Hello,

I just wanted to write and give you a brief update about my motorcycle journey, the Middle Kingdom Ride.

Well, it’s been a topsy turvy two weeks for the MKRIDEteam. We’ve actually spent more time off the bikes than on the bikes, which is never a good thing. After our blown clutch we had two new clutches arrive rapidly in Lhasa, with much help from our friends in the China ridingcommunity; a special thanks goes out to Tim at BMW in Toronto, Andreas in HK, Andy in Beijing, Jeff in Shanghai and of course our couriers, Leo and Marissa. There were many other people involved as well, thank you to all involved.

With our F800GS clutch self-repaired, by using a DIY ADVRIDERposting, Colin and Ryan headed out from Lhasa and backtracked west some 600 km to visit Mount Everest Base Camp (EBC), and yes – it was well worth the backtrack. Our overnight in a Tingri Farmhouse followed by a 70 km, 7 hour, off-road ride the next day to EBCmay have been the highlight of the journey so far. For those of you who haven’t had the chance to visit EBCI can tell you that it is well worth the hardship of traveling there. The mountain itself is stunning. The surrounding valley is breathtaking and I consider myself very lucky to have visited twice. My first jouney I trekked in from Shegar (about 90 km) in 2001. This trip was, by comparison, much easier with the bikes. I know the trip to EBCleft a lasting impression on Colin, who is enjoying his first trip to Tibet.

Our journey from EBCback to Lhasa was full of frustration and indecision. We learned that our application by our travel partners in Tibet to ride out of Eastern Tibet was denied. There has been some civil unrest there in the last few weeks and the whole region has been closed to foreign travelers, meaning us. We had a few decisions to consider. One was to backtrack north to Qinghai province, then cut south back to Yunnan and continue our journey, but that was going to add about 4,000 km to our journey. Another option was to try and sneak through the military and police checkpoints at night – but we feared for the safety of our guides and drivers – as well as our filming ambitions for this leg of the journey. In the end we decided to, yet again, put the bikes on a truck and ship them to Yunnan province; while the MKRIDEteam flew that leg of the journey. This was a heart wrenching decision to make but we collectively felt it was the right thing to do as we didn’t want to put our local guides in harm’s way and adding 4,000 km to our trip so late in the game was not an option. Putting two perfectly working motorcycles on a truck is a horrible thing to do, but alas it was all we could do. Sadly we missed out on Eastern Tibet this trip, the stunning mountains and river valleys will have to wait until a future trip.

We are currently in Yunnan province waiting for our bikes to arrive, should be in the next 24 hours. While Colin and I have had an amazing trip thus far, we are excited about the prospects of being on the final leg of our trip. We are currently just under 5,000 km from Shanghai and should arrive somewhere around October 20th, just five days later than originally scheduled.

We also would like to thank everyone for following our journey. Your emails, messages and support are wonderful and we hope that our journey not only provides you with an interest or better understanding of China, but also perhaps an ambition to get out and see the world. There is a lot of adventure and exploration out there to be had, and there is no better tool for exploration than a motorcycle. More updates coming soon. www.mkride.com.

ps. We have a new video on YouTube. You can view it by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMKRIDE#p/a/u/1/bD2RbTxbU_A

Cheers,

Ryan Pyle

Base: CHINAwww.mkride.com/www.ryanpyle.cominfo@mkride.com/ryan@ryanpyle.com

**Charitable Partner**– The Middle Kingdom Ride is riding to raise funds for SEVA, a charitable foundation that has,for more than 30 years, served people around the world who are struggling for health, cultural survival and sustainable communities. Learn more about SEVA atwww.seva.org, and make a donation today athttp://www.seva.org/mkride.

**Corporate Sponsors**-The Middle Kingdom Ridecould not have happenedwithout our wonderfulcorporate sponsors: BMW China, Touratech, The Tomson Group, Airhawk, Pelican Products, Kodak, Oakley, Cardo Systems, Lowe Pro & Mandarin House.

You can follow The MKRIDE at:

FACEBOOKActual Link:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=115422335152074

YOUTUBEActual Link:https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMKRIDE

TWITTERActual Link:http://twitter.com/MK_Ride