CARLA is an adventurous motorcyclist who has traveled in Europa and just recently China.
Subj: A Decade Later: Exploring China on a Chang Jiang Sidecar Bike
Date: Saturday, October 13, 2007 12:31:20 AM
From: info@MotorcycleMisadventures.com
To: tynda@aol.com
From: info@MotorcycleMisadventures.com
Reply-to: info@MotorcycleMisadventures.com
To: tynda@aol.com
It's been a busy "American Borders and Beyond" summer: California, Ireland, Ohio. Moto Guzzis, Enfields, BSAs. But now summer is over and tomorrow I set out for China with a huge duffel bag full of warm and rainproof motorcycling clothes for an October ride through the northeast of the country. I'll be landing in Beijing on Sunday afternoon to be greeted by none other than Teresa Howes, the woman I stayed with a decade ago in Beijing - she was the Agricultural Attache at the embassy there at the time, when Clinton was in office. Teresa has just coincidentally (are there any coincidences?) moved back to China and has offered her guest room and companionship for my ride.
On Monday morning we'll go meet Jim Bryant who, a decade ago, lent me his Chang Jiang and who will this time lend me a new CJ sidecar bike with a clean, reliable BMW engine. He gave up the Subway Sandwich franchise business he had last time I visited, and is now in the motorcycle business full time.
By the way, if you're serious about CJ's join the CJ750 Sidecar Community and prepare to be informed. Jim is the go-to guy for everything about CJ's and also manages the Internet Sidecar Owners Klub, which is a great discussion group for all kinds of sidecar motorcycles, travel, technical, advice, etc.
On Monday, Teresa, Jim, and I (and maybe a few more) plan to head out toward Datong and turn inland toward Wu-Tai Shan, one of China's four sacred mountains, and other destinations, subject to change, as usual. I'll chronicle the trip in words and photos on my weblog.
It's hard to believe that it's been an entire 10 years - this month (another coincidence?) - since my first visit to China. In 1997 the group, led by Rick Dunagan (who now lives back in the USA), took me on a ride from Beijing to the Great Wall where we camped overnight under a full moon. I was hooked, and in Spring of 1998 I returned, intending to ride from Beijing to Burma . . . what a joke! The maps were wrong, the roads were bad, and I was slower than slow, stopping every hour or so to see this, taste that, go for a walk, get a tune up (or major repairs!). In four months I only made it to the Tibetan monastary town Xining back through Xi'an (terra cotta warriors) to Beijing. The China Road dispatches are still the most popular on my site. This trip I'll check out what's changed, what's the same, and finish a print book titled Flying Under the Radar about both trips to be published spring/summer 2008, which will make it the 2nd in the series of Motorcycle Misadventures. (The first - in case you missed it - was American Borders.)
In the meantime, check my weblog the next few weeks for updates, or better yet, put http://carlaking.typepad.com in your RSS newsfeed reader (like Bloglines) to get automatic updates as soon as they're published. I hope you'll comment on the blogs. I look forward to hearing from you!
Carla
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