Bike Aways Newsletter
- The new Bike Aways eco office has just opened. It’s a beach hibiscus shading an old recycled plastic table on the Ta Ho Tun Waterfront in Saikung, shading me , my computer and my internet dongle. There is a blood Moon rising tonight so it’s an auspicious day for a newsletter.
- The big news is the Yangshuo Bike Festval which Bike Aways has teamed up with Bike Asia to present. Hopefully you have already seen something of this on Facebook as many of you have been Shanghai’d into promoting this event with your youthful and exuberant maneouverings along Yangshuo’s cyclin ways montaged across our website to entice similar adventure and fun seekers into a similar experience.
- But it will be a little different. We start in Xing Ping – a cool riverside town that has very little cycling culture but huge potential. Scott from Bike Asia and I cycled some amazing countryside roads without seeing a single tourist. Xing Ping is thirty kilometres on the other side of Yangshuo from where many of us cycled in July and August. We think it’s going to be the new Yangshuo as there will be a fast train connecting it to Guangzhou by years end – and we want in whilst its pristine and also to promote cycling as the way to see this part of the world before the buses start rolling in.
- It is soft advocacy for cycling as the best way to experience China. A celebration of the in between places as the most fun, the most real, the most charming, the most gentle, the most scenic , the most spectacular etc etc etc
- We plan to camp and have a great site selected and some local musicians who will entertain us around a fire whilst we gaze at the stars. We are also looking to bring in some interesting local characters to talk about biking in China, life as a farmer, living with the seasons, the crazy lives that some expat Yangshuoers are living, and local musicians who can sing us campfire songs. Its a two day ride which will finish with a street part in Yangshuo , or some films at a cafe – classic bike films – for those who can stick around. Our early bird price of 1990 RMB has just expired , but will be available for anyone on this newsletter – its 2190 RMB for others.
Check out our website www.yangshuobikefestival.com to book or send me an email.
Guizhou:
Guizhou will be our next destination. This is one of the most amazing provinces in China. I have just reconnected with an awesome guide who I met ten years ago , who is the most adventurous and passionate guide I have met.
- Guizhou is a huge province with amazing pockets but lots of voting bits in between. The good cycling action is a long way from the major airports but will also open up with the high speed rail from Guilin later this year. Routes are being planned and I have some news of a big festival event in late December – it will be cool – which I am hoping to list a trip around all going well. But please stay tuned for Guizhou trips in the new year. Picture hill tribes dressed in Indigo, drum dowers, wind and rain bridges, cormorant fisherfolk and photographs of National geographic brilliance from half a century ago.
Sydney
If you are in Sydney this summer , stay tuned for news on a mid January bike trip from The Blue Mountains t