Bike tour through Northern Thailand and Laos.
I often argue with a friend of mine about things being "free". He says that nothing in life is free and in the long run you end up paying for it. When I was younger I used to ride with a friend of mine that believes that you have to earn the ride down by pedaling up. Or that you have to pay for your downhill. I do not think a downhill is ever free, riders pay for a lift ticket, pay for a case of beer for their friend who shuttled them all day or like my friend pay for it with a long ride up.
Today I paid for a year of downhills in one day. Story inside,
We woke up long before dawn and started our climb into the mountains separating Phrao and Wiang Pa Pao. Within the first hour or so I knew that the weight of my bike and all of our gear was going to be too much to pull all day long. With every corner we turned the road just kept getting steeper, there was no end to it.
We would crest the top of a hill and there would be a short downhill only to have another monster hill waiting for us. It was like riding up the Coquihalla from Hope to Kamloops, or riding from Pemberton to Kamloops. The distance was not the same but that is what I was thinking of while riding uphill for 25 Kms.
I also kept thinking that eventually we would get rewarded with a downhill that would equal the pain of the uphill.
Hours after our uphill battle started we arrived in a mountain top village and were surprised to find the locals speaking Chinese. James and I speak Chinese so it was nice to find Chinese speaking people in Thailand. What was amazing was that it was in such a remote place.
We sat at a local's store and had something to eat and drink and he told us that his father and mother left China and settled in the hills of Northern Thailand. Many of the older people in the village do not have legal Thai residency. He also gave us some good news, that the rest of the route was mainly downhill.
For the next 15 - 20 Kms it was a screaming fast ride down. It was scary fast at times and the extra weight on the rear of my bike did not help much. But like all good downhill and all painful rides up it came to an end. The road flattened out and we rode into Wiang Pa Pao a lot longer than we expected.
We stopped for lunch in Wiang Pa Pao and then tossed our bikes in the back of a bus going to Chiang Rai. We spent today figuring out a better way to carry our gear and washing our dirty clothes. We also took the opportunity to eat a lot of delicious food, go for a two dollar shave and a well deserved massage.
If you ever tour through Thailand and want to feel pain and pleasure all on 50 Km of road, ride from Phrao to Wiang Pa Pao.
Keep riding,
Rob
...and on flats...crazy