Doi Ang Khang - cherry blossom ride

[The Bigfella]

This seems to be turning into an annual ride for the Ulysses Club, Thailand. We did it at the same time last year... and it was worth it both times.

A few of our regular riders were away on a ride to the east, but eight of us set off from Rider's Corner spot on 8am and we picked up Alvaro at the PTT on the 1001, before diverting onto our preferred canal route (4034) and meeting Adam at the junction with the 1001. A brisk, clear run was had as far as the first leg stretch

Then on to Phrao for another stretch and to let the CRF top up for the long leg of the ride. Looking at the lineup, front to back - Ducati Scrambler, Ducati Multistrada 1100S, Honda 500F, CF 650, Honda 300, CRF 250 Motard, Honda 500X and Triumph 675.

I'd made some changes to the ergo setup on the Multi - and it was great to test them out. I hadn't had the red horse out of the stable since late November because of a wrist injury - riding too many different bikes not set up for my size had damaged my left thumb, so I'd taken to riding the Forza while that healed. I set the bars on the Multi a lot further forward for this trip - to get a straight line from my elbow down through my wrist to the levers. I was happy with it and pain free - and relaxed on the bars. A lot quicker through the tight stuff on the 1346 as a result. I put my head down to try and get a gap for some photos... but didn't quite make it far enough ahead to get a good hiding spot - and half the riders hit the brakes rather than powering around the corners.

Oh well... I got a couple

One more stop on the 107 for a quick coffee and it was off up the 1249. I've done this road on the Forza... and it was down to 25 kph for a lot of it, so it was nice to be doing it again on the red horse.

This time, Deere had shot off ahead and grabbed some footage of us going up the hill.

We rode into the clouds at the top, so there wasn't much point stopping at the viewpoint towards the east. There was a little bit of a view into Myanmar, but Tum was less than impressed with my parking

So, it was on to the Royal Agricultural Station for lunch... and a bit of horseplay by our sub-junior member

We have lots of nice flower photos, I believe, but I've been busy and haven't gotten to them yet

Ow was enjoying the ambience

I could taste rain in the air and we had a ways to go. The plan was to make for Chiang Dao and see what happened there

The white blossoms on the left are Japanese Apricots

Dunno what these are. Pink flowers?

Lots of 'em

We took the 1340 / 1178 route back. An unusual sight along the way....

Quite the collection of earthenware pots

The rain threatened, but never dropped - although we did see a couple of damp patches for about a kilometre

Another dodgy parking spot with a view into Myanmar. At one of the army checkpoints. We'd had no trouble at any of the checkpoints so far.. being waved through them all

They're getting more serious about preventing parking on this viewpoint. I got roused on there last year for doing so

The road down that border run is shite.... and they were applying patches to the patches as we came through. Lots of potholes and broken bits... but that's no different to last year. We went through at pace without problems. There was one racetrack section on the 1178... brand new hotmix that was as grippy as shit on a blanket. It reminded me of a racetrack too... fast sections with seriously tight stop-corners after them. Kept us on our toes.

One of the better sections

More pretty flowers. Lots and lots of 'em

Having done work for the Soil Conservation Service back home, I saw a couple of patches that had me shaking my head

More to come. I will see if I can find a picture of the crappy road surface. One impact of it was that every frigging truck or car that came the other way was dead centre or even on my side of the road. I was leading, so I got every bloody one of them....

 

[The Bigfella]

Nah - I must've kept my hands on the bars for most of the bumpy stuff.... although I have some photos of the dirt roads on day 2. I should be able to pull something from some of the video that Deere shot.

So - back to the Friday bit. Here's us re-grouping at the entrance to the Royal Agricultural Station. I forgot to mention - it's not one of those double priced places. It's 50 baht per person and 50 baht per "car".

and riding through

Lachie in a hurry to get to the tucker

Further south, heading towards Chiang Dao on the 1178, the roadside agricultural operations were in full swing. Old mate wouldn't pass a weighbridge test in Oz

Hope he wound the windows up

Despite rumours to the contrary, no speed limits were violated - well not more than twice.

The flat section down towards Mae Ja was a bit cruddy. I had one old woman walk straight out in front of me without looking. Seemed to be wanting to move on to the next life. A truck looked at me and pulled across in front of me. A couple of scooters crossed the road without looking. It was non-stop kamikaze stuff.

This seemed like a great use of a precious resource, coming into the dry season.

And then we were there.

I love that short stretch of road into the Chiang Dao village

Hmmm - I don't seem to have uploaded images of the feast. Seven of us stayed over at Chiang Dao Nest 1 - where the hospitality was its usual self. Lachie had booked elsewhere, but found the place deserted on arrival and a phone call to the owner wasn't too helpful. They inspected the rooms, which at 1,200 baht weren't anywhere near as good as the 945 baht (before group discount) room he got at the Nest.

A leisurely 9am breakfast swept away the cobwebs of the night before... and off we went.

We fueled up at the PT near the junction and Bert headed down the 107, with six of us heading through the town and north on the 107 again, to head back over to Phrao via the 1150. I noticed the bumps more this time on the 1150 than last time, when I'd been on a CRF

We were temperature-checked half way along the 1150 to Phrao, for the second time - the first being on arrival into the village at Chiang Dao the night before. A quick stop in Phrao and Deere and I cleared off on the 1001 - it was lovely. That road turns nice at a clip, especially on the way home. We flicked left at the 4031, which is a lovely forest road. As I normally mention to folks I send through there, it has a couple of corners capable of biting you

We did the dirt link road from just before the end of the 4031, across the Mae Kuang Suspension Bridge and thence to the 118 and home. The dirt road was being worked on when we did it about a month ago and it is now in fantastic condition.

Sorry... shaky image... riding one handed

I'm surprised this next image turned out. It's three photos, taken on the move, stitched together

There was a little bit of chaos as we came over the Ping. Two trucks had just had a bingle at the lights.

Here's a pic of the route taken - not a GPX file.

425km according to Mapsource, but I think I did 435 according to the Ducati.

Great two days. Thanks for the company one and all. I will try and find some snaps of that broken road.

 

[Captain_Slash]

Great photos from a good trip

 

[The Bigfella]

Great photos from a good trip

Thanks Colin. It was a great trip - and the stop at Chiang Dao Nest was fantastic. We were just having a bit of a laugh this morning. I stitched the video together and set it to a music soundtrack. Rod called in for brekkie and Deere was watching the video (which runs 2 hours 36 minutes) on the big screen. Rod says to Deere... "tough life - paid to ride it, now paid to watch it". Oh well.... Covid and all that. I'm going to post a couple of the clips from the video on Youtube later on, when I scratch up some more royalty-free music.

Anyone who was on the ride is welcome to the full video - just bring in a USB stick with 90Gb free.