Hello from Saikung
I’m sitting outside in the morning mist at Ta Ho Tun in Hebe Haven, nutting out new and obscure itineraries, inspired by the beautiful hill sides to write a newsletter about some of the great rides coming up. Fujian with The Hutong is still going strong as we continue to find more remote tulou linked by backroads and eye candy countryside. Yangshuo – cycling the heights above the Li river and home staying in Terry Li’s beautifully renovated traditional mud brick and Qing Dynasty grey stone village will open your eyes to how much more there is to Yangshuo than the usual Moon Hill bike ride. This last few months however, Ive been obsessed with Guizhou and the new bullet train that speeds us into this culturally diverse province, allowing us to bike its remote terraced mountain scapes over a weekend. This is a huge bonus overcoming the traditional barriers of getting in and out of this mountain sealed province on days-long train and bus journeys . Guizhou is now my new favourite ride! We import great bikes and use a support vehicle to overcome the bigger hills. The older roads between Guizhou’s main towns are currently being upgraded – but we’ve found fantastic new roads linking up previously walk in only Dong and Miao Tribe villages. With no or very little traffic. Join us on our first Zhaoxing to Sanjiang weekender June 5th -7th. This journey is through the lands of the Dong – mountain people who have carved out terraces to grow sticky rice, tea and indigo. They have beautiful wooden villages featuring covered wind and rain bridges, drum towers and a complex shamanistic culture. They brew some great rice wine and are incredibly photogenic. You can join this trip in Hong Kong or Guilin, from where we travel by bullet train to our trail head. I am convinced that the best travel experiences are the in-between places and spontaneous interactions that happen at random stops along a bike trip (or hike). A game of go with old men in a non famous drum tower, buying honey from a bee keeper in a mountain top tulou; planting rice in the paddy with a Yangshuo farmer are a few memorable experiences that have just happened when we’ve been taking breaks along our rides. Tonight I am flying to Japan to reccy Kansai for an autumn ride – think smooth roads, burnt red and orange japanese maples, hot springs, sand raked gardens and zen monasteries. The task will be to design an affordable weekender and find those in-between places and unplanned moments Stay tuned for an autumn date which will be listed post research. Please book mark the Bike Aways website and like bikeaways on Facebook to stay updated with rides. Trips are often listed at the last minute to make up numbers on private bookings. Please also mark the date for the second Yangshuo Bike Festival on september 4th 2015. This is a bike trip with music and art. Last year we set music to the landscape on brand new route from Xing Ping on the Li River through some stunning countryside using silent disco headphones. We organised bands, camping, photo exhibitions and a bike movie post ride warm down – again all in a weekender. There’s so much more to write about: a Bike Aways Castello Del Vino wine drinking beach clean up picnic in Hong Kong, an end of year Yunnan bike trip, a Mongolian horse ride and a bring-tourism-back-to-Nepal bike trip which will be in the next newsletter. 
Look forward to seeing you on the next adventure. Bruce