We’re finally back on our bikes. It took a bit of time to get my old Trek road bike set up with a new handlebar and stem. I’d brought the new, stronger stem from the States but forgot that the original bars were thinner then the 31.8 millimeter bars the new stem required. Fortunately I was able to find a set of bars that were 44 mm by 31.8 mm thick and only had to pay 800 baht, about $24.  It was really fun actually acquiring the bars. Sunsurn, my Thai friend, took me on the back of his scooter around to a number of local bike shops, trying to find a new set of bars. It was difficult because Thai folks are smaller and they use the 42 mm-width bars and I needed a 44. One tiny shop got on the phone and ordered a set of 44’s and they were courier’d over from another town in about two hours. Unbelievable.

Setting up the Trek was far easier than getting back in shape. I hadn’t really ridden a road bike since I finished Great Divide ride. I’d been spinning regularly but not on a road bike. The Thai guys that I ride with before dawn are a strong set of riders and they helped put me straight quickly. As I’ve said in the past Thai riders don’t rotate the lead, just wait till the front man dies and then they just carry on. And besides that they don’t wait at the top of the hill and regroup like we do in the States; it’s a sign of weakness.

I’m never able to get a photograph of the “Fahsung” predawn riding group because we start 5 AM and we finish at a local restaurant just as the light is coming up. I did take a panoramic photograph of the group at our Dim Sum style breakfast.  One ancedote from that dim sum breakfast that’s kind of amusing, is that once I had learned that they have hard-boiled eggs I’d been eating quite a number of those last year. Since I’ve been gone the group has now taking up eating hard-boiled eggs themselves in order to be stronger and keep up with me, they say.

Another funny anecdote about my Thai Fahsung guys is that they don’t pump their road bike tires up above 80 psi.  Mostly because they don’t have hand pumps that will go that high.  The guy in the photo, Go Rung, flatted and I gave him my extra tube (they often don’t carry tubes or pumps) and he set off with us again.  I never noticed him drop off once again, then he showed up in the back of a TukTuk at the restaurant with a second flat. I’ll have to get that TukTuk’s phone number for pre-dawn flats.  (The driver actually rides with us many days, fortunately for Go Rung, that day he was at home.)

Because we’ve come to Thailand several weeks earlier then in the past, we have hit a later then normal tail-end of the rainy season. So I have not been able to get as much cycling in as I would normally do in a week. This is beneficial because it’s given me a couple of one-day breaks between riding with the Fahsung group. To give you an idea what that ride is like: on Saturday, in the 36-mile ride I burned 1,904 calories according to my Garmin. In a 50-minute spin class I burn 525.

We also “borrowed” my Cannonade and Stanna’s Specialized mountain bikes back for the winter.  So we have three bikes now.  Three years ago Stanna gave her road bike to the Trang Cycling club.  She now wants to find a “lighter” road bike to use while we’re here since she’s noticing the heavier weight of the 25-year-old StumpJumper she brought over last year.