- Joined
- Aug 15, 2012
- Bikes
- KTM 613 EXC, BMW R90S & Dakar, MZ250, Norton 16H, Honda - 500 Fs & Xs, DRZs, XLs XRs CRFs CT110s etc
Dirt – 3 days – 3 riders all from Ulysses Club Thailand. First weekend in November.
It’s been said that there’s not many dirt riders in the Ulysses Club Thailand. That's just not true. The Club put in a lot of effort a few years back to encourage dirt riders to join – and we’ve got dirt specialist guys like Wheelie Pete, Shawn, the two Erics, Larkin, Charles, Stu, Darryl, and of course, Deere. Brenton is interested and I’m sure there’s a few more that I’ve missed here and there’s plenty of non-members who’ve joined us on dirt rides, guys like Neil, but Club dirt rides have been few and far between for a while.
At the Wednesday social a couple of weeks back, Larkin & Deere hatched a plan to go camping on the border river between Thailand & Myanmar. The Salween River is a special one, originating from the Tibetan Highlands and flowing 3,300 kilometres into the Andaman Sea. It’s a cold bastard, fast flowing and muddy.
It was to be a two-day ride – aiming for a point in the Sop Moei area, down on the river. It didn’t happen like that. I got invited along and despite a lack of ride fitness (no dirt bike rides for at least 15 months), I dragged out the Forma boots and my faded old KLIM pants and made it a threesome for the ride. We bolted from Chiang Mai at sparrowfart, had a quick 7-11 breakfast and PTT coffee on the way. Topped off the tanks in Hot and had an early lunch in Mae Sariang, having registered 120 on the GPS. Too long away from small town Thai food - I threw in a mouthful of Nam Pla and regretted it... but only one fish bone stuck in the throat - quickly dealt with by following it with sticky rice
Then it was down the 105 to Sop Moei and onto the 3004… some nice concrete and steep hills.
We turned onto the dirt just after Le Kho. I used age as a privilege and took a pee whilst Deere and Larkin dropped tyre pressures (more on that later). We didn’t get far. About 6km in, we’d turned down the track that was to take us to the refugee camp and on to the river. Deere called it as a no go when we hit the treed area – it was heavily rutted, rocky and, once into the trees, the red clay was wet and slippery… and no locals had been through – the lack of tyre tracks in conditions like that is always a good clue to be cautious.
Heading back up, I threw it away – or, more to the point if you watch the video that Larkin has posted, it threw me – sideways, hard onto my hip. I was definitely rusty, and whilst trying to get some momentum up on the steep hill, just 30 metres from the top, bang, I went down hard, albeit at a very slow pace, in an off I reckon I should have saved. Its at 6:20 on Larkin’s video, which I will post a link to. Riding like a rookie - knees out, no control. Got a bruised hip out of it, despite the D30 armour in my KLIM pants… and worse, twisted my lower back.
It was back up the 3004 to Sae Mu and then off on the dirt (mud) towards Kua Huai To. Plenty of sights along the way
We discovered our preferred homestay place, where Deere had stayed on one of his scouting rides five months before, to be overgrown and devoid of humans.
Never mind, there’s a commercial campsite just up the hill. 100 baht for a campsite, 150 in one of their tents. They had beer and ice. Sold. We’d passed three truckloads of Thais, mostly women, from down south who were up here on a tour – and we’d had some banter with them as they struggled through some of the bogs… so it was a friendly campsite. Oh, and the site owner had a BBQ setup for us. We had plenty of both beer and food and enjoyed the sunset. We heard a few gunshots from over in Myanmar, including a couple after midnight.
I scored a Thai massage from the village expert – 100 baht, on the ground at the campsite. I tipped him an extra 50 baht, which apparently made him happy, because he was waving to us as we went through the village in the morning.
The night sky was simply stunning, with a good supply of flickering fireflies too. Come morning, the Thais were chatting away in their tents from 5am, but that was fine. They had a wide array of costumes for posed shots overlooking the valley with their well-equipped official photographer. I suspect they were well moneyed. They were happy when the farang got in on the photos.
It’s been said that there’s not many dirt riders in the Ulysses Club Thailand. That's just not true. The Club put in a lot of effort a few years back to encourage dirt riders to join – and we’ve got dirt specialist guys like Wheelie Pete, Shawn, the two Erics, Larkin, Charles, Stu, Darryl, and of course, Deere. Brenton is interested and I’m sure there’s a few more that I’ve missed here and there’s plenty of non-members who’ve joined us on dirt rides, guys like Neil, but Club dirt rides have been few and far between for a while.
At the Wednesday social a couple of weeks back, Larkin & Deere hatched a plan to go camping on the border river between Thailand & Myanmar. The Salween River is a special one, originating from the Tibetan Highlands and flowing 3,300 kilometres into the Andaman Sea. It’s a cold bastard, fast flowing and muddy.
It was to be a two-day ride – aiming for a point in the Sop Moei area, down on the river. It didn’t happen like that. I got invited along and despite a lack of ride fitness (no dirt bike rides for at least 15 months), I dragged out the Forma boots and my faded old KLIM pants and made it a threesome for the ride. We bolted from Chiang Mai at sparrowfart, had a quick 7-11 breakfast and PTT coffee on the way. Topped off the tanks in Hot and had an early lunch in Mae Sariang, having registered 120 on the GPS. Too long away from small town Thai food - I threw in a mouthful of Nam Pla and regretted it... but only one fish bone stuck in the throat - quickly dealt with by following it with sticky rice
Then it was down the 105 to Sop Moei and onto the 3004… some nice concrete and steep hills.
We turned onto the dirt just after Le Kho. I used age as a privilege and took a pee whilst Deere and Larkin dropped tyre pressures (more on that later). We didn’t get far. About 6km in, we’d turned down the track that was to take us to the refugee camp and on to the river. Deere called it as a no go when we hit the treed area – it was heavily rutted, rocky and, once into the trees, the red clay was wet and slippery… and no locals had been through – the lack of tyre tracks in conditions like that is always a good clue to be cautious.
Heading back up, I threw it away – or, more to the point if you watch the video that Larkin has posted, it threw me – sideways, hard onto my hip. I was definitely rusty, and whilst trying to get some momentum up on the steep hill, just 30 metres from the top, bang, I went down hard, albeit at a very slow pace, in an off I reckon I should have saved. Its at 6:20 on Larkin’s video, which I will post a link to. Riding like a rookie - knees out, no control. Got a bruised hip out of it, despite the D30 armour in my KLIM pants… and worse, twisted my lower back.
It was back up the 3004 to Sae Mu and then off on the dirt (mud) towards Kua Huai To. Plenty of sights along the way
We discovered our preferred homestay place, where Deere had stayed on one of his scouting rides five months before, to be overgrown and devoid of humans.
Never mind, there’s a commercial campsite just up the hill. 100 baht for a campsite, 150 in one of their tents. They had beer and ice. Sold. We’d passed three truckloads of Thais, mostly women, from down south who were up here on a tour – and we’d had some banter with them as they struggled through some of the bogs… so it was a friendly campsite. Oh, and the site owner had a BBQ setup for us. We had plenty of both beer and food and enjoyed the sunset. We heard a few gunshots from over in Myanmar, including a couple after midnight.
I scored a Thai massage from the village expert – 100 baht, on the ground at the campsite. I tipped him an extra 50 baht, which apparently made him happy, because he was waving to us as we went through the village in the morning.
The night sky was simply stunning, with a good supply of flickering fireflies too. Come morning, the Thais were chatting away in their tents from 5am, but that was fine. They had a wide array of costumes for posed shots overlooking the valley with their well-equipped official photographer. I suspect they were well moneyed. They were happy when the farang got in on the photos.
