Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Biking South East Asia

Biking from Hanoi to Singapore through Cambodia, Thailand & Malayasia

Mini tour to Laos

 

With the wretched CoVid restrictions slowly getting lifted especially with my 3 jabs and almost certainly a mild bout of it we thought it was time for touring, one of my original ideas for moving to Thailand 2 years ago.

My truck was booked into Ford Phetchaburi to get the smashed rear light and damaged front bumper fixed so we loaded the bikes complete with camping kit etc and started the ride to Laos from the garage.

Leaving Ford to start the ride to Laos

It was a relaxing afternoon after 1.5km we found a Sushi place followed a few km later by a stop at Merci Papa for a gorgeous fruit salad

In all we rode 43km in an elapsed time of 4.5 hours so less than 10kmh 🙂 so definitely not Audax speeds but very pleasurable. Graham & Frances take note 🙂

Tomorrow it’s just over 100km to meet the group near Don Mueang the camping starts Thursday!

A years cycling in Thailand

Sabai Sabai I started this post on the 4th of January 🙂

2020 was a fantastic cycling year for me, blowing away all my previous mileage records :-). Thank goodness I moved to Thailand, in January, away from all the CoVid lockdowns in Europe.

Veloviewer chart of Geoff Jones cycling 2013 to 2021
9 years of cycling in Veloviewer

According to Strava I rode 18,220Km that’s well over eleven thousand miles at an average speed of 21kph (13mph) with 82,456 metres of climbing (27,000ft). Pretty good for a 72 year old who also designed and had a house built at the same time.

As you can see this year is not looking so good for cycling.  Three months in and only 2,300km ridden, a good 4,500 km behind last year as I said sabai sabai

 

 

88 days in Thailand

I’ve now been in Thailand for 88 days and this is the first time I’ve been near my blog!  Which is to say very unusual for me as is riding 6600km (4,125 miles) in the same period. Not sure if the cycling rate will continue at such a pace with, as in the UK, all Audaxes stopped and the daytime temperatures reaching 40+ in the late morning.

With a lot of help from a very friendly Thai Lady, I managed to extend my 90-day visa to a 1-year retirement visa which if I pay an additional 3800 Baht (£94) when I next leave the country it will be converted into a multiple entry visa. Which given all the COVID-19 virus stuff is very useful.

I made the decision to stay here in Bangkok rather than go into isolation on my own in the UK. interestingly as of today Thailand with a similar population to the UK has a total of 2,169 infected with 10 deaths against the UK’s 42,000 infected and 4313 deaths!

Almost Immediately after I arrived I  failed the Sai Yok 600km audax due to a total lack of sleep on the plane and not been acclimatized to the afternoon heat but I still managed to ride 180km. The following weekend I successfully did the Kaen Makrut 400km in just over 23 hours with its two mega hills and very few/no supplies at the control points.

The star attraction for me was the Isan 2020km audax, awesome and very well organized and I did it comfortably in 160 hours the worst part by a long way was the 11 hours it took me to ride/walk the 80km from Ban Tat Kloi to Ban Kok Ka Bouk.

Two weeks later after doing some rides exploring Roi Et and then Ratchaburi we did the Ayutthaya 200 BRM audax a lovely easy ride (apparently Thailands first-ever audax route) but with a rather unfortunate abrupt ending at dinner after the event 🙁 🙁

I then decided to take a bike tour on my own with my pannier from Bangkok >> Na Rim beach >> Chantaburi >> Sa Kaeo >> Bing Nam Priao >> The Khun Dan 200 audax >> Ayutthaya – Wattha Sung >> Kamphaeng >> Bantung >> Nakorn Lampang >> Lampang 200km test audax ->>Chang Mai then an overnight train back to Bangkok to try the Tha Chin-Mae Klong 400 Audax which I DNF’d by 5km due to punctures and my miserable attempt to repair them! Thus making a rather epic 2,339km in 18 days! and apart from the audaxes with all my baggage!

Back in Bangkok life eventually returned to before the dinner episode with the help of my bike box 🙂 although we now have the COVID-19 closing all the shops, bars, etc, fortunately, the Rembrandt Suites is a pretty decent place to be although a real pity the pool is closed 🙁

 

 

Return to Chom Bueng in daylight

7th Floor view
View from my 7th floor bedroom

After a couple of very relaxing days at the Zen Hotel and where better to stay in Nakhon Pathom than with a Cafe Amazon, a 7-Eleven and half a dozen foot and leg massage places within a few yards of your 7th floor bedroom overlooking The Temple for £25 per night 🙂 The massages are also a total bargain at 400 baht per hour (£5).

Wit Pimkanchanapong reminded me that the starting point for the Chom Bueng 300 audax is the same temple that was used as the final staffed checkpoint at 318km on last weeks 400. I plotted out a cross country route which turned out to be a delightful 43 mile ride some on gravelled tracks but mainly country lanes past historic Buddhist Temples and the rather unique channelled fields.

All with a warm breeze pushing me along what could be better?

I arrived on time at the Big Bear Homestay very spacious indeed but I guess the kitchen and dressing room won’t get much use 🙂

With the bike cleaned and oiled I’m now ready for the rather hilly, just over 11,000 feet of climbing compared to my last 300 The Everyone rides to Skeggy 300 which had just over 5,000 feet of climbing and took Sally and me 18 hours or so to do it!