Motorcycling in China…

I’m going to share with you some of the observations I grabbed on how they ride motorcycles in China.   They do things a little differently over here and it is pretty interesting.

Motorcycles aren’t toys in this part of the world.   People use them as tools, and small rules the roost.   For the most part, in the US our bikes are discretionary purchases.   In China, they are not.

Crossing the Yangtze River at midday…the sun’s up there somewhere…it pretty much looks like this all the time

Even though it rained a lot while we were here, the weather didn’t seem to make any difference in how many motorcycles were on the street.   They’re out there.    These boys ride in any kind of weather.  In fact, I just saw a motorcycle with an umbrella mounted to it.  The folks who ride here have some interesting ways of dealing with the weather.

For starters, I’ve been fascinated by these big mitten-like things most of the riders over here attach to their motorcycles.   They’re not gloves as much as they are protectors that enclose your hand, the motorcycle’s hand controls, and your forearms…take a look…

Check out the hand covers…

These hand protector things are a pretty clever design, I think, and if you’ve ever had a long ride in really cold weather, you know what I’m talking about.   I remember riding home from Tahoe about 3 years ago when it was in the mid-to-high 30’s, and I gotta tell ya, that was a brutal ride.   My hands were so cold they were going numb.   I could have used the hand-tunnel-mitten-thingamabobbers you see above.

There are just two problems:   One, I can’t find these glove/mitten/sleeve things on the Internet (if you can, shoot me a note with the link).    And two, they look kind of dorky.   When you’re cold, though, looks don’t count.   And I probably could get around the dorky look by adding leather fringe.   Maybe I’d even get them embroidered with “ride to live, live to ride” or something similarly mindless.

Another thing I noticed on the bikes over here are the heavy duty/double duty passenger footpegs.   Check out the passenger footboards on the bike above.   Pretty clever…a passenger’s legs are both protected and free to move around.   Another cool thing about that floorboard approach…it makes a dandy way to tie stuff to the bike.   It’s a sensible and functional design, if you ask me.

Here’s another shot showing those floorboards, and to also introduce the next thing I want to mention:   Fairings.   These folks have some pretty interesting approaches to keeping the wind, the mist, and the mud away…

Fairings gone wild…check out the lowers on this Chinese Honda

Complete weather protection…sort of…with room for advertising!

Fairings, mittens, racks, a tank cover, and check out the pseudo-pannier/container bolted to the inside of the right lower fairing!

A Chinese Post Office motorcycle with lots of cargo capacity and lower body wind, mud, and water protection

Another interesting observation…tricycles are a big thing over here.   Zongshen makes a lot of engines for the trike manufacturers, and they all seem to be in the 250cc to 400cc range.   Some of the tricycles are fully enclosed…they are mini-car-like things…

One of many Chinese tricycles…they are all over the place here, and they get through traffic pretty well

Some of the enclosed tricycles have side-by-side seating up front with a conventional steering wheel for the driver/rider; others have a single seat for the driver and a pair of handlebars (like the one in the photo above).

Here’s a tricycle that is more car-like…

A car-like tricycle with seating for four

And then we have the down-and-dirty tricycles used for hauling freight.   There were dozens of variations on this theme, but this one particular rig stuck out…it’s a cardboard hauler that looked like it could have rolled across the Red Sea with Moses…

A hard-working tricycle

The engine and frame of the tricycle shown above…this trike earned its stripes!

Did you notice the rebar-based custom engine guard?   Folks, this trike takes the rat-bike concept to an entirely new level!

In a solid week over here, I did not see a single motorcycle over 250cc, and in fact, I only saw one that was a 250cc (the blue RX-3 I showed you in an earlier blog).   Most bikes were 110cc or 125cc, with the occasional 150cc bike tossed into the mix.   It’s not like these people don’t have money.  There’s big bucks in Chongqing…I saw Bentleys, BMWs, and Maserati automobiles like I’d see on Rodeo Drive back in California.   But the bikes were small, and they were all Chinese (like I said, small rules the roost).    I didn’t see any Euro bikes, any Harleys, or even a single Japanese bike.

That’s all for now, folks…the blog will go dark for a couple of days or so while we’re traveling.   Ride safe and keep the shiny side up!