I've just finished the first section of my Yellow River cycling trip, starting at the river mouth near Dongying in Shandong province, and cycling through Henan to end up in Xi'an.
It took me almost three weeks and I was riding a Dahon Unio E20 e-bike. I was able to average about 80km on the road each day, though some days stretched to 120km. It was mostly flat, so I didn't need to use the electric motor pedal assist much, except to take some of the strain off at the end of the day.
I found the battery only had capacity for about 40-50km of range per charge, not the '100km' as claimed by Dahon. Nevertheless it is a good bike, proving a smooth ride, and of course I was able to fold it and take it on trains etc, to get to my starting point [although I have been advised that lithium batteries are not supposed to be taken on train].
I am travelling light and staying in simple hotels and guesthouses that I find [and book] en route by using the Gaode navigation app (in Chinese). Hotels are costing me about 140-240 yuan a night, and I've been using hostels where available in the bigger cities, for about 60 a night.
The highlights have been the historical and cultural sites in places such as Kaifeng, Luoyang, Qufu and the sacred mountains such as Taishan and Songshan. I will write up a full report at a later date but have been posting daily trip updates and photos on Insta and Facebook, which I'm sure you can find via search.
The next stage will take me another 100km up north to Inner Mongolia from the loess wastelands of Shanxi into the desert around Ordos. This section intrigues me as few people travel this way and the river flows through the narrow and twisting Longmen gorge for hundreds of km.
So far I haven't been following the river closely because there simply aren't any roads or much to see along the lower reaches of the Huanghe. I expected it to be industrial and polluted, but it has been a mix or arable land (wheat and fruit) and a mix of oil derricks, power stations and wind trubines rather than heavy industry. And I've had blue skies almost every day, no smog.
I'll now be retiring the Dahon 20 inch wheel bike because I've found it's not suitable for longer distance heavy duty touring. While it's a good bike, the addition of a heavy motor and battery to a conventional Dahon 'pedal' frame puts too much stress on the rear wheel spokes - I've had multiple breakages and loose spokes, that I've been able to fix thanks to the proximity of Dahon dealers in most cities. But from here on I'll be in more remote territory and don't want to hear the dreaded twanging sound when I'm hundreds of kms from a bike mechanic.
I'm looking at getting a larger bike in Xian this week - likely a Giant Tour E+
Watch this space!
