Fantastic Fujian Adventure

[Serpentza]

There was the occasional no go area (even the Qingqi wouldn't make it over this without pulleys and ropes), but there was always a way around via some temporary dodgey road.


The occasional awesome scenery..


This certainly was the Qingqi's day, lots of dirt, lots of fun.


By this time I'd broken away from Tom and had plenty of time to stop and take the occasional picture..


This evening was going to be one hell of an interesting one, and Tom's shyte rear tyre would be to blame.


If you look closely you can see Tom in the distance turning the corner :)


These were some of the better dirt sections, less mud, fewer bumps.


This route is going to be brilliant once all this construction finishes.


More scenery you ask? Yes damnit, I had time on my hands with Capt. Pikey wallowing in slow and steadyness.


Muddied up, the way she should be and the way she left me (more about that later).


The roads turned back to concrete... we were over the worst.


So finally we were in Zhanping, we'd been keeping an eye on Tom's rear tyre, an almost new Eternal rise Street tyre.. and it was now pretty much completely bald.. this after just about 2000+-kms riding..


Tom was content to just leave it and keep on pushing.. that is until he decided to clean it up with some water for a proper photo of how bald it was..


When water was poured on, we could clearly see air escaping from some small punctures.. not just one but many.. this tyre wasn't going to make the trip...


My tyre had also worn down more than half... but was still fine.. my spokes weren't, you can't see them in the picture, but already a few had broken.. by the time we'd reached our destination one of them would have fallen out and a few more would have broken :P


Tom had the good idea of buying some inner tubes in case his tubeless tyre went flat.. and so we did and pushed on to Longyan.. where things would get interesting.

RR continued.. just as soon as more pics are uploaded.. and I've had my coffee

[Pfaelzer]

This report shows all aspects of abroad trip in China. Thanks guys for the work to bring this alive here. Makes me almost feel "homesick"...

Can't wait for the rest of the story. Really Great!!!

Cheers,
AW.

[Serpentza]

Last we left off, we'd crossed the dirt roads, noticed that Tom's tyre was about to give up the ghost and still had quite a few kms to go before we hit longyan.. also the dirt had slowed us down quite a lot and so it was starting to get a little late... there was no time to lose, and no time to take pictures, we needed to get to longyan and find a replacement tyre for tom or this trip could get iffy (tyre problems are the worst).

.. To cut a long story short, we arrived in Longyan, Tom's chain was so loose it was slapping up against the chain guard making a horrible noise everytime he decelerated, his tyre was looking a little less than pumped up, I was on 6 broken spokes, a search for "yamaha" turned up nothing, all the small pikey bike shops didn't have tyres or spokes, and it was looking dismal, one guy said we should ask a motorbike taxi and he'd show us the way, with no time to lose (and 10RMB later) we were following a motorcycle taxi through some pretty awful traffic.. We eventually arrived in the "motorbike" area of town and exhausted as we were (420+kms that day) we started going from shop to shop asking for A)A new tyre for Tom B) new spokes for me.... Bloody Yamaha guys were useless and simply told us to go look somewhere else (more of a go away we don't care), same with most of the others... we were giving up hope when we spotted a Honda dealership.

The honda guys and girls were great, the didn't turn us away, but actually got their mechanics to come out and take a look, a lot of chatting later they were sorry to inform us that they didn't have that sort of tyre as none of the bikes they've ever sold have tyres that big.. they also didn't have spokes... however one of them told us to go down the road and take a right at a big rural credit building.. and we should find what we need... and so we did just that.. and this is what we found.


I spotted it first, a 1000cc Ninja, then a line of beautiful Jap bikes all in a row... We'd come to the right place.


This was a little specialist shop dealing in smuggled in HK bikes.. and there were some pretty special bikes there...


Not only bikes, but a whole little local motorbike gang who have a special relationship with the local cops and so ride freely in and around the city (but more about them later).. I actually test rode the Honda RR in this shot.. scary scary fast that thing.. not my style.. and not a bike-trip bike..


R1... pretty


Ninja... very pretty


Arguably the show stealer... let's see that one again with Capt. Pikey at the helm..


We both agreed that while this is a dream bike.. it's also an instant death bike in China... too fast and powerful.


She was as interested in me as I was in the bikes.. Nothing like a lot of attention to flatter the ego and inflate one's head.


(Tom and the Laoban posing with the old shyte tyre) First thing.. do you have a new tyre? Yes.. the boss trotted into the back and produced a very nice looking re-moulded Dunlop tyre (not only good looking, but wider than the one that was on the yingang) it was a no-brainer and within a few minutes they'd whipped off the old piece of shyte Eternal rise and getting to work on putting the new tyre on and tightening the chain (by taking out some links).


Just to show you what a shyte job that other guy had done at repairing the previous puncture.. there were piles of tyre plugs inside the old tyre...


While fixing an engine in the shop, the boss flung this mouse out who had been hiding in one of the cylinders... it was still alive and happily drinking water on the pavement.. :P


This is where things started to go downhill.. The guy was fixing what looked (and was marked as) to me like a CB400, a newer one I thought as I didn't quite recognise it, I've always loved CBs and Bandits and well pretty much any of the naked jap bikes of the 80's and 90's... (we were exhausted, still in our kit and about 6 beers down by this point) but here's the thing, I made him an offer (since he said he'd have the bike fixed by evening, I told him I'd buy it and trade in my qingqi, but he refused, kept saying it was a "fake honda".. fake Honda? I asked him were it was from.. "Japan" he said.. Hmm a fake Honda from Japan?? This didn't make sense, it had Honda CB400 markings and they were not crappy stickers, proper decals under a clear-coat?? very very odd...

I would only find out later after the trip by doing some research online that this was infact a Kawasaki Balius(ZR 250) 250cc inline 4... Why the hell would someone want to rebrand a Kawasaki as a Honda?? I think Kawasakis are great!

Anyway, the word got out that there was a drunken foreigner looking to buy a CB..


Anyway, we met all of the members of the local biker gang, they escorted us to a nearby hotel and helped us get all checked in (it was awesome to be led and flanked by the likes of R-1s and 1000cc Ninjas). Then The Ninja guy (who I suspect was the leader) came to pick us up and take us to dinner, which consisted of some awesome local specialties and of course the local 40percent alcohol Rice-liquor...

That is not soup.. that is rice-liquor


After dinner we were supposed to meet the rest of the gang for bbq and beer, so we ended up back at the shop... Thing is, both Tom and I were a little concerned that we were both rather un-sober and riding around town with these guys..


Capt. Pikey's bike with his nice new wider tyre (front tyre will have to get sorted sometime too)..

Then it happened, lots of drinking and hanging around the shop.. and next thing I woke up sans Qingqi, a large chunk of my bank account missing and this parked downstairs:

Yay...


Happy as a pig in shyte!


My new baby!


All loaded up and ready to go!

I would suggest to not make impulsive drunken purchases in the dark (especially before you've taken her for a test drive).. but in this case I came out tops.. what a wonderful machine, The engine is in perfect condition, everything was working great! (especially since I remember a drunken haze the night before demanding that the regulator and battery be replaced and testing that it was charging).. I now had a real bike to finish off this trip in style! (and yes, engine and chassis numbers match up and it really is a real Honda CB400 Super Four VersionS VF2 1996 model).

Next up.. our last two days.. flying back to Shenzhen with a smile on my face!

[Serpentza]

Things had changed now, when we left I was the guy on the old knackered Qingqi following tom on his new, quick and powerful Yingang.. Now I had the bigger and more powerful bike :).. thing is I still ended up trailing most of the time other than on the straights as my new bike's front alloy was a bit bent and was making taking corners at speed a bit too hairy (this is a problem that will swiftly be resolved).


Still Happy :)


Capt. Pikey at the helm of his Yingang


The Yingang is evidently styled after the CB (or similar bike) so now things looked more uniform.. Being a lifelong enduro and crosser rider, I was still coming to terms with a bike that revs up past 12k revs and has a 4cyl engine with a kickarse powerband (the riding position was alien to me too).


Taking photos one-handed was a little more tricky on the CB..


Our destination was a small city called "Zijin" Which although the tones and characters are different, basically means tissue paper, although more resembling toilet paper if you ask me.. a really grotty little place..


(My one handed camera technique was improving) We had been making really good time and covered really good distance.. my new bike was a whole other ballgame.. an absolute killer on the straights... we were back in Guangdong and would reach our "tissue paper" destination soon.


More nice scenery.. but that was going to change


In case anyone is wondering what it says on my helmet, the one side says Taipei city (from my Taiwan road trips) and the other side says Shenzhen city (since that's where I live).

We had arrived...

The horrible view from my hotel.. and even worse those trucks would not stop hooting through the night.. but I wasn't aware of that yet.. we'd covered really good distance and it was time to go in search of beer.. This was our last night on the trip after all.


We found a wonderful little 2 storey beer garden a short walk from the hotel, so we set about doing what we do best (other than riding of course).



Drinking beer...

This would be our last night on the trip, but our trip wasn't over yet, we still had quite a day ahead of us....

Coming up, Capt. Pikey learns that bolting along on new tyres isn't always that fun....

[felix]

Dude, congratufuckinglations on the new bike! What a beauty, i hope she keeps going for a long time! I bought a bike drunk once too, but it was only one of those mini motox bikes. Not my wisest purchase but i had good fun with it i guess.

Thanks a lot for the great report. Nothing like a pair of alcoholics on a road trip for good stories!

[Kot]

Wow, great bike and great time.

[Serpentza]

The next morning we were up pretty early, we didn't have too far to cover (maybe 2~300kms+- can't remember).. Yes that's my bike in the hotel lobby, if possible you should always park your bike inside the lobby, or alternatively a private guarded parking lot... This particular hotel even had a car parked on the marble floor...


The morning roads were a treat, lovely relaxed small roads winding through valleys, very little traffic.. perfect little concrete roads, we rode without incident for a time and finally hit a small village somewhere near Huidong where we would stop for breakfast.. This is where the nice roads would end.


This is the river right next to where we parked, this little village starts after this bridge and doesn't go far.. An interesting little place where our breakfast consisted of shop bought instant noodles and or dirty sausages.

What was to follow was pretty awful, I didn't take any photos, but it's a road we'd been on before (on the Great Guangdong Adventure), not sure how long but probably about 10kms+- (I stand corrected) of utter rubbish dirt road filled with slow moving construction trucks carrying loads of sand/gravel etc.. basically a dusty bumpy mess... and now that I was on my new bike I had no choice but to follow the "slow and steady, lots of engine braking" mantra... it seemed endless, but thankfully did eventually come to and end.. and then we hit what was last time one of my favourite roads in Guandong..

This pretty, tree-lined road winds around for a few kms with some very nice corners, excellent scenery and almost no traffic.

The great thing is that this road is within a few hours ride from Shenzhen.. very possible to do a day trip up there just to hit this road and the surrounding countryside.


Like all good things, that road too finally came to an end and we were back in Urban shyte, Tom had starred the correct place on his map so that we would be able to easily find the correct turnoff into Shenzhen (It's difficult to spot since all these streets look the same).

We basically pushed on, lots of traffic, lots of stares at our bikes (since they really do look out of place), the occasional motorcycle taxi guy leaning over and asking us questions.. we'd planned to meet our hired van at 2pm so we were on a clock... we arrived early at 1pm, enough time to have a few beers and chat about our bikes.


Before I give you a rundown on the bikes and the problems we had, there's one more little twist... while looking over the bikes I spotted something sticking out of Tom's new rear tyre...

There is something really wrong about this.. Last trip out the only person to get a puncture was Tom, and in fact we never did fix it properly, we ended up having to completely strip off the rear wheel of his bike no less than three times on the last trip, and on this trip again he'd gotten 2 punctures... At least with tubeless tyres it's much less of a pain to fix, and irritated as he was, Tom pulled out this bolt and fixed the problem lightning quick with his special repair kit (after having learnt all the tricks and how not to do it from the previous guys).


Our guy arrived in his brilliant Ford Transit, our bikes were loaded and we were on our way back to our bike shed.. this journey was not without incident, but I'll elaborate later.

Coming up next.. a review of the bikes and how they performed.

[Serpentza]

Let's start with the bikes that we left Shenzhen with.

The looker:

2010(maybe 11? not sure) Yingang YG250-6 almost new, only one previous owner who cleaned it daily with a toothbrush and lots of love.

Impossible to keep up with Tom on his new bike (perhaps once I get used to the CB I'll stand a chance), never did a bike more suit its rider.

What went wrong on this trip:
With the bike?
Nothing..
However some other bits let the bike down:
Loose chain..
The chain had to be tightened a few times (it had reached the near 5k end of life time).
Rear tyre..
I think the rear tyre going bald was a combination of it being a shyte tyre and Tom's "enjoy every minute of the twisties" riding style.
Puncture magnet..
Perhaps in next year's model they'll remove this additional feature.

All in all a wonderful bike, excellent handling around the corners, bloody fast on the straights, reliable and a real looker, had me jealous especially when locals would comment on how much better his bike was than the Qingqi :)

Old faithful

2006 Qingi QM200GY, over 40,000kms on it (perhaps more) Ridden hard and put away wet by pretty much all of its previous owners (except ChinaV and CC of course).

Since most of the time I was trying to keep up with Tom on his lovely new Yingang, I was maxing out the revs quite a lot :)

What went wrong on this trip:
Spokes, spokes and more spokes..
a total of 11 broken rear spokes.. and they're difficult to find... if you're riding something like this, I suggest carrying a few extra spokes with you (they're small and easy to store).
Starter wasn't kicking in...
This was due to corroded connections on and around the coil.. simple, strip off the connections, replace the nuts and wires if you can.
Front fork oil seals ruptured...
This is simply from age and abuse, if oil starts leaking out your forks, don't panic.. just try to wipe the excess oil off with a rag or something, it's only really a problem if the oil leaks onto your front brakes or tyre (I rode close to 2000kms like this, really not an issue).
Tripple clamp center nut went missing...
Vibration, age, abuse... just buy a new one and stick it on.
Clutch slippage...
Although not yet a problem, the clutch was feeling a little worn and gave the occasional rough pull-off.. not a huge problem, the bike would have been ridable ages before having to think of replacing this.
Rubbish rear brakes...
I'd put in new brake shoes on the last trip.. but that didn't help, sure they were cheap brake shoes.. but to be honest I hardly used the rear brakes.. since they were rubbish.. upgrade to discs if you don't have them already.

All in all, tough and reliable but showing its age and heading into that downward spiral of everything that can break will.

The foreigner

1996 Honda CB400 Super Four Version S 49980kms on the clock when I bought it, obviously been in a crash or two, been ridden badly by people who don't know how to ride..

Couldn't really push it because of that bent front alloy, but managed to burn some carbon off the valves hitting the powerband a few times on the trip, wonderful bike with so much potential.

What went wrong on this trip:
Bent front alloy...
Since I bought it drunk I didn't notice.. oh well, too late will get a new alloy from the Guangzhou bike market (or HK if I have to).
Knackered front tyre...
probably due to the bent alloy
Coolant...
After a long day's ride the coolant had dropped from "upper level" to "lower level" probably a tiny fracture in the radiator since the radiator has had a few knocks.. may as well just get a new one.
Riding position...
I'm still adjusting, it'll take another long trip before I'm ready to throw this thing around corners.

All in all.. wonderful bikes, wonderful trip.


That concludes the Fantastic Fujian Adventure, I will be posting a "highlights" bit and of course links to all the videos that'll be up on youtube one of these days. (Oh yes and also the maps).

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

[corporal_clegg]

That was cool man. Nice trip. What does put away wet mean? It's really sad to imagine the qingqi so worn down. Mine's just got over 3000 km on it and it's been perfect so far (apart from some cosmetic stuff, cuts and bruises...achem and some minor electrical stuff).

The new bike's class tho. Shame about the little bits and pieces tho, it's to be expected, it's easy to get screwed here even sober. You didn't do too bad for being drunk. Bet you'll be missing the dirt tho.

[Serpentza]

That was cool man. Nice trip. What does put away wet mean? It's really sad to imagine the qingqi so worn down. Mine's just got over 3000 km on it and it's been perfect so far (apart from some cosmetic stuff, cuts and bruises...achem and some minor electrical stuff).

The new bike's class tho. Shame about the little bits and pieces tho, it's to be expected, it's easy to get screwed here even sober. You didn't do too bad for being drunk. Bet you'll be missing the dirt tho.

Hey there Clegg, The pharse refers to how someone mistreats their horse. The horse was "ridden hard" (ridden fast and/or over a long distance) and "put away wet" (returned to the stable or corral without having the horse's sweat wiped off with a cloth or blanket).

Well you can expect your Qingqi to just keep on going, fantastic bikes (probably China's most reliable by my experience).. and yes I'll be missing the dirt, I'll have to get another crosser somewhere down the line (when I'm feeling rich again). :)