luckily it brightened up the next morning). We'll see what we can do about getting a map up...although I dont think either of us actually knows for sure where we were....

[ChinaV]

Great stuff guys , thanks for sharing your adventures. My fiance is from Northern Hubei (Xiangfan), we are probably heading up there on the bike this summer, is that anywhere near you?

Hope to see more of your Hubei rides in the future .

Cheers!
ChinaV

[Dan H.]

Our trip was sort of a dress reshearsal for a much bigger trip we're planning for the summer... stay tuned...

We thought about a camp fire, but it had been raining, so still too wet...

ChinaV - my wife is from Xiangfan also!

JamesW, Albion and I live in Wuhan (which is 335 km southeast of Xiangfan).