A day out in Shanghai

I had a day off last Sunday, so, along with some work colleagues, I visited Shanghai, the largest city in the world and home to 25 million people – most of whom seemed to be walking towards me as I made my way along the riverside towards the Yu gardens and Temple of the gods. 

The Bund

It really is the most amazing city, the ultra-modern skyscape of offices and hotels contrasting with the narrow streets of the old town. My colleagues and I dined out Saturday night in the French quarter, which wasn’t very French but full of expensive western designer shops and up-market restaurants.

Allegedly - the tallest building in the world

 While I explored on Sunday they all got drunk in one of the expensive hotels along the Bund; I have to say my preconceived notions of what communist-run China would be like have taken a big knock – this place rivals any big western city, everyone appears to be well-off, new western cars clog the streets (Audis and BMW’s the most popular), fighting with millions of electric scooters and cycles, all of which disregard any apparent rules of the road including traffic lights or any kind of common sense. It made a nice change though from the little town where the shipyard is – I managed to eat in a couple of vegan restaurants, even managed to get some fresh fruit!

They still do bustling alleyways

Temple entrance

Gods

Gardens

?chinese writing

Spotted on a scooter handlebars

Shops

Lunch

A brief update from China

So it's not possible to connect to the Internet via Google from China as the government evidently isn't happy for reasons I don't understand, so I've been incommunicado until today when a colleague told me about an app called 'hide my ass' which gives a false VPN address (whatever that means). So far I've only got it on my iPad so no chance of downloading pictures yet - I'm hoping another colleague may help with that, although to be honest the place I'm in is such a dump there's not many interesting photo opportunities apart from the daily fatal accidents on the road to work - I've stopped looking out of the bus window now as its too upsetting.

For reasons I don't really understand I'm now working in a shipyard on the Yangtse river opposite Shanghai in southern China. It all started when the news came through about dear bobskoot passing away; I was attending a funeral for a close relative when I read the sad news, and made an instant decision to pack up work and go home to England. Unbelievably, the day I got home my 93-year old Mother had a heart attack and was rushed to hospital; I spent the next few weeks looking after her. She's a tough old bird though, and soon recovered. I spent a lot of time thinking about my retirement and what to do with myself; it seemed like time to stop and smell the roses before it gets too late, if you know what I mean? However, reality soon set in; within a month I had to sell the Tiger to pay some bills; I also had a clear-out and sold some unwanted stuff on e-bay, but realised the only way I could make it work was to sell the flat that me and LF share, and go on the road with the proceeds. Which obviously she didn't think was a particularly great idea. Plan B was to go back to work for a while to try and save some cash, but with global oil prices dropping like a stone all new projects have been cancelled and most of my friends are sitting at home out of work. Then an old friend phoned and said he was running a job in China and was in desperate need of someone to talk to, did I fancy it? So here I am.

I may have made some worse decisions in my life, although I can't recall them; time will tell.

A stolen day out on the bike

It can be difficult sometimes to justify taking a day off work in the middle of the week just to ride the motorbike in the sunshine, so my justification was..…I needed to see if my new bolt-on screen spoiler would reduce wind noise on motorways. And I needed to visit Durbuy, a town in Belgium that declares itself to be the smallest city in the world, using a route that also took in Reinhardstein castle and lots of wriggly roads. The real reason of course was that I was jealous of Sonja’s recent rides in the Black Forest; the Belgian Ardennes is the closest area to me that has similar winding roads. Plus the bike will have to go back to England soon as the dark mornings & evenings will soon be upon us.

...well I was on a Triumph!

some kind of art in a field

An early start saw me blast down the autoroute past Antwerp and Brussels in the early morning fog, by the time I reached Namur the sun was breaking through; I had a nice breakfast there and then with the satnav set to ‘winding roads’ proceeded to enjoy the picturesque drive across to the city of Durbuy.

Durbuy chateau

An internet search before I set off had shown the only vegetarian restaurant in the area was just outside the town, this turned-out to be in the grounds of a castle now used by the Hari Krishna group for retreats, with delicious vegan meals in a tranquil setting and very friendly people, so even though I wasn’t really hungry I sat down to a pleasant meal in the sunshine.

Hare Krishna castle

Lunch!

After an hours break I set off again on those twisty roads, in no time I was in yet another picturesque village where a coffee and frites were enjoyed in the sun, then following my pre-planned route I headed north to begin the trip home, although somehow the satnav took me south into Luxembourg – a bonus really as the roads are lovely there. Just outside Antwerp I re-joined the autoroute for the final blast home. I got home a tired but happy bunny – 2 tanks of petrol, 540 kms and about a million bends – bliss!

Medieval fortified farmhouse

Oh and the spoiler didn’t make the noise and buffeting any worse, but I can’t say it made it better.

A weekend ride

After three weeks away from the bike I was desperate for a ride; I had a free weekend so I decided to ride down into Belgium and the Ardennes region in search of some winding roads. Saturday morning dawned dark, gloomy and raining but I set off wearing my new waterproofs, iphone mounted on the handlebars and connected via my new bluetooth headset, tom-tom app set to 'winding roads' and music blasting into my ears.The rain stopped just over the Belgian border, although the roads were still flat and straight; then just past Brussels the scenery started to change, became hilly and forested and the roads all twisty - heaven! Shortly after, I discovered the flaw in my plan - after spending all year in Holland I'd forgotten how to ride around corners, the next couple of hours was spent threepenny-bitting down ever-more twisty roads until I popped out in the town of Rochefort. It all looked a bit boring so I carried on to La Roche-en-Ardenne, this looked more interesting so I found a hotel, walked around the castle ruins, had a pizza sitting in the town square - a great day.

La Roche-en-Ardennes

 a bit of a detour......

WWI memeorial

Sunday the tom-tom sent me down more of those twisty roads towards Bouillon in the south; I must admit I only headed there to see why they named a stock cube after the town. When I finally arrived after hours of trying to go round corners, there didn't seem to be much there apart from another picturesque ruined castle and a load of cafes beside the river, so I stopped and had coffee and that famous Belgian delicacy - frites (with ketchup). Facing a long ride home I set off again, the weather by now had deteriorated, with gale force winds and torrential rain so I spent the rest of the afternoon weaving along the motorway. Great ride though.

Simples....

The next phase of tailoring the Tiger to suit my long legs was to fit a new seat. Touratech advertise a 'comfort' seat; I wasn't too concerned about the comfort part as I don't do long trips, but what attracted me was the fact that the seat had two height settings, the higher of which is 20mm higher than the Triumph's higher setting. A quick swop over of the seat fittings and,,,yep, it's higher. My feet still touch the ground, but the knee angle has improved, Now I just need to get those lowered pegs fitted and I should be knee-pain proof.

Standard seat in high position

New 'Comfort' seat in high position

I suppose it was funny......

...my work colleagues evidently decided that my new topbox changed the appearance of my Tiger to that more reminiscent of a pizza delivery scooter.

The constant phone calls and e-mails placing their orders for pizzas was also funny.....the first few hundred times.

Ferry nice trip

Dordrecht harbour

Time for the Tiger's first service, so last Friday afternoon I rode from work over to the Hook of Holland to catch the ferry over to England. This was my first time on a ferry with the bike, so I was almost excited....Actually, the ferry itself was pretty nice (although I guess after being in a cabin on a construction site anywhere would be nice), not many bikers making the crossing. It took about 6 hours, dead calm sea so I slept most of the way. We got to Harwich at 8pm, rolled off the ferry looking forward to a nice change of scenery and nearly fell off the bike from laughing out loud - round the first bend there in front was a windmill!

Anyway, I needed to get home before dark as these old eyes don't work too well so it was a two hour blast down the A12 then M25 onto North Circular, cruising a nice steady 85mph all the way - easy. I did note that the screen produces very uncomfortable buffeting at higher speed...so no doubt there's a new accessory in the Tigers future.

Saturday morning up early and rode down to the dealers in the most horrendous thunderstorm I've ever ridden in - as I stood inside the showroom in a large puddle with water dripping, no running, off me I realised that the jacket wasn't waterproof after all. I'd arranged a loan bike so I could ride down to visit the kid in his new house down in Henley-on-Thames, the trouble was I was soaked through, so ended up buying a new (guaranteed waterproof) jacket there and then - got a 25% discount so that wasn't too bad. The sun came out during the ride down, so I spent a nice couple of hours drying-out in the sun on the kids boat landing watching the river flow by, then a nice ride back on the now-dry roads. Collected the Tiger, now complete with heated grips, topbox and a centre-stand.

The Kid and the river

Sunday I'd booked the overnight ferry back to Holland, so after a relaxing breakfast I rode over to Essex to visit my old Mum for a while, then spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening riding the Essex lanes up to Harwich, what a pleasant ride through all the sleepy old villages. At the ferry terminal the place was packed with bikers, got chatting to some Dutch Moto-Guzzi-ists returning from a tour of Ireland, and some English couples off continental touring on their BMW rocketships. Somehow the Tiger ended up with the BMW's, but got some positive comments based on how small she was (!)

All my mates are BMW's

Another good kip and we rolled off at 8am Monday morning, a quick blast and I was in work for 9am, but wishing I could have tagged along with the Brits going down to the Black Forest and a ride around the Nurburgring.

Inevitably I'd bought some bits for the bike to make it 'more suitable' for me - the bar risers fitted easily and quickly and have completely eradicated my aching shoulders and wrists, so that was money well spent.

Not such an easy fit are the lowered footpegs, oh they are good quality, but I find I just can't fit their shiny aluminium blinginess to the blacked-out Tiger, so I'll have to resort to some home spray-painting (in the hallway) to render them inconspicuous.

And finally, if you remember the picture of the big yellow box I posted up back in the winter? Well that got finished and shipped off by barge down the river on its way out to sea - here's a picture of it on its way; now we can see into the shed where our little platform is getting built - a long way to go yet!