2002-05-17

Tian An Men Square by night

We're going to be in Beijing for a few days but today was a free day. Many of the other riders took the opportunity to check over their bikes and give them a much-needed wash. Roy Cox sawed off the top of his windscreen to better see over it. John Shelton repaired his GPS electrical wiring. Jim Hardin discovered his rear brake pad was worn all the way down to the metal. Helge noticed the same thing on his GS Adventure and David Wilde's KLR which were both nearly new. We looked around at the other bikes and saw that many of them, including mine, had unusual brake wear. The best theory to explain it is the days we rode through water and mud that was so heavily polluted with coal dust that it was black. The coal dust comes from the unfiltered output of factories and power stations around rural towns and villages. It acts as a fine grinding powder and is very likely what ate up our brakes.

Helge took our worn-out brake pads and sent Sim on a mission to find a brake repair shop that could apply fresh brake linings on them. We also ordered new pads to be sent from the US but the repaired pads would be sufficient to keep us going until they arrived.

One benefit you get while travelling on a motorcycle is time. Hours and hours of it every day you ride. Time to think. Time to sing to yourself. Time to wonder. Time to analyze. Time to have little conversations in your head. My last hours of riding were occupied with thoughts of how I was dealing with this persistent unsolved electrical problem.

I came to the conclusion that I had the wrong attitude about my problem and my attitude was getting in the way of finding a solution.

The flaw with my attitude was a reluctance to take ownership of the problem. My reluctance stemmed from my inexperience. I understand the basics of electricity and the gasoline engine but I will be the first to admit that I am no motorcycle mechanic. I lacked confidence and as a result turned the problem over to other people to solve. It wasn't laziness, I was always there to assist within my ability, but I expected someone else to diagnose and solve the problem for me. As a result I hadn't tackled it with all the energy that I could have.

My knowledge is rudimentary and the odds would be against me finding the problem but I couldn't have done any worse than the others who tried. And in trying, I surely would have learned something and built up experience that would be valuable in the future.

I had nothing to lose by trying, and much to gain, therefore I resolved to solve the problem now, in Beijing.

There were two problems to solve: The rear brake light was always on and the battery was not charging. I decided to deal with the brake light problem first since that only just appeared and was probably simpler.

I found and printed a copy of the KLR electrical diagram on the internet. At the same time, I searched for and found an excellent explanation of how motorcycle charging systems work. Now I understand why there are three identical wires coming out of the stator. Each wire goes to its own coil in the stator. There are three coils hence three phases of current that go to the regulator. It doesn't matter what order they go into the regulator so they have the same color. That had been a mystery before and no one that I asked could explain it to me but now it was clear.

Getting this information over the internet in Beijing was priceless. And my level of understanding had increased as well as my confidence.

But the brake light problem was my first priority. I expected to find a short-curcuit that, I hoped, might also give me a clue to the problem of the battery. I traced the wires back from the tail light and discovered, to my surprise, they were wired not to the rear brake switch but to the previously disconnected sidestand switch (which was intentionally disconnected before my trip.) And the wires from the rear brake switch? They were dangling in air. I was even more upset at the guru who worked on my bike two days ago. He could not have missed the wires that were hanging loose and disconnected. After all, it was he who disconnected them in the first place. This was terrible.

The good news is that it was easy to fix. The bad news is it didn't provide an insight into the battery problem.

Next on the list was the charging problem. I guessed that the stator was ok since the bike ran without even having the battery connected. It was probably the regulator at fault. It was lucky that I thought to bring my stock stator and regulator with me as there was no way I could ever find a replacement in China.

I thought about unplugging the Electrex regulator and plugging in the stock regulator but rejected the idea. What if there was a short somewhere that caused the regulator to fail? It would be terrible to plug in a perfectly good regulator and destroy it. Besides, there's no use in driving with the stock regulator connected to the high-output Electrex stator. It would put too much load on the stock regulator and eventually it would fail. If I had to replaced the regulator then I would have to replace the stator too.

My plan was to trace the wires in and near the regulator to look for a short-circuit. I had John Shelton's working KLR to use as a model to guide me. The idea was to test for resistance and continuity and make sure my findings matched those of John's bike. If everything checked out ok then, and only then, would I replace the stator and regulator.

Checking out the wiring would take some time and it was already past lunch so I went to eat. When I came back my bike was gone. Helge had given it to the mechanics of a local motorcycle club. I was disappointed and a little bit upset but I could see that, in his view, he did the right thing. I just hoped they would do the right thing.

A few hours later they came back with my KLR in their van. They were delighted to report the bike was fixed. I asked them, through Sim as our translator, to describe what they did. Oh, it was easy, the regulator was bad and they simply replaced it with my spare! Sim had some trouble with the translation since he didn't know the equivalent words but I explained that they couldn't do that because the stator in the bike put out too much power for the stock regulator. I told them the stator and regulator were mismatched and it would eventually burn up the regulator. They balked at replacing the stator and insisted the bike was fixed. See, it's fixed! It runs fine! I stood my ground; refusing to ride a bike that I felt certain would fail in the near future. But they were equally certain that the job was done. Fortunately, Helge came to my rescue and backed up my insistence that the stator needed replacing. They reluctantly agreed to replace the stator. I'm not sure if we convinced them of the electrical necessity or whether they simply gave up debating with us.

We were scheduled to visit Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden City the next day but we were so eager we went to see it that night.

The photo is a wall to the Forbidden City which is directly across from the square. A giant portrait of Mao hangs over the entrance.

We hadn't even properly exited the taxi when we were accosted by street sellers trying to sell us souvenirs. Just shake your head and say, "boo shay-shay", for "no thanks."

The pillar on the left is the 'Monument to the People's Heroes.'

Tian An Men Square is the largest public square in the world!

Kids learning to rollerblade.

The student uprising and massacre of June 4, 1989 seems a world away.

If you have a western appearance it is guaranteed that you will be approached by people in the square who wish to practice their English. Pictured are Sterling Noren and our three English studying friends for the evening from a local college.

These three were not just interested in practicing English. Turns out they were also looking to make a few yuan. It didn't really matter to me. They took us to a restaurant that served food with ingredients and recipes from Mao's home province and was well-decorated with pictures of him in every room. The dinner was absolutely delicious and we had a nice time.

The one embarrassing incident was at the end of the evening when Sterling and I had said goodbye and we were getting in the taxi to leave. The teacher (on the right in the photo) nervously asked me for a "tip." I refused, telling him that it was "very bad." They had already gotten a free meal, probably also a kickback from the restaurant, and definitely a kickback from the store that sold Sterling a scroll. I could bear that for the pleasant evening but this was too much.

Men on the sidewalk engrossed in a game of Chinese chess.

They urged me to sit down and play but I don't know the rules to this game and sadly had to beg off. I must learn how to play before my next trip to China!