Hubei, Sichuan and the Three Gorges of Yangtze River

[MGAlbion]

Dear MGAlbion,

Look no further than this delightful thread from Pfaelzer about a two-up ride through Fujian.

Now, there is a caveat: Pfaelzer's Jialing is easily the most modified JH600 on the planet, with a better shock and better wheels in particularly, so your mileage may vary. And I speak with almost no experience riding two-up.

But Pfaelzer and I are both in the 90-100kg range (more than a tad more than the lithe Milton and welterweight Motokai) with the same panniers, and I've ridden thousands of kilometers under load. The bike shows tremendous heart. She just gives and gives and gives.

Hope that's useful!

cheers

Thanks Euphonius, if they arent the two most ideal posts for me, i dont know what are! Damn, Pfaelzer's got some style.
Ive got to get round the posts a bit more, but having been away for so long there is so much to read,

Thanks again.

[euphonius]

You'll also note that your fellow Wuhan expat, Bob S, is quite knowledgeable about the JH600, having owned one for about a year in Shenzhen before rebasing via Thailand to the Hubei capital.

He's moving to smaller bikes, but is a lifelong motorcyclist and knows his stuff!

Keep us posted if (when) you go for the JH600, or anything else.

cheers!

[bikerdoc]

Excellent thread Milton, and despite it all a BIG rewarding smile was felt by all after the fact, once the dust had settled (or as in this case, the mud had dried or else unceremoniously washed off in a haze of high pressure water vapor). Seems that the Jialing is proving it's worth in conditions less than ideal, which is heartening to read about.

As a side note and this is not intended as a snide or anything to you guys who have a JH600 in the slightest - so no hate mail please! A good riding buddy just tried out a early model Jialing JH600 that is being sold by its original owner for a very low price (one of the first to roll of the Jialing assembly line). My friend who likes fairly big capacity motorcycles of all descriptions rode the JH600 for a few hours but walked away very underwhelmed, so much so that he wouldn't even make the seller (also a mutual friend & fellow rider) an offer. My buddy's view of the Jialing is that it's way slower and very under-powered than the CFMoto Jetmax scooter. Unfortunately I was not with the group of friends at the time, though I was in phone contact and eager to hear the news and the possibility of perhaps buying a used early model JH600. Not sure if there's much difference between the first models and those that Jialing are producing today?

Finally a few of us will be riding from Ningbo into Jiangxi (again) before heading down to Guangxi (Guilin & Yangshuo), then over towards Shenzhen before riding back up again trying to stick to the coastline, for the mid-autumn festival holiday period. That is if all comes to plan. There'll probably be a mix of 1000cc+ cruisers, BMW's and a few Harleys, with some dual-sports bikes in there too, though not all riders will do the Guangxi section. If this come's off I will do my bit to put together a ride report and some photos, though I tend to just like riding and stop only when needing to, so I'll see.

Spent Saturday riding with a mixture of 12 Harley Davidson bikes (all Chinese owned and legally plated down here) and two Dragstar 1100cc bikes which didn't look out of place in the bunch at all until me and my buddy removed our helmets to reveal 2 laowa's.

Anyway Milton, a great RR.

[MotoKai]

My buddy's view of the Jialing is that it's way slower and very under-powered than the CFMoto Jetmax scooter.

Check again with your buddy on which Jialing he was on!
Really, not fair to compare the CFMoto Jetmax scooter has a 250 to the Jialing 150 scooter!

And let me know when you're ready for a Bridge Crossing!

[bikerdoc]

hahaha, yes it was a JH600 and not a Jialing scoot... in fact the Jialing JH600 owner rode with us back in October 2009 when a group of us did Zhejiang and Jiangxi. I was impressed at that time, since all the bikes were large road bikes and the Jialing was the only dual purpose bike in the group which blasted past all of us when we had to navigate some of the harsher road reconstruction sections. My comment at that time, was and still is, that type of bike is ideal for the majority of the less-than-ideal road conditions so frequently encountered in China. Albeit, perhaps with some slightly better dual purpose/dirt tyres.

The JH600 in question is not being ridden that much any more by the rider in question. I should add that at the time when I'd expressed more than a passing interest in buying a new JH600, his question was; how much? which I'd replied that at the time the JH600 was around cny32000, and his reply was he'd not pay anything above cny9000 max. He'd had to have the complete front end -forks, head bearings etc., replaced under warranty which is perhaps why he felt the way he did.

The Jetmax, is far from a scooter as one can get except for the walk thru design and use of CVT clutch, it carves into corners, gets there damn quick, and stays planted into corners provided the road surface isn't up the snuff, plus it will hit 140km/h and sit on 120km/h all day long without getting too busy. In fact the Jetmax CF250T-6A is like chalk-and-cheese compared to my 2007 CF250T-ViP Fashion.

I'm into coming to SH this week, before the Oct holiday week.