10-28-2010, 04:03 AM
LA Bicycle CTB circa 2001. See attachment below
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(10-28-2010, 04:03 AM)stephenwilks Wrote: LA Bicycle CTB circa 2001. See attachment below
(01-23-2011, 08:40 AM)stephenwilks Wrote: I'm not really the best person to make a comparison, but the answer would appear to be yes, as there is such a thing as a Thailand Tour each year. I see racing bikes out on the streets here just about every day, although I fancy I see some fairly expensive mountain bikes most of the time.
(02-21-2011, 09:22 AM)stephenwilks Wrote: The extreme South, near the Malaysian border. Offroad bikes seem to be quite the rage amongst young middle-class trendies here. I walked into such a shop to buy a chaintool recently and found it heaving with people who seemed really quite keen to spend fairly large amounts on money on good quality offroad machines. People often have much better wheels than houses here. I've seen guys out on really expensive wheels who are content to live in absolute shacks.
It is a bit like the SUV obsession here. There are obviously some very dedicated offroad riders and drivers out in the jungle, but a lot of folks seem more than content to use their expensive offroad bikes and SUVs to pose on metalled roads. Many such machines never seem to really need a wash, and I swear some of the trendy SUV crowd don't even know how to engage 4WD. By contrast, I'm used to using 4WD workhorses on farms with winter mud and snow up to the axles.
(02-21-2011, 10:04 AM)stephenwilks Wrote: Yes, Hat-Yai itself. 950 kms South of Bangkok by highway. When I sometimes head up that highway, I often see tourists who are going the whole way from Singapore to Bangkok or vice-versa. The deal goes to fly into one or the other, buy a fairly durable machine, peddle it all the way and have fun and then flog it to another shop when you get there.
I recently had contact with a guy I haven't seen for about 40 years. He said that he obviously couldn't go on a bike tour in Egypt this year, so he was considering Cambodia and Thailand instead. I had to unfortunately tell him that there is currently a shooting war going on on the Sisaket/Cambodia border. Not to mention the ongoing near civil war that local politics now seems to indulge in in Bangkok every Thai New Year (April).
(02-21-2011, 06:02 PM)JohnV Wrote: Doesn't seem like things have changed much since I was there last in the late 60's when I was stationed in Nam.
Quote:What took you to that part of LOS?
(02-21-2011, 11:26 PM)JohnV Wrote:Quote:What took you to that part of LOS?
I was an civil engineer stationed in Nam during the late 60's and we went into Laos, Thailand and Cambodia to assist some of the local villages rebuild after military scrimmages. We also went to Bangkok for R&R (Rest and Recuperation).
(02-21-2011, 04:46 PM)wabbits Wrote: Yes Know about the Issues on the Si Sa Ket border area.
I would be more concerned riding north from Hat Yai with the southern unrest. Dodging pot holes is one thing but dodging bullets 5555
(02-22-2011, 12:31 AM)stephenwilks Wrote:(02-21-2011, 04:46 PM)wabbits Wrote: Yes Know about the Issues on the Si Sa Ket border area.
I would be more concerned riding north from Hat Yai with the southern unrest. Dodging pot holes is one thing but dodging bullets 5555
It is not a problem North or South of Yai. (And potholes aren't the biggest problem either.) The insurgency is mainly SE of the city. And they don't really target farangs much. I've heard of foreigners touring the area on motocycles quite recently, and encountering nothing much more than friendliness. There are bombs here occasionally, but locals don't pay that much heed. That said, I haven't been SE of here for years. And I miss it. Driveby shootings are also a problem. The biggest victims are actually the locals themselves. I have inlaws who live right in the thick of it. One copped it on his doorstep while doing his early morning stretching exercises - although truth be known he may actually have run into enemies through his own obnoxious behavior as a local plod. In other words, not necessarily an insurgent action.
I wouldn't worry much about riding along the main North-South, except for the totally reckless standard of driving.