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Day two on the bikes, and I’m grateful for the plural. When Charlie got a flat on his cross-China motorcycle adventure just a few weeks earlier, he was on his own. Alone in the center of China – can’t speak the language – with his transportation out of commission. Charlie survived that experience because everybody loves Charlie, even when they can’t understand a word he comically says. That’s not me, so I’m grateful that I’ve got a little Charlie with me.
Charlie pulls out his tool kit, whips off the front wheel with a recently-practiced touch, harpoons it through its spokes with the flagpole on the back of his bike, and, with a jovial wave, zips away down the snaking mountain road in search of the next mud hut motorcycle mechanic. Fortunately, there are many more motorcycles and mopeds in China than there are cars in America (and most of them in much more dire need of a moderately-skilled mechanic nearby,) so we suspect that his hunt will not take long. I, meanwhile, use the rainfly and backpack he’s left behind with me to construct a passably comfortable chaise lounge off the side of the road. I lay there reading Kerouac and waving at the Chinese laborers as they boulder down the decline in their dump trucks and long-haulers.
After a pleasant hour interlude of solitude, Charlie returns with my repaired tire, and with a few turns of the wrench, a couple of bangs with a rock, and a short but heated discussion with the inanimate parts, he’s got us back on the road again. He makes sure that we stop as we pass our flustered new friend’s shop and snap a quick pic.
But riding a motorcycle across China’s not all broken bikes, torrential rainstorms, and the terror of traffic without laws — that’s only most of the time. Otherwise, the experience is surreally magical — I’m riding a motorcycle across China! The air is clear, the sky’s a blue scroll crossed with Hànzì clouds, and the fresh blacktop unwinds below us as fast as we can push the bikes.
When we reach the town where we’ll stop for the night — just another intermixable explosion of chaotic urban growth and decay sprinkled haphazardly across this massive country — It’s the regular circus. We’re no Lewis & Clark, but we’re likely some of the first muddy white guys on motorbikes to roll into this place, like all those towns behind us, so the hushed and curious crowd materializes as soon as we pull up and begin to unwrap ourselves: gloves, sunglasses, helmets, rain jackets. It’s a familiar routine, just this second day into the trip.
“Binge pee-jo,” Charlie does his phonetic best to order us two cold beers, and it seems to work. The shopkeeper also brings out two little stools for his special guests (proclaiming a marketing coup over his competition: “Where the white guys shop!“) and we sit to converse with our crowd, though we hardly share a word in common.
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good times!
And miserable ones, but it all balances out to form adventure!
The miserable ones are the best part of the journey. My favorite trip involved my friend Jims bike breaking down in the middle of the desert and having to have it towed 20 miles to the nearest shop. Of course, maybe I enjoyed it so much cause it wasn’t my bike that broke down. Hmmmm.