First ride on my new Chinese Loncin 300GY. 0 to 150kms.
An animated link to the ride made by myrouteapp. https://www.myrouteapp.com/en/animate/track/427548
The end of the ride got cut off, unfortunately, because of low phone battery and, well, I forgot to turn it back on after lunch.
What a beautiful day today! Sunny, no wind and a ride in the Andes with friends. Couldn’t ask for more. I have my new Loncin 300 delivered with 0kms. I rode the bike home 2 weeks ago and it’s been parked since. I was finally able to ride it today with a BMW R1250GS and a Royal Enfield Himalayan.
The bike is awesome. Even right out of the box, the engine is smooth, the shifts are easy and quick and the torque band for each gear is broad and easy to access and manipulate on the dirt. There is some vibration, but I can’t really tell if it’s the engine or the knobby tires or both. Either way, it’s not bothersome. We hit 90kmh, which is pretty much the max speed limit in Ecuador, a few times and the little single piston was well up to the task. It should easily hit 100kmh and a bit more without straining the engine. Once it fully breaks in, I should be able to access more of the whopping rated 27HP! Controls are placed well for sitting or standing. The bars are wide for good control, but could be taller for standing on the pegs. I’ll have to see if there are bar riders available – I’m not sure there is enough slack in the cables for bar risers and I don’t want to spend extra for new cables.
Riding on the autopista (motorway), the little windscreen keeps enough wind off me that I don’t see any need for change there. I’m not planning on spending a lot of time on that type of roadway anyway. The bike handles the twisty pavement well. It is well balances and turns on a dime. The knobby tires limit high speed curves somewhat, but I will likely go to a somewhat less aggressive tire when these wear out. The bike’s handling in the dirt is good. We only hit one small stretch of steep gnarly rutted downhill on this trip, so not a particularly good test. It handles higher speed dirt roads well, with a wide torque band in each gear.
Honestly, for Ecuador, this 300cc motorcycle is all I need. On the roadways, with all of the obstacles you will find on each ride – dogs, goats, sheep, cows, horses, pedestrians in the roadway, vehicles sort of just parked kind of on the side of the road, roadway portions just not there anymore because of landslides, rock slides, stuff that has fallen off trucks, farm equipment, work crews without warning signage, you tend to not ride into that blind corner with the confidence, stupidity and speed of youth.
I managed to get some good pictures looking down valleys this time. Along the way, we came to a lake where the government, as part of a works project, had cleaned up and installed a dock, swings, walking paths, two covered barbeque picnic areas and a path to an overlook. This is something accelerated during covid to keep people working and is ongoing as I am now seeing the signs and construction of similar projects in other areas. This was a really nice area and seems to attract families for outings. The dogs are strays that have found a home and people to feed them at this lake.
We stopped in Paute for cheese empanadas and coffees for three for $3. I will have to come back and walk this beautiful little town. They grow a lot of plants and vegetables here. You can see in some of the pictures the greenhouses clinging to the sides of the mountains.
Getting lost on the way back was my biggest adventure. The main – 6 lane – road I wanted to run through Cuenca back to my home is closed at the other end. They just pile dirt up at an intersection and you take the clue that the road is closed. I’m not familiar with that area of town. Turns out I should have turned left instead of following traffic to the right. Did I mention there are very few road signs in this city of 400,000 people? I ended up in a community of one way streets before finally finding a bus route out — Parada de Autobus (bus stop) blue signs are easier to follow than mostly non-existent street name signs. I saw the same church and went around the same church square 8 times before I found the correct combination of one way streets to get out. The locals were waving to the new resident after round 5. It was a pretty church. I should have stopped to take a picture — Next time.
As long as the sign doesn’t say welcome to Columbia, welcome to Peru, or Moby Dick lives there, I’m still in Ecuador!