Today's weather: High = 21 Low = 10
Super gorgeous, bring on spring!!!
Imagine there's a road where you can ride a motorcycle or scooter on dozens of times back and forth, if not more than a hundred times. You can do the same road every single day and never get bored.
If such a road exists, it had better be able to pack it all in to make the motorcyclist keep coming back for more and more: smooth surfaces, constantly changing conditions, non-existent traffic on one end, dense traffic on the other, beautiful tree and lake scenery, plenty of food and coffee stops, clean air, sparse population, ancient villages, water towns, entertainment and amusement parks, opportunities to test out maximum speeds on the bike, and adventure with every ride as you never know if you'll make it across the provincial border or not. This applies to either direction of travel.
There's only one road in Shanghai that can offer all that and it's the Hu-Qing-Ping highway from where it starts near the Hongqiao airport in the west of the city, past Qingpu satellite town, and beyond the provincial border with Jiangsu province -- specifically, the Wujiang prefecture.
A couple years ago I had the chance to do this ride almost every day as my work was at a remote school called Sino Canada, just outside of Shanghai province, while my main apartment was in the Gubei area of Shanghai (near where the highway begins). I complained a lot about how long difficult this commute was, especially *without* the motorcycle and relying on a mode of transport called the "chicken bus". On average, the bike would take 60-80 minutes each way while the chicken bus could take almost 3 hours. No joke.
The school itself has improved immensely over the years, and in some ways I wished I had stuck around. It is a great deal for teachers out there in terms of the actual job and students, and the only major negative thing I focused on was the isolation and countryside location. As someone who is obsessed with big cities, I couldn't hack it out there. To each his own.
Despite all the complaining, I never once got bored of doing this road. Riding a motorbike in China is generally a total concentration experience as the traffic conditions are *always* changing, and you have to focus 100% on the conditions. There is never that experience of "the bike driving itself" or other such things which would cause the ride to be boring.
Nonetheless, a typical ride down the Hu-Qing-Ping could be broken into various sections, described as if you were riding out of Shanghai towards the countryside
Section A: Gubei to XuJing Carrefour. A very busy section with tons of traffic and lots of dodging required. The first part goes under the Yan'An elevated road just out past the Hongqiao airport. Not advised to go very fast on this stretch, even though there are deceptively clear stretches with empty lanes. Slowing down at all the intersections is required. Recently this section has improved with a fresh covering of pavement, and a new overpass by the railway line where you can now bypass the major traffic light that used to cause massive backups. This improvement alone has now shaved off 5-10 minutes from the trip!!!
Section B: XuJing Carrefour to Factory Outlets. This is the most dangerous section of the ride as the road is still narrow, with rough concrete, and is not being repaired very much. To both sides are lots of factories and many idiot trucks pull out without warning. It is also busy with traffic, yet the lights begin to thin out. Best to keep up a slow and steady pace on this, and hold your line!!!! If you feel like stopping for a coffee or fast food meal at the Carrefour mall or Decathlon outlet, no problem. Eventually you'll come to the factory outlets where a long traffic light awaits you at Jiashan highway (Jiading to Songjiang) if you're unlucky. Forget about jumping this red light, it's too dangerous.
Section C: Factory Outlets to Qingpu. At this point, the traffic begins to thin out and you can start picking up speed. But careful there boy, not too fast as it's still bumpity concrete. If you're doing this in the morning, it's deserted going your way, as it's against the rush hour.
Section D: Qingpu to Oriental Greenboats. Take the bypass if you want to skip Qingpu, or else pull into town for a Starbucks, McDonald's, or anywhere else to have a food or coffe break. The traffic gets a little hairy around the town area, but the scenery starts getting beautiful here once the lakes appear and you have effectively cleared the urban area of Shanghai. You wouldn't want to miss the ancient water town of Zhu Jia Zhao which is also in this section, unless of course you're in a hurry. The Oriential Greenboats is a famous adventure water park where people go for weekend relaxing, military training, boat rides, or who knows what else. You can spot the navy ship off to the side if you look, but I advise against it as watching the traffic is your first prioirty.
Section E: Oriental Greenboats to provincial border. This is the part where you can start hauling serious ass, since the traffic is deserted and the pavement is fresh. With long clear stretches, it makes an ideal place to open the throttle and see how fast the bike can go. Eventually you'll come across a bridge and then two provincial border checkpoints. Slow down for the first check, of course, and take the side road to go around the toll booth. Sometimes the checkpoint is unmanned, other times there's a cop or two standing around. In no circumstances should you stop here unless it appears they are going to tackle you and the bike down. Don't laugh, it has happened to colleagues before!!!
Between the two checkpoints lies the ancient town of Jinze which is, in effect, the outpost town in the far frontier of Shanghai province. It's worth exploring and quite interesting. It is also the perfect stop to grab a snack and recharge your Shanghai mobile phone, because you won't be able to do it once across the border. I also used this town as a convenient place to stash a bicycle there on occasion, if I was using the chicken bus as part of the commute.
Depending on where you want to go next from the Jinze outpost, there are two options. The most direct route is to the next town, Luxu, on the Jiangsu side of the border. It's a risk going directly there on the Hu-Qing-Ping as you must cross the second provincial border checkpoint which is always manned by the PSB (public security bureau) and they WILL stop bikes to look at the drivers license, etc..
The alternative is a small little farm road called 'Jin-Yang Lu' that goes out of Jinze for 2km. It is hard to find, but you have to turn off exactly at the KM 63.3 marker, and not a meter farther, so be watching out for it. The road is smooth up to the provincial border, then peters out to a tiny little dirt track that goes over a little bridge. Only bikes can cross here, no cars. Eventually you pass a lumber yard and go past the Sino Canada school. Obviously, this is the shortest way to arrive at the school, or you can keep going and reach Luxu. But if you want to go Luxu directly, the main border checkpoint is your fast bet. Depending on the cop situation, you may be forced to turn around and use the backroad anyway, so it's a bit of a toss-up here.
The whole trip can be experienced in reverse of course, but I've often done this in the afternoon where the traffic is extremely bad on the Shanghai end of things. So it's best to go slower on the reverse trip and expect things will take slightly longer in that direction.
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