Prep Round-China Bike trip, 2-up, April-May 2012

[Fred]

Hey guys, a quick update to check-in : everything is ok for us, we're right now in Yulin, Shaanxi, having traveled to Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu, etc. .

And a funny note : the power of internet !!
Celine, my girlfriend, posted a few weeks ago on a chinese moto forum to ask for road status, giving a few info about us (nationality, type of bike, from Shanghai, etc.), and when checking today after a few weeks, here's what we found !
photos autoroutes.jpgphotos blog chinois-2.jpgphotos blog chinois-3.jpg


A very nice guy spotted us near Kunming, shot pictures of us from his car and posted them !
We are laughing our asses off when we saw this, and that's perfect for us because obviously we didn't have pics of us together on the bike, that's gold !

[TexasAggie]

Fred,
Sounds like a great trip and also seems you are being treated well as a tourist. If I understand your up to date itinerary, you will be coming thru Nanjing towards the end of your trip and heading to Shanghai by following G312 along the river. I can suggest an alternative very nice ride on G104 from Nanjing around the south and west side of Taihu Lake instead. My wife and I just went to YiXing and it was nice once you got out of Nanjing. Basically you either join up with G318 in Huzhou or you could go north from YiXing and join up with your original route on G312 in Wuxi. You bypass Changzhou but also all the traffic between Nanjing and Shanghai. Plus the tea plantations and bamboo oceans on the mountains are nice scenery. The roads have some nice twisties and are fun too.

And of course if you need anything when close to Nanjing, just let me know and I will be happy to help any way I can. Enjoy your adventure.

[Fred]

Thanks Texasaggie !

The end of our trip should not see us going to Nanjing this time (we both went there several times already), but you never know !

[soberpete]

Wow!
Yulin, Shaanxi. You've made some real progress. How is it, day to day? Do you get sick of riding or do frequent breaks help?
Looking good in those photos, you two .

[Fred]

Hey Pete,

I will be very honest with you : I'm absolutely not tired of riding, I don't know if I ever will someday, which sometimes scares me... How am I supposed to go back to the real world (working, etc.) ?

But to be very honest : I am not tired of riding, not tired of riding in China because the landscapes are beautiful and always changing, but absolutely, terribly tired of riding around Chinese drivers.

Sorry in advance if I offend anyone here, but I can tell with a relative experience (9,000 km into this trip + more riding in and around Shanghai) that only a very very small minority of Chinese drivers know how to drive in respect of the road rules and others road users around them.
We all know that riding in China is a dangerous business which we accept, and I do not regret one second the trip we are doing right now, it will be wonderful memories for years. But that being said, yes it is dangerous and we have been very lucky a lot of times : I am being very very careful, but your complete focus is taken every second of every minute of every hour of every day, dodging people who never never watch their mirrors (we have yellow jerseys and the light at the front of the bike is always on, how visible can we be ?), or downright cut you off while staring at you in the eyes...

Of course we had several very close calls, and the risk is sometimes very high because of Chinese drivers. A risk sometimes I am pondering, having my girlfriend behind me.

I hope you guys will understand what I try to explain. It doesn't take any of the fun we are having away, and the incredible memories we will have, the incredible landscapes we saw, the delicious food we ate, and the accomplishment feeling we have when we reach some milestones into the trip, but yes, if someone is preparing for a similar trip on a bike : make no mistake about it : it is dangerous, and mostly because of Chinese drivers.

After driving for a while in China, you know one thing for sure : even the best and alert rider on the most prepared bike can be surprised by a car coming out of nowhere.
Today, on the road from Yulin to Fugu, we saw 4 accidents. 2 of them fatal for sure. The 4 of them would have been fatal on a bike...

It will not stop us, but it would be foolish not to pause and consider the risks sometimes.

I have already in mind some long trips in Europe and North America, which I'm sure will be far safer than China !

Cheers mates !

Fred

[soberpete]

Wow again.
Four in a day, two fatal and none of them involving bikes.

Good job Fred, especially with a passenger on the back the whole way.
Have you been paying attention to your mileage (kilometerage) between filling up and running low on fuel? I'd like to know how the bike does with full luggage + passenger on all that varied terrain. Somewhere between 400-500km per full tank I'm guessing.

[soberpete]

Doesn't matter if you don't know. Your safe and having a good time; that's what counts.
Keep us updated! I'm waiting for the time you pass through Shandong .

[Fred]

Have you been paying attention to your mileage (kilometerage) between filling up and running low on fuel? I'd like to know how the bike does with full luggage + passenger on all that varied terrain. Somewhere between 400-500km per full tank I'm guessing.

Hehe Pete, I did more than that : I'm using an app on my HTC (Fuel log) to keep track of each and every refill and the fuel mileage.
I can then tell you precisely the figures until now (around 9,000 km into the trip), which I intend to write on the RR here, with also my comments about the YBR250, which will be very positive I should say.

Those figures are only for the trip, which means 2-up with full luggages (around 165-170 kg of weight on the bike including ourselves of course !) :
Best mileage : 2,55L/100km (92 miles per gallon US) : this is best attained with a stabilised speed of around 80 km/h, near 5,500rpm, steady for a whole tank.
Worst mileage : 3,44L/100km (68,4 miles per gallon US) : I'm still baffled how in the world I reached this number, I thought I had a leak until further figures reassured me. The difference is that this day the road was excellent and I was going 100 km/h on average, so quite high sustained rpm.
Average mileage : 2,8L/100km (84 miles per gallon US). Combined with a 19 liters tank, this is one of the reason for the YBR 250 to be an excellent touring bike for China (I insist for China, as here it is difficult to use all the power of a bigger displacement bike, in others countries it would be different).

Cheers,

Fred

[soberpete]

3,44L/100km at it's worst!

My maths isn't great but I think that would give you about 552kms on a full tank.

Christ, that's about the same distance I get out of a full tank riding it normally (like a bat out of hell, that is). That is only carrying the occasional heavy backpack and going two's up from time to time.

I guess that most of my petrol goes into stopping at the lights and commuting while in the city. You're out on bigger roads going at a steady pace so - despite the weight you've put on the bike - during the long and continuous riding (with the exception of all your daily, emergency stops) the YBR 250 is really displaying some good fuel efficiency.

Nice

[Fred]

And we arrived in Shandong !
Sorry for the short notice Pete and others, we just decided this morning of the road we would take for the day, and if we would stay or not in Shijiazhuang (Hebei) or not. Finally we're now in Liaocheng (Shandong) and set for the night. Tomorrow we'll take off for Tai'An where we will stay a minimum of 1 day to climb the mountain there (Taishan), then we'll leave for Qingdao, where we will spend a couple of days I think.

If anyone from Zibo or else want to arrange a meeting with us (or has time !), please post here, and we'll try our best to meet each other !

Cheers and sorry again for the short notice !

Fred