Phrao to Doi Chang (82 miles)
Phrao to Doi Chang Only 82 miles!
Most of todays ride was on unpaved roads some of which were very challenging, I was riding on anything from boulders to a fine dust that at some points felt as slippery as a wet clay surface back in England.
Some of the hills, with deep ruts gauged into the surface by previous heavy rain got steeper the higher I climbed. With a rear tyre spinning up and scrabbling for grip picking the right line was a challenge, a few millimetres either way and you could loose the front wheel, buried deep into a rut that it was not coming out of until the bike had spat you off.
This was only the uphill parts, on some of the downhill sections I was a passenger not the rider, have faith the front wheel will go over most things and if in doubt use the Jeremy Clarkson approach “power”
I was pleased to escape with only one minor fall when I was forced to stop behind a fellow rider and the ground sloped away so severely my feet wouldn’t reach the ground.
On one section we were on a single track, filtering through trees with handle bar width gaps, ducking under fallen trees with an abyss to our left. One of my fellow riders went over the edge, as he threw himself to the right the bike fell and the foot peg dug into the edge of the slope keeping the bike from falling into the abyss.
A great days riding in warm sunshine and for the most part in a wilderness on our own.
The picture doesn’t do the track justice, 40 degree downward slope heavily rutted from past rains storms. A real challenge.
