My rule over here in Thailand is that I don’t enter any races or competitions, which I’m continually encouraged to do. This does several things: keeps me from doing things that I probably shouldn’t be doing at 68 years old, keeps me from getting involved with the Thai emergency medical system, and allows me to keep doing all the physical things that I want to do here in Thailand without being laid up with an injury.
The Audax 200 sounded like an event without competition involved other than the clock. Of course you want to get your best “time” and that brings out the oft-cited Joe Berry quote, “It’s always a race.” Audax is French inspiration that has chapters across the world featuring events for long distance cycling of 200, 300, 400 and 600 km. You have to “qualify” at a lower mileage in order to register for the next higher distance. The big goal is to ride in the Paris-Brest-Paris 1200-km ride in September of each year.
After learning four Trang riders were going to enter, I hooked a ride to Hat Yai to ride with 254 other aspirants to notch their handlebars with a 200 km ride. These retired guys only wanted to finish within the time limit and took most of the 13 hours. I, on the other hand, went for time, and was doing real good until the 170 km mark. I’d flatted after a long stretch of road construction along with another rider. It was there that I broke my plastic tire tools, which proved to be fateful later in the day. (Strava map below – red flags are course segments that Strava riders clock themselves on)
At the 150-km check-in, our group of five was first into the 3rd Check Point, and we never knew how far ahead we were from the rest of the pack. At 170 km we entered the backside of Hat Yai, our starting point, I stopped at a traffic signal and realized I had a flat. The group started out and left me behind and so I sat on the side of the road holding up my wheel, hopefully indicating to another rider coming along that I needed some help, specifically their tire tools. It seemed like a long time but probably only 30 to 35 minutes with no one coming along. A customer at one of the local shops came over to see if I needed any help. He knew of a local bike shop that was only just down the road and offered to see if it was open on a Sunday which it was. I didn’t want to jump in the back of his truck because that would void my riding in the 200 km, so I walked the “short distance” which ended up probably half a kilometer. But there, in the middle of nowhere, was a full-fledged mountain bike shop with probably 70 bikes inside.
They took my wheel and changed out the tube and I was ready to get on my way. I had the presence of mind to try to buy another set of tire tools, which I did, unfortunately they were also plastic but the guys gave the assurance that they were much stronger than my earlier ones. That proved to be false, because evidently the two young guys that repaired my tire with a brand-new tube must’ve used metal tools to get the tire back on the rim pin-holing the inner tube. I flatted about 10 km away from the shop. I broke one of the new plastic tools getting the tire off and discovered that there was a small pinch made from a metal tool putting the tire back on the rim. I got that patched and flatted in five more kilometers, finding the second pinch from a tool 4 inches from the first, and then finally a third.
All the plastic tire tools had now broken and I was now resigned to finding flathead screwdrivers at various little food stands. There still were only a couple of riders passing and those didn’t see me or were on the home stretch and didn’t want to stop. I’ve always loved Continental Gator Skins but they’re extremely hard to get on and off the rim. In my four years of riding here in Thailand I think I’ve only had two flat tires before yesterday’s total of 5 in 1 day.
At one point just after the 2nd Check Point, we took a ferry across a sound.
Arriving back in downtown Hat Yai, the 3rd largest city in Thailand with 160,000 people, I got lost finding my way to the finish line. With the help of several locals I managed to get there. After shooting for an eight hour riding time I was disappointed to finish with a 10 1/2 hour time although my Strava GPS showed that I had eight hours and 25 minutes in the saddle. Good ride, good time and new countryside.
