After our battle with the blizzard, we were happy to be done climbing and off our bikes for a few days. Our plan was to get to the Zhilam hostel in Kangding by the afternoon and get ready for our visa adventure that would consume the next 5 days. Our first attempts at finding the […]
After our train ride from Guangzhou to Kunming we jumped straight onto our bikes for a week long ride to Shangri-la. The roads varied from brand new, not yet open, just OK, and down right ridiculous but there were never any dull moments.
On our final day in China we stopped with Jiao for our last meal. This is what we had.
This video was taken just a few days before we left China as we traveled around a beautiful mountain lake.
Katie and I have tried to keep up a daily (most days anyway) routine of push-ups to help keep our backs strong after a day of being hunched over our handle bars. That includes finishing late at night in a desert.
Crossing international borders by air is usually an efficient process. Just line up, hand your passport over, smile politely and wait for your exit or entry stamp. Oh, were it that simple to cross by land. Our trip across the frontier at Khorgos took most of the day and a most of my patience. When […]
Naan has become a staple food for us since we have entered the XinJiang province and the way they bake it is very cool.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post called Toll Booth Willy about how we would either ride fast through an expressway toll booth and try not to get stopped by the workers or find some other way on. Here is a video of how to get on the expressway.
Here are the videos of where the day went wrong. David Breaks a Spoke Now the Weather David Gets Dirty
Here are the videos I took on the day we decided to take the road less never traveled. This is a 2 part post as there are six videos. Getting on the Road Dark Tunnels Avoiding Traffic
Today is the day we should be crossing the Kazakhstan border marking the completion of our first and biggest country. With well over 5500 kms under our belt now we are trucking along just fine, looking forward to the learning curve that will be faced when entering a new country, culture and language. So on […]
It has taken 5700km, 74 days, 2 visa extensions and a long time sitting on our bikes, but on the 24th of June 2009 we made it to the Chinese border town of Korgos. As I sit here early on the morning of the 25th thinking about packing and getting ready to make my first […]
We had the opportunity to chill out in Urumqi for just under and week while waiting for our Kazakh visas to be processed. Urumqi seems to be a hub for the more adventurous types with people showing up in 4WD trucks, on motorcycles and also bikes. This is where we had the opportunity to meet […]
Nothing like waking up to a gorgeous day in a valley far away from the noise of Xi’an to see that the truck traffic jam that had been avoided the nday before now stretched 30km or so. Here is the tail end of it.
As you would expect, riding in the desert involves carrying a lot of water. Most days we can get away with 3-6 liters on the bike and refill at small towns or villages along the way, but there have been a few days where carrying over a days supply plus enough for camping has been […]
Or at least, they wont be televised live. Our steady stream of posts and videos is set up that way for a reason: to ensure that you, the reader or viewer, are drip-fed just enough high-quality content to ensure your continued interest. Were we to drown you in a deluge of info, you might get […]
Over the past couple of days you have been able to read about our mission to get to Urumqi in a day. Here is some footage of that trip.
A few days into this Tour de Fun, my dad came up with a brilliant idea: to send me one quotation for every day I’m away. I initially thought, perhaps, his words of wisdom would be sources of divine inspiration for a struggling cyclist in the throes of China. Typical to my father’s style, however, […]
I said before the trip that it would make us appreciate the simpler things in life. One of those things would definitely be the use of a proper porcelain throne. Squatting is the norm for pretty much all of Asia. The people here have been doing it all their lives and have developed the necessary […]
I introduced Jiao in my last post as our much needed morale booster after a a rough week slogging it out in the Gobi desert. Now let me tell you a story about our new friend. Jiao models his bike and makeshift stand It was the 2nd day after meeting Jiao in the town of […]
