BikeTestRiding 1,700 miles in eight days isn't anything I would normally brag about. But I was riding a Chinese motorcycle. In China. Over pavement and gravel. Across the Tianshan mountains and the Taklamakan desert.
From elevations of 13,400 feet to sea level. In temperatures from freezing to 40-plus degrees.
So forgive me if I seem a little self-congratulatory for trekking the Chinese wilds on a Jialing JH600 dual sport.
Considering my past experience riding a few Chinese death traps, my expectations when I saddled the bike were as low as to be underground. I really didn't think the JH600 would survive the trip with anything more than the handlebars intact.
I had signed up for a motorcycle tour of the Silk Road and noticed that the tour group - Edelweiss Bike Travel - was offering a Chinese bike in addition to the usual BMWs.
If one of the world's largest motorcycle tour companies was using the bike on one of its most challenging trips, it couldn't be that bad. Could it?
I had never heard of Jialing, but it turns out the company is one of the oldest and largest motorcycle manufacturers in China. China Jialing Industrial Co makes 20 per cent of China's motorcycles, scooters and mopeds, or two million vehicles a year.
What the JH stands for in JH600 is not clear, but it could be Jialing Honda.
Since 1981, Jialing has been working with Honda on its technology, and it shows on the JH600.
The 600cc single has four valves and is liquid-cooled. It gets about 60mpg, and meets Europe's E3 emissions standards.
As yet Jialing hasn't figured out whether the cost of meeting other EU and US requirements will pay off in sales. Jialing bikes are relatively small, and Americans, in particular, continue to want large-displacement bikes.
There's also the image thing: when you buy a motorcycle in Western markets, you aren't just buying its technical capabilities or its fit or its style. You're buying into a culture and a brand's rep and status. Riding a Chinese motorcycle has zero status.
Yet we suspect that a critical mass of people don't seem to care about that.
The JH600 is a surprisingly good bike. It's a dual sport, but the suspension is not adjustable, unless you want to take the fork apart and play about with the oil. The styling is passable, but it won't win you any compliments. Then there's the name and the logo, which both look as cheap as the packaging on a toy from a euro shop.
New for 2007, the JH600 is one of the largest-displacement Chinese bikes on the market.
It also might be the first Chinese bike with fuel injection, which worked perfectly, adapting to dramatic changes in altitude and temperature, though the idle speed setting seemed off.
Whenever the bike slowed to stop, the engine stalled. It did, however, start right back up again every time.
My biggest issue with the bike was its lack of power. It wasn't at all fun trying to keep up with the autobahn-loving Germans in my group, who all had 1200cc BMWs.
The JH600's maximum torque is just 12 pound-feet, and horsepower is only 40 at 6,500 rpm. Claimed top speed is about 120kph, but I only got it up to 151kph, which is faster than I should have been going anyway.
In the province of Xinjiang where I was riding, you can break the speed limit by 50 per cent but you'll say goodbye to your Chinese driver's licence if you go any faster and get caught.
By the time I got the JH600 up to this sort of speed, it pretty much had won me over.
It didn't shake at high revs as I raced toward mirage after mirage on desert freeways. Taking corners in the majestically snow-capped mountains bordering Tajikistan, it didn't flop.
Dodging the numerous taxis, donkey carts, scooters and veiled pedestrians that strayed in to my path on the streets of Kashgar, Korla and Urumqi, it was agile. And for stopping, the single-disc front brake with the dual-piston caliper was sufficient for the numerous times I was forced to slow down for goats and other livestock.
For the 100 or so miles I rode through dirt, the suspension also worked well.
I wasn't taking jumps as I did battle with soot-spewing dump trucks, but the fork never fully compressed as I barrelled through ruts. Even better, the pegs didn't snap off.
If my 1,700 miles with the 2007 Jialing JH600 proved anything, it's the adage that expectations are your worst enemy.
The Chinese bikes may not be here just yet, but when they do arrive, buyers would be foolish to ignore them without at least a test run.
POWERTRAIN: SOHC, four-stroke, single cylinder, four valves per cylinder, fuel-injected, water-cooled, five-speed
DISPLACEMENT: 600cc
Maximum torque: 51Nm at 4,500 rpm
Maximum horsepower: 40bhp at 6,500 rpm
SEAT HEIGHT: 812mm (32 inches)
BASE PRICE: 30,000 yuan in China (just under €3,000)