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I love the business metaphor “where the rubber meets the road” because that is exactly where this story starts.  I had sent our Chang Jiang to Frank’s Classic Sidecars in Beijing last winter to get a bit of a facelift and a new 1970, BMW R75/5 engine in preparation for our Round The World (RTW) tour and now it was time to get the bike.  We had bought all the gear, camping equipment, tools and stuff that one needs to spend 14-16 months on the road and now the bike was ready.  All we had to do was go to Beijing and ride it back to Changchun and get ready for our first shakedown ride, a short ten-day, 2,000 km trip to Chang Bai Shan Mountain on the North Korean Border.

Janet and I packed our new AEROstich suits and boots, special underwear from LDComfort clothes for several days and assorted stuff and took the overnight train to Beijing.  We had even packed out sleeping bags in case we ran into one of those infamous, cheap Chinese hotels that either forgot to wash the sheets between occupants or had creepy-crawly occupants with whom we had to share the room.  We were ready and the bike was ready.

Jim Bryant picked us up at the hotel (anything but a cheap place at almost $100.00/night) and off we went to the shop to see the bike.  What a beauty!  The security cage was exactly what I had envisioned last September when Jim and I met to discuss the design; the highway pegs were in fact cylinder guards with built-in footrests and our beautiful new, Bar custom seats were magnificent.  But standing back and looking at the bike it did kinda look like something out of the old Auzzie movie – Mad Max.  Just a few things to finish like install the clutch and transmission and adjust the backrest for Janet and the bike would be ours to ride.

We met Tim, a drilling engineer who works in Angola but lives in Beijing who is a bike enthusiast who invited me for a short ride on Saturday which I ultimately declined since the new, made in July 1970, BMW R75/5 motor had to be broken in.  Then we met Andy, a GPS guru who was going to ride with Tim on Saturday to share information on the best ways to effectively use our new Garman GPS Map 76CS.  We were prepared.  A little more software, a new tracking device and our HP notebook computer and we were set.

Understand that Beijing is the capital of China with a population approaching 18 or so million people.  While the Chinese are not as mobile as we are in the west there are still a lot of cars, busses and trucks on the road.  I mean a lot and the nihilistic rules of the road are quite a bit different from what a westerner might expect.  Gary Morgan, a member of the ChangJiang Unlimited Yahoo discussion groups that I follow, recently posted the following, more accurate version of the way it really is:

China's Rules of the Road (submitted by Gary Morgan)

Traveling on Chinese roads is an hallucinatory experience of movement, color, sound and emotions. It is frequently heart-rending, sometimes hilarious, mostly exhilarating, always unforgettable -- and, when you are on the roads, extremely dangerous. Most Chinese drivers observe a version of the Rules of the Road based on an Jiaguwen, or Oracle Bone Script.

ARTICLE I

·       The assumption of immortality is required of all road users.

ARTICLE II

·       Chinese traffic, like Chinese society, is structured on a strict caste system. The following precedence must be accorded at all times. In descending order, give way to: ducks, chickens, official cars, heavy trucks, buses, camels, light trucks, sheep, jeeps, ox-carts, horses, private cars, motorcycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, pigs, pedal rickshaws, goats, bicycles (goods-carrying), fowl, handcarts, bicycles (passenger-carrying), dogs and, last of all, pedestrians.

ARTICLE III

·       All wheeled vehicles shall be driven in accordance with the maxim: to slow is to falter, to brake is to fail, to stop is defeat. This is the Chinese driver’s mantra.

ARTICLE IV: Use of horn (also known as the sonic fender or aural amulet):

·       Cars (IV,1,a-c): Short blasts (urgent) indicate supremacy, that is, in clearing dogs, auto-rickshaws and pedestrians from the intended path.

·       Long blasts (desperate) denote supplication, that is, to an oncoming truck: "I am going too fast to stop, so unless you slow down we shall both die!" In extreme cases this may be accompanied by flashing of headlights (frantic).

·       Single blast (casual) means: "I have seen someone out of China's 1.3 billion people whom I recognize" or "There is a bird in the road (which at this speed could go through my windscreen)" or "I have not blown my horn for several minutes.

·       "Trucks and buses (IV,2,a): All horn signals have the same meaning, viz: "I have an all-up weight of approximately 12.5 tones and have no intention of stopping, even if I could." This signal may be emphasized by the use of flashing headlights.

·       Article IV remains subject to the provision of Order of Precedence in Article II above.

ARTICLE V

·       For all maneuvers, use of the horn and evasive action shall be left until the last possible moment.

ARTICLE VI

·       In the absence of seat belts (which there is), car occupants shall wear Buddhist Mala bracelets (commonly referred to as 'power' beads). These bracelets should be kept securely fastened at all times. (See Articles I and X). Optional are wedding license plate covers.

ARTICLE VII:

·       Rights of way (VII,1): Traffic entering a road from the right has priority. So has traffic from the left, and also traffic in the middle.

·       Lane discipline (VII,2): All Chinese traffic at all times and irrespective of direction of travel shall occupy the centre of the road.

ARTICLE VIII

·       Roundabouts: China has no roundabouts. Apparent traffic islands in the middle of crossroads have no traffic management function. Any other impression should be ignored.

ARTICLE IX

·       Overtaking is mandatory. Every moving vehicle is required to overtake every other moving vehicle, irrespective of whether it has just overtaken you. Overtaking should only be undertaken in suitable conditions, such as in the face of oncoming traffic, on blind bends, at junctions and in the middle of villages/city centers. No more than five centimeters should be allowed between your vehicle and the one you are passing -- and no more than two point five centimeters clearance in the case of bicycles or pedestrians. To make eye contact with an 'opposing' driver is to concede the road.

ARTICLE X

·       Nirvana may be obtained through the head-on crash.

ARTICLE XI

·       Reversing: no longer applicable since no vehicle in China seems to have a reverse gear.

I would also like to add that all traffic laws are treated as suggestions and all traffic lights are really nothing more than decoration.

Fully aware of all of this, Janet and I headed out, with Jim leading, onto one of Beijing’s Ring Roads for the short 3 – 4 day trip.  Needless to say we promptly got lost and here started our problems.

Problem 1

We somehow managed to get on the real expressway (by the way, it is illegal for motorcycles to travel on the BIG expressways but we so flustered the gate attendant because we were riding a vehicle that she had never seen before and because we are foreigners that she took our money and waved us on through) out of Beijing and it was there that I discovered that as I approached about 80kph that there was a problem. At exactly 75.1 kph (later confirmed by GPS reading), Flashy now named Mad Max, started to sputter, cough, wheeze and blow until I slowed down and shifted into third.  Then as if touched by a magic wand, the bike would display nothing of its assumed fuel depravation antics and begin to again, albeit slowly, try to please its owner by speeding up to the aforementioned speed.  After several such episodes, it occurred to me not to exceed the magic 75.1 kph.

Problem 2

Also frustrating, was the fact that when I shifted from 3^rd to 4^th, the lack of power, accompanied by the occasional buck, constant hard vibration, and occasional shake and shimmy while trying to move from 50ish to 60-70ish.  It was so apparent that even Janet asked if I were lugging the engine and why didn’t I shift the bike normally.

I attributed this ‘problem’ to either the high-speed 4^th gear that I was originally sold me (amidst promises that the bike [an original ChangJiang] would travel faster at a lower RPM and save on gas) or the fact that there was a fuel delivery problem or that the high winds we experienced really have a significantly larger effect on that bike than I imagined or a combination of all three. 

I need to digress.  At least eastern or more specifically northeastern China is subject to horrendous dust storms.  Winds coming down from Russia and across Mongolia pick up millions of tons of dust, which literally cover the entire area.  But the wind causes the dust to behave more like a commercial sand blasting device that not only eliminates vision but also tries to destroy sensitive mucous covered tissue like eyes and nostrils.  It was in such conditions that we left Beijing and against such winds we fought all the way back to Changchun.

Well so much for expectations.  I do expect that overall performance will improve when I get rid of the high-speed 4^th gear and repair/replace the parts necessary to improve carburetion.

Problem 3

I was quite surprised that on ‘reasonably’ good Chinese roads, that the right windshield mount broke just below the bottom nut providing a musical staccato tap with an occasional bang providing acoustical accompaniment as the roads became worse due to surface variations and the ever present pot holes (sometimes bathtub size) appeared.

Problem 4

We did hit some pretty rough roads (all at a reasonable speed) with the associated bouncing, jouncing and vibration.  However, what I did not expect was to have the seat backrest break and fall off within a few hundred kms of Beijing.  Fortunately, I had told Janet not to lean too heavily on the backrest.  Had she not been holding on to the hand strap, she could have easily taken a tumble off the back of the bike.  I can now see that we will have to make a backrest for her out of some exotic material designed for the space shuttle just to survive the Chinese roads.  Maybe we will have to remove all bolted on accessories when we cross Mongolia where the no-roads are reportedly much worse.

Problem 5

When the tranny failed the problems began to multiply.  You must first understand that the road construction rules are similar to driving rules.  For example all railroad tracks MUST be at least 3.54 inches above the surface of the road so as to inflict as much discomfort to crossing vehicles and passengers as possible.  It was at such a crossing that when I down shifted into 1^st gear that the rear wheel locked up and skidded which was a good indication that something had broken.

I managed to find 4^th gear and crawled up a small hill to find a gas station.  I promptly called Jim and asked for help.  “Where are you?” he asked.  “I have no idea but I can give you GPS coordinates”, I replied.  He must have fallen off his chair laughing.  After the pause, “Find a mechanic and see if he can find out what’s wrong”.

Sure, I don’t speak Chinese, I’m in the countryside, maybe near a small village and I don’t have a clue as to what to do.  We managed to convey, through that wonderfully animated, universal hand-finger sign language that something broke to several people who had gathered to watch the laowai (foreigner) with their strange machine and funny clothes (one description I read which seemed particularly apt is that of a clown dressed up like an astronaut).  Soon, we had convinced a boy on a small motorcycle to tow us to a repair shop.  It was a repair shop for bicycles.  On to the next stop – a motorcycle repair shop.  But as soon as the owner took a look at Max he turned tail and went back inside to continue working on a bike he understood.

Time to call Beijing.  Oops, no money left on the phone, “please pay your bill and we will let you make calls again”.  Again with universal sign language I asked if someone would let me use their phone to call Beijing but no one volunteered until I flashed the money then all offered me their phones.

“Jim, please call the office and tell one of the girls to put some money on my phone and could you please tell these guys what I need.”

Our arrival was met with a crowd of people surrounding the Max, Janet and me.  At one point Janet counted more than 30 people pressing in to see the foreigners.  In the meantime, the Perfect English office girls had done their job well, in the time it took to travel the few kilometers to the shop, money had been added to my account and I could call.  Mr. Wang told Jim he could fix the bike and promptly disappeared back into his shop leaving Janet and me to try to explain “ting bu dong” or we don’t understand Chinese while our watchers would reply “bu dong” and then laugh.

The Chinese are a most curious people.  They will gather in large crowds to watch almost any event that is in any way different from their daily routine and here on the outskirts of JinZhou almost anything, except their well-ordered, meager life is different.  The crowd that gathered was made up of tuktuk drivers, cab drivers, shopkeepers, workers cleaning the streets and others cleaning out the trenches at the side of the road where accumulated trash and debris had collected.

But we are teachers now so we reverted back to classroom tactics and started to teach basic words and play with the people “Hel-lo” and then point to one of the crowd “Now you say Hel-lo” and soon there was an almost impromptu ABC English class going with lots of laughter, good natured pushing and shoving as first one then another would try.  There were also those who were too shy or too fearful of getting to close to the laowai.

I left to go into the shop but Janet continued with three ladies who had been shoveling out the drainage ditch, only later to tell me how much she had enjoyed these three women, joking and taking pictures of each other.  Life is good if you don’t forget that we are all just people.

We were collected the next morning and the tranny was put in only to find that there was another problem so off went Wang with the tranny between his feet on a motor scooter while Janet and I were to cool our heels in the shop.  Some several hours later he returned and showed me the main shaft with the pin sheared off.  Now he assured me that all was well with the world.

He put the bike back together and because it was late afternoon, we opted to stay another nite at the hotel and get an early start in the morning.

Problem 6

We were going along fine on what seemed to be the best day we had had, not too much wind and little blowing dust when the engine began to sputter, cough, wheeze and blow but I wasn’t going 75.1 kph.  Hmm, maybe the fuel delivery problem was somehow exacerbated due to all the vibration.  And then Janet noticed fuel was pouring out of the right carb.  Had to be the float.

I removed the carb and checked it out, nothing wrong (it was a good thing that I had brought my Leatherman, handy-dandy, fix almost anything tool with me because I didn’t have a Phillips screwdriver and the small flathead bent under the slightest force).  It was then that I noticed that the fuel line was hanging loose, that the brass nipple, which is supposed to be solidly affixed to the carb was not affixed at all!  With no tools, “Ah, shit, that’s what I forgot to bring, my tools”. Sometimes even my Leatherman, handy-dandy, fix almost anything tool just doesn’t fit the bill.  I have epoxy, JB Weld, gum and plastic cable ties and a whole host of emergency fixit stuff in my toolbox and I left it home.  I had no choice but to try to hold the fuel line in place while I drove.  This was especially difficult while driving in Shenyang (population about 9,000,000) during rush hour.

Problem 7

We had, inadvertently due to poor directions from the mechanic, taken the scenic route, about 150 kms that put us only 30 kms from Shengyang, when I heard yet a new vibration sound coming from the front of the gas tank.  Sure enough, when Wang reassembled the bike, he forgot to tighten the two front bolts that hold the gas tank to the frame.  One had vibrated out and the other was literally hanging by a thread.  Again, with no tools (stupid, stupid, stupid), except my Leatherman, handy-dandy, fix almost anything tool, I was able to tighten the remaining bolt sufficiently enough to make it home.

Problem 8

We were all set now.  We stopped for a late lunch in and when leaving the restaurant I noticed a rather large oil stain under the bike, the leak was getting worse.  I found a couple of guys working on cars in front of a shop and with universal sign language asked them to check the transmission for fluid.  Sure enough, it was very low.  Fortunately I had some extra from Wang that wasn’t used in my tranny and was able to top it off.

Problems 9 - 103

We made Siping by 5:00PM and it was only 103 kms to Changchun so we disregarded a cardinal rule of NOT DRIVING IN THE DARK and decided that we would push on and get home by Sunday evening.  What we didn’t know is that virtually the entire 103 kms of road is under heavy construction.

I cannot imagine that any of the road conditions in Mongolia could be any worse than what we encountered.  Further, this road is a major artery between Siping and Changchun so we also had to face all of the crazies in personal autos (rules of the road still apply and sometimes get worse), cabs hell bent for profit, busses, construction equipment, donkey and horse carts plus all the small tractors traveling without lights, reflectors or other identifying marks.  Of course, it is not uncommon in the countryside for people to just stop and visit in the middle of the road, which caused everyone, except the farmers, that is, considerable road rage.

I know enough not to drive in the dark but we had no choice (I know better now!).  With no hotels and no camping equipment we were forced to continue (We should have slept beside the bike).  In fact the 103 kms stretch took just over five hours to complete.

It was also at this time when we discovered our new, bought in America and hand carried to China, dry cell battery was dead.  Fortunately the new BMW engine starts easily when hot, so even as we stalled while negotiating ruts left by large, wheeled scoop dozers (some as much as three feet deep), I was able to get the bike to start.

We pulled into Changchun at 10:00PM.  After dinner I discovered I couldn’t find our apartment keys so it was another hotel night.

Still dead in the morning, the battery failed to start the bike and no amount of kick starting seemed to help.  Fortunately there is a ramp at the entrance and with the help of the doorman; we managed to push the bike up to the top so I could jump-start it.

You know, maybe this is why they call it adventure riding.

It’s going to be a terrific adventure.