Tough Rides: China - Season 1 (2013)

After Ryan has recovered from the worst motorcycle fall he's ever had, the Pyle brothers aim for Tibet on the G219 highway, passing mountains and lakes including one of the most holy places in Asia, Lake Manasarovar. Their ultimate goal is Mount Everest Base Camp, but it's not going to come easy. They end up camping on a desolate road 4000m above sea level. As Ryan attempts to celebrate his 32nd birthday, his bike's clutch burns out and the brothers are stranded in Zhongba, their fate in the hands of a local bike mechanic and facing the very real possibility that ...

A local Zhongba motorcycle repairman comes to the Pyle brother's rescue, managing to get the BMW bike clutch back in working order. But further disaster strikes when Colin's bike blows a tyre. The journey is now in real jeopardy, with both bikes off the road and no clutch parts available in all of China. When the bike part finally arrives from Toronto, and Ryan and Colin make it to Mount Everest Base Camp, 12,500km from Shanghai. Their sense of achievement is fleeting; on their way back to Lhasa, they discover the road into Eastern Tibet has been indefinitely closed.

The closure of the Eastern Tibetan border forces the Pyle brothers to travel by plane reconnecting with their bikes in Shangri-La. From here they head to Guizhou province, but the improvement of the road tarmac and heavy rain make the road travel incredibly dangerous and Colin smashes his bike into a tree. Back on the road with new street tyres, Ryan and Colin make their way through the mystical karst landscape of Guilin and on to the manufacturing heartland of China before striking out for Shanghai, via Putoushan island and the Yangshan Port, the biggest and busiest ...