Welcome to here! I saw this wonderful thread on Horizonsunlimited.com and he is also dual posting it on advrider.com. Of interest for Chinese bikes' sake is pages 6 (about half way down) to page 7--his friend joined him on his around-Africa trip, from Europe, in S. Africa, bought a 229cc Bashan, and rode it approx. 6500 miles from S. Africa to Zanzibar where he sold the bike and flew back to Europe. The only issue with the Chinese bike was a constantly stretching and stretched out chain, and they could not find one (or did not know where to look--Chinese bikes are plentiful all over Africa, and many use 428 chains, so I think they just did not know where to look!

The entire thread is interesting (and is currently still ongoing), but since you want to do long rides, and you live on the continent, you might get some good ideas reading through it!


http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...urfboard-72401