Weekend ride to Suzhou and Taihu

[milton]

These days, I'm certainly the slowest rider in my group (damn hard to get a wheelchair through the mountains), but I'm always smiling when I get wherever I end up. Yeah, I could probably still blow many riders off the road, but I'd be risking my dentures flying out of my mouth ... and then I wouldn't have such a charming smile!

This image, Lao Jia Hou in the disguise of an old dragon with teeth flying out of its mouth, could be great material for a patch for the older members of MCM.

Cheers.

[Fred]

Nice ride report guys !

Would you care to show the roads you took, on Google maps ? The nice ones of course, around Tiahu lake and Zhouzhuang ? I think they will be my first destinations when I finally pick up my bike. Thanks in advance !

Fred

[euphonius]

Nice ride report guys !

Would you care to show the roads you took, on Google maps ? The nice ones of course, around Tiahu lake and Zhouzhuang ? I think they will be my first destinations when I finally pick up my bike. Thanks in advance !

Fred

Fred,

To save Felix a bit of trouble, here's a map he posted last year for a very similar ride.



cheers

[jape]

That was good reactions and skill rather than just luck Wrangler, especially missing that last old bastard! You could guess or predict the traffic a bit, that the vehicles were going to veer or not but apart from a quick glimpse ahead, he just appeared. Good riding.

I spent a few km on the way back today playing (I get many km of empty road with clear vision for hundreds of meters and sometimes don't even see another vehicle), pretending that marks ahead on the road were vehicles or wheelchairs, weaving in and out of potholes at a pre-set distance, practising weaving in and out of the road markings and white lines at different speeds. The upright position and the knobbies on my D/S didn't help much, got the wobble more than I would have liked. I found I would have hit that bloke and probably most of the other vehicles too at those speeds on your video.

Maybe the focused area of vision in the vids makes it seem worse but nonetheless I am impressed. Either that or you are boody stupid, bloody lucky and Felix is just insane. Those conditions would tell me to sit up, throttle down, be twice as alert, and if I can, fang it at high revs past the fukkin lot of em in one go at high speed on the wrong side of the road! I tend to do that on the motorway in the car - when the monkeys play at all that ' in and out, slowly overtake, hang around in the wrong lane, creep up on each others' arse and drive to close' shit, all at ten km over the speed limit, I just hang back then wait for a stretch, fang it up to 180 and clean them all up and get some space form them so I can cool it again. Works out much safer in the end. Partly why I am seriously thinking of getting another bike, a fast one. the Kinlon is just too slow, you need that 'piss off out the way' speed and also manoeuvrability, for safety.

How come so many of those great (new) tarmac roads are relatively empty? Time of day or just little traffic on routes you chose? Or just the towns and cities get busy and insane?

[felix]

Thanks euphonious, that is almost exactly the route we took indeed. The route back was roughly the same, with a couple of different roads in the countryside.

As for the mismatched speeds, i never saw it as a real problem. I made it clear early on that we could both ride at our own pace and i was happy waiting at lights and intersections. I prefer to ride at my own pace and wait than to drive slower. Most of all i am happier waiting than bringing a friend to hospital.

When weaving through traffic however, even on equal machinery/riding ability, it can be hard to be the one following. When you're in front, you judge the traffic, pick a route and go for it. When you're behind, the gaps that the front guy made it through often disappear and you find yourself stuck or trying to squeeze through really unsafe situations. This is what happened with that wheelchair; i had plenty of space to make it through but by the time wrangler got there he had to squeeze between the car and chair. Man that was close!!! The trick when following a rider through traffic like this is to give yourself a bit of distance and pick your own route through the cars. When you do that the passages and obstacles average out for both riders, you'll find it easier and safer to follow.

Jape, that lovely new road along the lake is empty right now because it's february and nobody wants to spend a weekend freezing their eggs off. Come summer, that road will be gridlocked with shanghai and suzhou cars. It's been getting worst every summer, which i'm not pissed about; other people are allowed to enjoy the lake! Last year though on a warm sunny weekend, it was almost not worth bothering to go as every corner you have to look forward to would have a bunch of cars parked in the middle. I doubt this year will be any better. Luckily for bikers, there's still zhejiang!

[Fred]

Thanks Euphonius for the map and Felix for the remarks about the traffic there, good to know.