Lest you think it’s all reading, studying and eating lately, last week the Trang Cycling Club accepted a Sunday invitation to be guided thru the mountains 20+ miles to the north of Trang.  Thirty-six riders headed out for the adventure in Huai Yot but a mutiny forestalled 2/3rds from following the route.

But before discussing the crazy ill-fated ride, let me describe an interesting prologue to the actual ride.  Our gathering spot for all Sunday rides is the Dugong Fountain and as twelve or more riders gathered and primped each other’s rides, pumping tires and lashing down gear, a group of 4 20-something road bike riders with matching Mickey Mouse jerseys rounded the fountain.  Eyeing our bikes and jerseys, they came round once again and pulled up to the curb in front of the group shouting “come, come let’s take a photo” in English no less.  The Thais, always game for a photo op, lined up with the new riders and it was then that I realized these were Malaysian “boys” who’d come up from the South and were heading back home Sunday morning.

More and more of our group materialized, and now almost 20 strung out for the photo.  Then a black economy sedan pulled up and 4 young women with cameras, who obviously were the wives of the riders, jumped out to take photos or pose themselves.  What was way different for the image was that the four young women were all dressed in modish jeans, tennies and head scarves.  These were Muslim couples from Malaysia, where English is a local second language, training by riding to Trang for the weekend. Biking is an International language.

This year the Club has more older and probably less experienced riders showing up for the Sunday rides: at least 4 older women in their 60’s as well as a handful of men with their ample bellies I’d never believe would don a lycra jersey. So as briefed several weeks before, we don’t set a pace that would discourage anyone from participating. It was a highway shoulder ride to a break point at 20 km and the group gathered up once again before pushing up several rollers the last 10 km into Huai Yot.  There we met up with the local Cycling Club president and learned what was in store (or at least those who speak Thai learned).  Incidentally everyone but me was on a mountain bike, since I didn’t get the memo that this would be a trail ride.  

All was well until we got on a heavily washed-out rubble mountain bike trail where I got a flat.  I should have checked the pressure before leaving the house, normally my 25c Gatorskins at 100 PSI handle everything I hit.  Ended up we took a wrong turn onto this rotten section and returned over the same ground. And then into a never-biked rubber-tree plantation bumping up and over each tree’s roots along the rubber-tree tapper’s trail, where the local leader indicated he’s lost.  Back out to the road and then off again on another dirt track, this one beyond a hillside rubber plantation and into the steep jungle.  I heard “sam lo” and interpreted it to mean “only 3 kilometers”, which ended up pretty accurate.

Only problem was we had to carry our bikes most of that way, hiking up thru the jungle on footpaths only the Thai mountain people use.  Within 100 meters of this venture 2/3rds of the group mutinied and turned back down the slope and we didn’t see them again for 4 hours.

Not believing it could get any worse and that this short 30-minute slippery slog was only an aberration, twelve of us literally “carried on” (bikes over our heads – on a steep slope it’s not possible to hold a bike waist high because the wheels hit the ground in front of you before you can take a step).  Glad to have my road bike for this section.

At the top of the final uphill section I came across a 40′ high male Papaya tree and shortly thereafter found two 20′ female ones overloaded with ripening fruit.  Lashing two six foot sticks together was just long enough to reach 4 of the ripest 16″ papayas, one at a time. Since it was a couple hours past lunch the group enjoyed ravenously devouring the sweet red fruit.  Mr. Yao had to carry a number of the groups’ bikes up the last pitch just to pull the group back together.

Down the mountain was less strenuous but no less treacherous, until we came to another hillside rubber tree shack and it’s mountain-bikeable trail to the paved road.  I’m not quite sure what the point of this guided route was about, obviously they hadn’t checked it out or even thought it out ahead of time.  Nevertheless, if laughing and joking were a criteria for a good time, a good time was had by all.  One stop in town for a very late lunch at the night market being set up fueled us up for the 25-mile home run.

Mileage for the day wasn’t what we normally knock off but it took all day from 8am to 5pm.