2002-05-11

Limping into Nanjing

Today's destination is Nanjing and everyone is eager to depart for our first full day of riding. We will be without Ian and Bryan as their bikes are the ones that shipped from Australia which are still on the ship in port. The plan is for them to catch up with us in Beijing.

Mike Paull is documenting our journey in his online travel journal.

Rick has mounted a little globe on the front fender of his BMW R100GS. I joked that he needs to put a small "you are here" sticker on it.

The Chinese require us to ride in a convoy which makes stopping to take pictures impossible. It is too bad as we are passing through small towns along the way that are incredibly interesting and well worth photographing.

A word about traffic in China: Arrrghh!

Chinese traffic is every bit as dangerous as Thai traffic. There are few genuine rules for traffic in China. You squeeze in where you can and you go when opportunity makes itself available (or when your vehicle is bigger than the other guy's.) Cars, trucks, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, carts, pedestrians, cows, dogs, pigs and ducks. They jostle about in nearly random order, following no particular rules, just fitting in where they can.

The problem is the same as elsewhere: Urbanization has come upon China too quickly. They still operate with the simple conventions of rural living. You don't need much in the way of traffic rules when all you find on the road are people, farm animals and the occassional ox-cart. But now we have bigger, faster, gasoline powered vehicles and the old rules are just leading to chaos and danger. It is going to take time, and cost many lives, before it gets better.

Traffic is more organized in the larger cities. Stop lights are respected and the painted lane stripes generally do delineate driving lanes. But in the smaller cities the rules weaken and in the towns they mean nothing.

There are two major differences between Thai traffic and Chinese traffic. The Thais are more competitive (and more dangerous in that way) and the Chinese pedestrians, as bizzare as it appears, have no fear. They walk directly into traffic and expect that cars will somehow avoid them.

It is particularly dangerous for our group. Some of us are new to this kind of traffic and all of us are overwhelmed with too much sensory information. It will take a few days before we become comfortable with it. Even more dangerous is the requirement that we ride in a convoy. Keeping everyone together is not easy. There are sudden stops and starts in the traffic and it can be difficult to rejoin when we become separated. We try to stay together even through traffic lights and police but doing so is risky as we must contend with cross-traffic and crossing pedestrians. Despite our best efforts we sometimes become separated and have to regroup.

We stopped for lunch at a silk factory where they put on a fashion show of dresses made from their silk.

A demonstration of how the silk is harvested from the silkworm cocoon. The cocoon is removed and the silk is stretched over a small frame. Multiple layers of silk go over this frame.

Then it is taken from the frame and stretched once more. We were impressed with the silk's strength. I thought it would surely tear but they could stretch a small ball of silk into a sheet several squares yards in size.

John Shelton gasses up his Kawasaki KLR 650. Sim is in the background.

John Shelton, David Wilde and I are the three KLR riders on this trip.

Mike Paull's bright yellow R1150GS drew the most attention everywhere we went but this little boy is more interested in the Atlanta Falcons balloon that Jim Hay gave him.

It is a thrill to be riding in China! We ride through small cities and rural towns, by farms and fields, passing all manner of unusual vehicles along the way.

Suddenly my instruments are not functioning and I suspect what it must be. This happened once before on the first night when I bought the KLR and drove it home. It must have blown a fuse. No problem, I brought spares with me so I'll just pull over and replace it.

A lesson: You can't pull over and work on your bike without immediately attracting a hundred onlookers. I don't mind them watching but sometimes they pack in so close they get in the way. And with that many people there will usually be one or two who speak a little English. I am more than happy to explain who we are and what we are doing but our group is waiting on me and I have to get it fixed and get going as quickly as I can.

I took my gear off the bike, removed the seat to check the fuse and, yes, it was blown. I changed it and tried starting the bike. It started so I killed the engine, put the seat back on, repacked my tools, repacked my gear, hopped on to ride away, waved the crowd of onlookers back, said goodbye, pressed the starter button and....

Nothing. Press it again. Still nothing!

Oh, boy, it blew the fuse again! It must have happened when I test-started the bike. Worse, our riding group has already left thinking I was ready to go. Ack!

Ok, back off the bike and repeat the exercise. Only this time there will be no test-start to blow a fuse. Take the gear off, tools out, seat off, replace the fuse, tools back, seat back on, repack gear, on the bike, wave the onlookers aside, say goodbye again, think positive thoughts, press the button and... it starts!

But my instruments are immediately dead. Damn, it blew a third fuse! Ok, I can still ride it but once I kill the engine I have to put a new fuse in to start it. Worse, I brought only five spares and I've gone through two of them already. Not good.

I am beginning to feel stupid for bringing the KLR. It blew a fuse once before and it's happening again. Was I careless? I remember emailing the original owner to ask if he had ever had a blown fuse. No, it never happened to him and the bike had 8,500 miles on it when I bought it. I asked Bill Pratt, who rode through China in 2000 on his Seven Dragons Across Asia tour (the only other group besides Helge's to do it that year.) There were five KLRs on that trip. Bill said they had a few blown fuses along the way but no problems with the KLRs. I put 2,000 miles on this KLR, most of them on a trip to Boise, Idaho, to have it outfitted with Happy Trails products and didn't blow a fuse or have any sort of problem. All this confirmed for me that the blown fuse was a rare event, something that might happen once in a long time, and I shouldn't worry about it. How wrong I was.

It gets worse. The engine is running but the battery is slowly going dead and that means some of the bike's systems are no longer functioning- including the fan behind the radiator.

Anyone who has been in that situation knows the feeling. As long as you keep moving everything is ok. The water pump is driven off the engine's crankshaft so it doesn't need electricity. Just keep air moving past the radiator and the bike won't overheat. But stopping is agony.

It is getting dark as we reach Nanjing and we are having trouble finding the hotel. It's a big city with a lot of stop-and-go and the suffering KLR is beginning to overheat. Finally it's had enough, the coolant starts to boil and spills out on the road. I kill the engine and push the bike under a bridge. Helge and Mike stay behind with me as the rest of the group continues looking for the hotel.

A crowd of onlookers gathers again. This is miserable but I am glad Mike and Helge are here. We decide to let the bike cool down, add water to the radiator and try to make it to the hotel.

Now, I'm looking at the radiator cap and find that it is blocked by the engine guard from Happy Trails. Removing the engine guard means taking out the screws for the motor mount. This is crazy, you shouldn't have to pull the motor mount screws just to add water to the radiator. What a terrible design! Stuck under a bridge in Nanjing, China with an overheated bike that I can't easily add water to, and a crowd of onlookers to boot. Now, depression really sets in. Is the bike unrepairable? Is my journey over already? I do not voice these fears.

Then we see the coolant reservoir on the other side of the bike. Ok, put the motor mount screws back in and hope they hold. Say a mental apology to Happy Trails and add water to the reservoir.

Roy comes back on foot. He ran out of gas a half-mile away.

We jump-start the KLR and make it to the hotel.

If there is any bright spot tomorrow is scheduled for touring Nanjing. Helge and I plan to skip the tour in favor of working on the KLR so we'll have a full day to hunt down the gremlin and get it fixed.