“Only little over 500 kilometers to Hong Kong and two days to cover this distance. I should have maybe stayed in Yangshuo for the night and see some more of its beautiful surroundings.” That was what I was thinking today morning. Well, now I had an easy ride to Hong Kong for the next two days – that is unless I did the whole trip today – the road is now straight and easy and I started reasonably early… Well, the time surplus was going to be justified very soon for me in a pretty drastic way...

Only thirty kilometers into my today’s ride I’m cruising at about 80km per hour into just another normal bend when suddenly there is one of the slow moving local farmer’s trucks going in the opposite direction. True, nothing unexpected, but thanks to the fact that the Chinese drivers seems to fancy driving almost in the middle of the road (that is on the dividing line) – the slower the vehicle the more in the opposite lane –  and also thanks to the road having darker patches that could as well be water or even oil on which I didn’t really want to tilt the bike much and thanks to the fact that I was taking the curve quite wide as well, this was going to be yet another very close encounter (second in 3 days). How much close I didn’t know yet.

My knee missed the rear wheel by about 1 centimeter only and my brain was already thinking: “Ufff, that was really close this time...” when a major shock goes through the bike and my body and in an instant the previous thought is replaced by “SHIT!!!” that flashes through my synapses before I am thrown off the bike that is itself thrown sideways. As I hit the ground and am sliding on the road surface I hear and see with my peripheral vision the bike following me in somersaults. I stop sliding and feel all right, but I’m really upset with myself for the stupidity of letting myself to become too comfortable having close encounters and forgetting how the people here drive.

I didn’t have any breakfast this morning and I was still looking for a nice place to stop and have second half of a watermelon that I bought yesterday. “Damn, I just lost the melon!” was funnily enough one of my immediate side thoughts as my breakfast was now lying smashed into pieces on the road before me. That was, however, not going to be my main problem, as you would probably guess…

I knew there was going to be major damage on the bike. “Now I’m going to be stuck here for days, loose lots of money and won’t get to Hong Kong in time… I will have to call Lily as soon as possible…” All these thoughts were going through my head as I was walking towards the silently lying bike and half of my things from the now opened panniers scatered around.

One of my panniers separated from the bike and was lying open nearby, while my tools and spare parts were scattered across the road. 

Now the men from the little lorry were walking towards me visibly worried and except of that I could also see their surprise in their faces that they actually see me walking and apparently not being in any major pain. Well for that I have to thank to my MotoDry summer riding suit. Many times I was wandering how effective it would actually be in protecting my body in case of an accident and I had just tested it in reality. All that is wrong with me is a grazed elbow and a bruised hip. The grazed elbow probably mostly happened inside the jacket when my skin was rubbing against my rotating jacket sleeve as it is more like burned than scratched and maybe just a tiny bit after the fabric of the jacket sleeve gave up on about one square centimeter. And as for the hip I didn’t even feel it that much to start with but the impact must have been quite strong as right now I’m having a little difficulty walking.

As one of the men from the lorry helps me to stand the bike upright again I can fully see the damage I’ve done on the left side. Amazingly the bike itself and its fram seem to be all right as it even starts on first try and I take it to the side of the road. However, the left fuel tank has a major indentation from the rear wheel of the lorry that I hit with it and the whole pannier frame is majorly bent and twisted and all the attachments to the frame of the bike are bent as well and moved out of position. The main bottom support arm snapped the bolt off and is now about 15 centimeters from the frame where it is supposed to be attached to it. The thickest steel arm that is attached to where pillion passenger foot pegs originally were completely snapped of the pannier frame and there are other cracks and tears on the frame. The frame hit the wheel and rear mud guard and snapped of bit of plastic from the side fairing, bent the number plate and is now pushing the mug guard of its axis and against the wheel. The frame must have hit the rear wheel on impact and stop it as I think the engine stalled immediately on impact. Also my left rear view mirror snapped off in the thread and right side of front fairing around the headlight is pushed in as the bike apparently slid on it for a while as the bolt is full of tar. Also one of the plastic engine part covers snapped off and I have no idea how could that happen. Anyway, that’s basically it. Oh, the left pannier that separated is now diamond shape as opposed to rectangle that it is supposed to be, the top pannier’s lid is scratched, but nothing major and the right assembly of the fuel tank and pannier has actually straighten :-) after being bent a bit after I took the two concrete slabs with me for a few meters in Chiang Mai in Thailand.

By the time I finished gathering the stuff scattered on the road there were quite a few people interested in what happened. After a while also an English teacher stopped (they are everywhere these guys! :-) ) and so I had somebody to talk to about what I needed or wanted to do. To his question about how he could help me I stated the obvious: I needed to find somebody who could put the messed up pannier frame back into shape. After some more of putting things together I was ready and so he starts his bike and tells me that he is going to bring the police. “Why?!” I ask. “Nothing happened to the guys in the lorry and I don’t need police. They are not going to help me.” I continue. He looks confused and stops the engine of his bike. After a while the whole scene is repeated. “I don’t need the police. They are not going to help me. I need somebody with a welder and a flame to straighten the frame for me. Police can’t do that.” I repeat slowly. After a while I realize that this guy thinks that my bike is f….ked as well and that I need somebody to move it to the city for me, for which he seems to think the police is the best. So I explain that the bike is fine and that I can ride it back to the city and that I only need to find somebody who can weld and somebody who can take the separated pannier back to the city.

Now we were clear. This teacher puts my pannier on his bike and takes me to a motorbike shop. I express my worry that that is maybe not the right place as there is virtually nothing wrong with the bike and I didn’t suppose the bike repair guy had a welding machine. I’m assured that everything was OK so I give up. And really, the bike repair guy takes the damaged frame off and takes it a few workshops further. I can see the compressed oxygen bottles from here. “OK, so they know what they are doing. That’s good.” I think to myself and am getting calmer.

After four and a half hours of work the straightened, re-welded and partly re-modeled frame is back on the bike and seems to be actually firmer than before. I think that it makes the bike even wider than before though. I’ll have to measure it at some point. Also my front fairing steel support is mostly straightened to its original shape and I am ready to go. The price? 100 Yuan. From their faces I could see that they actually charged me more than they would a local, but 100 Yuan for 4.5 hours of work of at times more than one person at a time is still very good as a reminder that I should not get so comfortable having these close encounters. When I started to ride this bike a month before I started this journey (I’ve never ridden any bikes before even though I had drivers license for them) I suddenly felt so vulnerable not having the car shell with all its seatbelt pre-tensioners, airbags, crumple zones etc. around me that any car passing in the opposite direction even on a straight road was scary and now I didn’t mind passing just a few centimeters from a wheel of in opposite direction traveling trucks. Today I was reminded that both me and the bike are vulnerable and that I should give these people more space, especially when they are bigger than me, even if they are driving in my lane.

It was almost three o’clock when I got back on my way. I still wanted to do at least 300km so I pushed along until dark and after. It was only when it started to rain that I started looking for a hotel. Fortunately the rain didn’t manage to soak me completely before I succeeded in my search. 20 Yuan for the bed today…

(322 km)