The rewarding us with punishment tour

[jape]

It just so happens that I am free to take up the position as 'satellite office manager' for you at present Mr. Euphonius. I have an unsavoury past, speak no Chinese; I like younger women, whiskey and cigars. I collect sharp objects, ride an unregistered R/T 'bike, wear leather, steel-capped boots and hoodies all the time. My resume can be found by inquiring at any Federal Police Office. To take this further please send a money order to my bank account (details furnished separately) and allow a small amount of time for me to find/provide a suitable passport in a nationality best suited to the requirements. I should be ideal eh?

[chinabiker]

OK, I'll bite: What would be the ideal location for a satellite office if you wanted to have easy access to these best roads in China? Has to be a major city with good connections. Chengdu? Kunming? Lhasa? Xining? Any secondary/tertiary cities?



cheers!

Here the list of my satellite offices
January: Guangzhou
February: Nanning
March: Kunming
April: Chengdu
May: Beijing
June: Harbin
July: Baotou
August: Urumqi
September: Lhasa
October: Ningbo
Novemebr: Nadi (S 17.7630, E 177.4422)
December: Home

[euphonius]

Here the list of my satellite offices

What?? No month when you'd choose the endless city, Shanghai???

[euphonius]

It just so happens that I am free to take up the position as 'satellite office manager' for you at present Mr. Euphonius. I have an unsavoury past, speak no Chinese; I like younger women, whiskey and cigars. I collect sharp objects, ride an unregistered R/T 'bike, wear leather, steel-capped boots and hoodies all the time. My resume can be found by inquiring at any Federal Police Office. To take this further please send a money order to my bank account (details furnished separately) and allow a small amount of time for me to find/provide a suitable passport in a nationality best suited to the requirements. I should be ideal eh?

With qualifications like those, Mr Jape, you'd be a real asset to any organization that lays a premium on quality service, skillful execution and far-reaching impact. Might I suggest a highly influential outfit headquartered in Beijing just west of Ti@n@nmen Gate in a compound called Zhongn@nh@i?

[jape]

Far reaching impact and skillful execution? I admire an honest government that doesn't hide from reality or behind the euphemistic 'Will of God' when it comes to such matters as power and slaughter. I shall practise more with my trusty longbow and see if I can improve my skills in 'far-reaching execution with impact' . Today the rabbits on my property just sat and laughed as sharp sticks flew around their ears. Oh well, canned chicken tonight. So, do I get the job? I really want to ride those trails.

[ChinaV]

I think I would have left China long ago if it wasn't for the weather and long riding season down here in the south. To be honest, motorcycles are the only thing that keeps me going most days. If Yunnan had the manufacturing base we have in Guangdong, I would move in a second, but then again, if it had that many factories who would want to go? I honestly don't know how you guys make it in Beijing and Shanghai, for a country bumpkin like me, both those places are just too big and crowded.

Jape, your skill set is a perfect match for the expat life. In fact, if your leather wardrobe includes assless chaps, there are many positions available.

Cheers!
ChinaV

[jape]

Not sure how to respond to that ... I once walked into the local pub and found a 'bloke' in those assless trousers chained to the bar with free spanking paddle laid on for anycomers. Apparantly he/she had been a naughty boy and lost a subsequent bet ... too drafty for me though mate and I am a bit old to change my ways now, will stick to the females, leather clad and spanking or not.

[ChinaV]

Day 15

The Final Day - What a long strange trip it's been.

It was an early 7:00 start for the last day of our most excellent adventure. We were roughly 300 kilometers outside of Chengdu, and had one last mountain pass we needed to summit before our final descent into the city. It rained hard the night before and there was a bit of a chill in the morning air. The roads were covered in slippery mud, so progress was slow. One hour in, we had only covered about 40 kilometers as we stopped for a picture by this interesting little town. I mentioned it was going to be another long day, we all just grinned.



We passed Dawei and began our ascent into the mountains. Daniel went by and that was the last I saw of him until the other side of the mountain range. A few moments later, Felix ripped past and I managed a shot as I fumbled with my heavier gloves.



I looked down at the town of Dawei through the mist and thought, damn, this is going to be an interesting 2000 meter (6,561ft) climb.



And climb we did.



A half hour later, I found Felix on the side of the road shivering and mumbling something about only having a t-shirt on underneath his gear. He decided that the dead cow lying frozen on the ground might be a sign it was time for some warmer clothing.



I snapped a pic and moved on, pondering what people might think passing Felix in his underwear next to a dead cow.



Higher and higher, colder and colder. At this point I could barely feel my fingers and I stopped every ten minutes to grab hold of the engine and let some heat sink in. I couldn't believe we were riding in snow.



Fortunately, there was construction traffic grinding the snow into a slushy mud mix. This provided just enough traction for moments of bravery during acceleration, yet sheer terror whenever applying the brakes.



The wind was howling across the peaks of the mountain, and every few minutes you could catch a glimpse of blue sky through the clouds.



I finally reached the summit at 4500 meters (14,763ft) and stopped for a little break. I never expected we would be on this kind of terrain only 180 kilometers from Chengdu.



A few minutes later along came Felix.



Shit man, this is awesome… cold, but awesome.



The weather continued to tease us with brief stints of sunshine followed by heavy, thick fog. Each passing cloud made the temperature drop from a balmy 0ºC to -5ºC almost instantly.



The scene looking over the other side of the pass. It's all downhill from here to Chengdu.



On the eastern side of the mountains we had much less cloud cover and finally got some magnificent views.









And eventually discovered Daniel on the side of the road warming up in the sunshine.



We also met a Chinese biker who was waiting for his friend to catch up while on their way to Tibet. We swapped a few stories and shared intel on the upcoming road conditions.



Check out his Yamaha YBR125. I couldn't believe he had so much stuff on such a little motorcycle.



We headed off and enjoyed about 25 kilometers of beautiful twisty blacktop. Daniel tearing up a corner.



With Felix in hot pursuit.



Felix enjoying the good life. We had almost forgotten what riding on regular pavement was like.



Around noon we stopped for lunch and Felix found a new friend.



Our usual feed of rice, oily vegetables, oily animal carcass with little or no meat, and egg mixed with tomato. Six days of Sichuan cuisine and you basically shit lava every day. Fantastic if you're really into spicy food, torture if you're not.



Our good friend on the YBR125 warned us that we were going to hit some rough spots ahead and we all just laughed. He wasn't kidding. The flatbed truck in front of us was actually sliding backwards and you can see the huge jam behind him. What you can't see is the power line hanging in the deep mud puddle near the orange truck with the open door. Daniel surprised us as he took off passing the flatbed with all of six inches to spare between the truck and the cliff. He just squeaked by, and then managed to hold the power line down with his foot while crossing the mud puddle. I looked at Felix, shrugged and then we went for it. People were shouting for us not to go and horns were beeping as Felix practically tore his saddle bag off passing the flatbed. Somehow we managed to make it, this didn't make one of the cops stuck in the traffic jam very happy and he tried to flag us down. We took off and stopped a few moments later to fix the saddlebag. That was exhilarating. I imagine they are still trying to sort that traffic jam out.



We continued on our way and the road gave us a good beating with trucks and construction obstacles at every turn. We were now in Wenchuan County, the hardest hit area during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake that claimed over 68,000 lives. There has been a lot of rebuilding progress over the past two years as a result of massive government funding and the strong will of the Chinese people. Total respect for all they have accomplished and deep sorrow for the loss of life and destruction.



In the late afternoon we finally made it to good roads again and stopped about 40 kilometers outside of Chengdu. We would be making contact with a friend of a friend to arrange shipping our bikes home and we felt a little guilty about handing them over completely covered in China, so we found a small car wash and gave them all a good bath.





The last 40 Kilometers were a tedious maze of construction and chaos. Like most of China's big cities, Chengdu is upgrading all of the major transportation routes and my navigation and GPS skills were now over their limit. Somehow we managed to find the neighborhood CrazyCarl used to live in and we checked into the Ibis hotel at almost 7:00. The only thing we cared about was finding Peter's Tex Mex on TongZiLin Dong Lu for some frozen margaritas, cold beer and delicious food. We sat there for hours reliving little details of the last 15 days and many glasses were lifted over our safe arrival in Chengdu. It was mind numbing to think that just 7 hours ago we were freezing our buts off in snow covered mountains and now we were sweating in the summer heat of the city.

So… there you have it. I think the rewards far outweighed the punishment.

I will have one more post with the final route data, GPS tracks, etc. Hope you all enjoyed our little trip and thanks for coming along via this excellent forum.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Distance = 339 Kilometers - Time = 11:14 - Average Moving Speed = 44 kph

[andre555]

Excellent accomplishment!

[jape]

That was a remarkable accomplishment guys and thanks particularly to ChinaV for the photos and the effort in sorting and posting them and writing the stories. You have kept us amused and enthralled for a good while now. Felix in his undies with the cow was the high point! where is the pic I just KNOW you took of that?

It seems you all spent a lot of the trip travelling separately while riding from point to point, just meeting up at rest stops and overnight. Was this by design, does it work better that way with just yourself to think about and be conscious of? Did you have FM radio contact or was it too hilly for that to work?

This last day in particular with the snow photos and that incredible rutted, muddy bit of road with the traffic jam show us what was really going on behind your humour and light-hearted approach. Some seriously real travelling. Thank goodness the gods were with you on that first 'off' so near to the bridge, they must have wanted you to continue and show us all so much of that beautiful region and the varied folk who live there. Much appreciated.