Quote Originally Posted by Lao Jia Hou View Post


This is great - thanks ChinaV - it helped me realize the deficiencies with my current roadside kit (a mobile phone with my sweety on speed dial).

I laugh now at my ignorance about "prep" from when I first started "touring" (motorcycles had just been invented). I'd pack lots of oil, a full set of spokes (like I'd be able to respoke a wheel on the side of a road), and assorted other useless trash. About 40 pounds of "just in case", instead of the basic essentials like beer and cigarettes (which are amazingly quite useful on the side of a road).

You're kit seems bang on - now I just need to find the Beijing tool market.

Lao Jai Huo, great post -- you're really sounding like, well, a Lao Jia Huo. I'm laughing out loud, the acronym for which I can't remember...

If Beijing is anything like Shanghai, the local tool mart will blow your mind. Yes, tools have advanced a lot since the time motorcycles were invented. You can probably still buy pre-bloodied clubs and sharpened obsidian chips, but China's tool scene is astonishing. In Shanghai it's an entire district of town, block after block of multifloor tool emporia where you can buy anything from near-microscopic forceps to industrial drill presses the size of ChinaV's Weeee or bigger. At the center is a huge tool supermarket with counters representing all the various Chinese manufacturers, and there are many, given that lots of tools around the world of course are made here, including those in chains like Harbor Freight (though Sears, I think, still makes Craftsman tools in the US). So you'll see quite a bit of redundancy here, at very competitive prices. A great brand is SATA, which has excellent bang for the buck, in quality terms. The tool mart here is like a tourist destination. I always see middle aged guys from around the world wandering around like kids in a candy store, muttering things like, "Oh, man, I could use one of those!" "Jeez, check this out!" and "Whaaaa!"

I live in a high rise and don't have a workshop, so I appreciate anything that can help keep my tools in order. SATA has a couple of different "automotive kits", one of which I bought for under 600 RMB and includes a broad selection of sockets, box wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers and some specialist things like sparkplug extractors -- all in a nice hard case. You wouldn't want to carry the case when riding, but this is the moral equivalent of a big wallboard where every tool has its special hook. So now I'm in the market for something like ChinaV's Wolfman pouch.

ChinaV, thanks indeed for kicking this off. Tons of food for thought in your post. By the way, do those tire irons nest together?

cheers!