Still some not bad options up bao zhu...
At the top of the road before heading down to the downhill tracks (where most bikers stop), take the major dirt road on the left (watch for trucks, can get dusty). Up the road about 5km take a left and keep following your nose exploring a few decent tracks.
Do the first part of the downhill (the least dodgy) to the part with the nice view after the big jump and the smaller one, then turn left. This is a brilliant sometimes technical x country track. Watch out on this track for some big worm spots (writhing wriggling masses of worms) which I have never seen before! Ends at a cemetery where you can carry your bike through to a service road on the other side. Follow this to a Y intersection at a small cornfield next to a little house (yapping small dog), turn left to get back to the road (keep straight). I think you could turn right past the house maybe to hit the trail opposite side but I never tried. This trail is a very good x country ride which you can combine with the other bao zhu normal trails making a fairly good figure of 8 ride returning to the bottom of bao zhu. I used to do this as a run all the time about 12 km) - up bao zhu via the road, start of downhill track, turn left as above, take road back to start of downhill tracks, do start of downhill, turn right past the almost landslide hills (don't hang around), take the sometimes technical track down (watch for walkers).
There are also some good tracks that can be very long up jin dian beyond the expo gardens. Ride past the dam, stay on the road for about 10km more until you get to a village at the top of a series of climbs (you will likely see other cyclists here on the weekends). From here you can go right to hit some decent trails that can last for 30km plus (find your way!) or continue on the road a little and go left up through some villages to a quarry road with some interesting technical trails coming off the left... These all seem to end near a damn where a few people fish. Contact Lee at Pegasus cycles for these ones, he knows them pretty well and bikes them with (sometimes large) groups on Saturdays (look for "Guided Group Cycling to nearby hills" event).
I would go exploring with ya, but aren't in KM for the foreseeable future sorry!
'No-car day' underlines Kunming's car conundrum
发布者Call me an optimist but I think once the Subway is up and running there is going to be a substantial drop in car usage and ownership. Its fairly obvious that Kunming has had some major developments of new living/working areas on its outskirts over the past 10 years with nothing built to connect them together (except for the overcrowded bus systems). The result is people somewhat needing to own a car to enable the to get around efficiently. The subway (once full implementation happens) should go a long way to solving the problem provided the integrate effectively with the bus system... lets just hope its that simple (I did say I am an optimist!).
Around Town: Biking the trails of Changchong Mountain
发布者Hi Omgiri, I aren't in Kunming at the moment, returning in September. Will be keen for a ride up there with you if you are still around! Just have to figure out how to get my bike there from New Zealand...
I knew I wasn't dreaming! www.gokunming.com/[...]
A half decent mtb park would be a pretty cheap way and a good start to creating a world class training facility for MTB'ers. There are so many bikers around KM as well that I imagine the manpower for maintaining the trails wouldn't be hard to find.
Around Town: Biking the trails of Changchong Mountain
发布者Hey, where is this trail, it looks like fun! How do you get there? I have biked a lot around Changchong Shan and not seen this one...
Just a random idea... I remember reading a while ago the Kunming government talking about investing some ridiculous sum of money into making Kunming a high altitude international sports location. Was I just dreaming that??
If I aren't dreaming, it would seem like a good option for them would be to section off a piece of Changchong shan and earmark it for a MTB park. I am sure local clubs could provide the manpower and experience to develop the trails, it would just need government sponsorship of the land and tools, which could be dual use with forestry (which tends to be the norm where I am from and works pretty well - the trails get ripped up once every 20 years when the forest is harvested, a good opportunity to make improvements, while the trails provide forestry workers with foot access through the forest). As there are no shortage of both foreign and local riders, it would seem a feasible idea. If it was done to a high enough standard, it could also be advertised as a cheap high altitude training location internationally. Who's with me???
Getting away: Changchong Mountain
发布者Bugger, might have lost that big comment I wrote as I think I got logged out.
I tried the route but was turned around by fake policemen who stopped me from attempting the road I wanted I think due to a quarry doing some explosives work (I heard the booming!).
This map shows the route I took kind of (the blue markers) to the road, then a new route I just mapped out as well. Will be trying this one tomorrow probably... maps.google.com/[...]
Will let you know how it goes. My route from the other day somehow became corrupted on my phone so I can't upload it. I ended up cycling out to a town called Daoshao Cun and then cycled back.
Getting away: Changchong Mountain
发布者Might head out there tomorrow if anyone else is keen? 8am start, will bike up past the new visitor centre then keep heading north along the tracks. Have checked it out on google earth and it looks quite rideable. Have mapped it out (not in detail!) here: maps.google.com/[...]
Anyone see anything wrong with my route (other than a couple of times not actually being on a road... will have to find my way I think!)?