Photo Essay - Kalasin Epic 260km Mountain Bike Ride

Kalasin Epic MTB Ride - 260km of Adventure

It came close to being an absolute disgrace, the mechanical issues I faced being my fault, but in the end I made it home, refusing to hitch a lift, riding for more than 6 hours stuck in one gear...  What a day! :)

Today was hard, really hard out there haha, but I am very thankful for the load of fun and cool experiences that it brought. What a great ride!

First off, I will say I'm thankful for the amazing weather. It has been raining at least once a day, usually twice a day for what feels like weeks. The forecast for the morning was 70% chance of rain increasing throughout the day to 90 and 100%. It might sound stupid to say, but I took my chances :-) and I got rained on for a total of four minutes out of my 14 hours on the bike today.

Secondly, although I had some difficulties, all were my fault, I was still saved the option to make it home under my own power.  I am stubborn when it comes to accepting a dead end, and I should expect the occasional hardship if I do not change this :)  I never like turning around, and even on normal days I always try to make loops out of my rides, not just out and back, but today my actions definitely will cost me - I bent the rear derailleur hanger enough to break the middle jockey wheel, as well as snapping 2 spokes (after just replacing a spoke the day before.  That back wheel has been put through its paces!).  All the sand that got everywhere too is sure to need more cleaning talent than I have, my bike deserves a tender and complete check-up, in better hands than mine.  

Finally, trying to pick through the list of reasons why I won't soon forget this day, I think the best of which has to be that "I won't forget the day I rode 110 miles stuck in 7th gear (32x14 gearing if you're curious)."  If you happen to be a cyclist, don't call me a wuss just yet!  (to non-cyclists, the gear I was stuck in is not too difficult, actually it is my favorite/most used gear!) but after having already rode 55 miles going hard both on and off road, and still facing many many more rolling hills, yeah I would have liked a gear or 2 lower if I had to pick just one. But hey!  I made good time home because of it, and at least I warmed up nice and easy in the cool morning hours!

It is rare to see the moon and stars in the rainy season, the day started off with an immediate treat.
Beautiful Crescent moon and the Winter Hexagon of Constellations not far off (iPhone cant capture that)...

Story of today's ride:
I left my house at 5:05am, I have noticed the rain is making me a bit slow in the mornings, on days where I'll ride the whole day I like to be out before 4, mostly because of the hot weather at mid-day, I like to already have enough distance done that I won't mind sitting from about 11am to 2pm. On the mountain bike I aim for sections of 60km (36mi), breaks usually around 30 minutes. Today was about right, I think it was 60k, 30, 50, 60, 60 to finish (so that was 4 breaks of 30 minutes each, 2 of which I spent eating, and 2 of which I spent chatting).

Shortcut between main roads, about 15km from my house.  This is a good test
for the dirt/ground conditions, they will be similar from here heading North

I stopped to have a coffee in the town of Nong Kung Sri, and I stayed awhile chatting to a very fun and funny group of people. 2 policeman, the girl who owned the shop, 1 very elderly man and his wife. It was the first time I noticed that I am much better with the Esan dialect now than I thought. I can have a basic conversation (today was about 20 minutes) without much though, whereas last year I would sort of take a moment to think through each sentence and remember which words are the same as Thai (but a different tone), and which words are unique. Very cool, living in Maha Sarakam, Esan is definitely the more commonly used language (over Central Thai/Govt. Official Language).
As with many long distance riders, I'm sure everyone gets a little kick out of nobody believing how far one is planning to ride that day, but I don't think there were any doubts from this lady making coffee when she saw the state I was in 8 hours later. I passed by her shop for a 2nd cup of coffee about 9 hours later, I probably looked a bit rougher around the edges :)

Another 30k brought me to where the fun began - you can see some pictures below.

I was having a blast climbing in a totally new area, I've been looking at maps of this area for a while seeing how surprisingly steep some of the elevation changes are, for Esaan I mean, as I always think of this area as super flat , but I guess it's just my province. Now I know just how many hilly roads there are only about 80 K north of my town, and they were so beautiful that I really wouldn't be bored to go and ride the same route again tomorrow.

Distances from this fairly small countryside town of Huay Mek to not just nearby cities, but countries!
To Brunei (on the island of Borneo), 2,334km, to Indonesia, 2,924, Malaysia 3,180, and Singapore 1,980km.
If you are curious about those numbers, yes I think they are totally random, as Singapore borders only Malaysia,
and is the Southernmost tip of Malaysia at that, so how is it possible that Singapore is closer than Malaysia
(which borders Thailand), closer by 1,300km???  :)  Anyways, I do quite like these, at least they teach the students
at least some idea of local geography (this pillar is in front of a school).

I thought I was going to meet the rain at around 10am, but instead these clouds just stayed there to protect
me from the sun nearly all day!  It was great!  Beautiful clouds too, such a crisp grey color...

Rubber Trees

Now I am reaching an area of completely new roads.  Any way I turned would have been an adventure.  I knew
where I wanted to go though, but I have many more options for the future after today's big lap
of Ta Kun To, Kalasin Province

Finally I reached what I thought would be the highlight of the day, I expected this climb to be sandy - it didn't let me down.  Very cool though, how the clay content caused the dirt to be quite hard packed, wherever there wasn't actual standing water, the ground was very firm.  Perfect for a mountain bike.

After a few spills however, I noticed a pressure in the drive train, and noticed that I had broken

my derailleur jockey wheel for now the 3rd time.  Should have learned my lesson by now?  I agree,

and maybe this was the final lesson needed to know exactly the reason - I sometimes refuse to turn

back even when the road looks dodgy, and I think it is the grass getting caught, ripping out, catching,

pulling, the hanger definitely sits below the height of the surrounding grass and vegetation,

and I need to start realizing that a mountain bike still has limitations.  Or else I need to bring a machete to clear myself some paths.

I was heading uphill, big grin, sweat running down... and suddenly I was in a puddle.  The first of 3 spills today, but it can't
possibly be a real MTB epic if there isn't at least some mud and maybe a little blood here and there.

27.5 inch, 2.0 width.  I love these, but the wheel itself is something of which I am not too fond.  200$ for the pair, is that being too cheap?   I have broken a total of 12 spokes now including today.
That doesn't seem right somehow, I don't think I ride THAT hard...?

I jumped over several others, but this one caused me to turn back.  There were plenty of other trails to explore,
so no problem there.

NOT a dead end.  Passing easily around the left hand side, the walls of these little pools were actually quite sturdy!
Very fun to weave through all the smaller ones, and tricky but exhilirating to make it through so many close calls!  That is, until I fell in.  Again... and then a 3rd time :)  At least the water was cool!!

Finally reached the top, very nice view, it didn't look like Esan at all!  I am however, pretty much in the dead center
of the region of Esan, and so it just made me appreciate how one can think one knows a place, knows anything for
that matter, and just be completely surprised one day!  The body of water in the far right there is the Lam Pao
Dam, this lake was the result, and on previous trips I have passed by several different vantage points.  SO incredibly
many fisherman in that lake, very cool views from the town of Sahatsakan, Kalasin.

Always going to be my favorite picture - any type of shanty, ramshackle abode, built with the bare minimum
of supplies and yet could very well be the favorite napping spot of the rubber tree harvesters for year after year
after year... The view doesn't hurt either!

Finally heading down, I just couldn't resist some of the side trails...

My first idea was "that is just made for flatting!"  But like I said, I am stubborn... but no flats!  No problems... yet.

I could have passed, their dogs didn't seem too fierce, but it was getting on and I had played around in this area enough
if I wanted to get home before dark.  I turned around here, this is the last (furthest West) spur on the riding map.

Thankfully this was not one of the other places I took a spill.  The runoff here STUNK too, I guess the farmers/laborers are
processing the rubber and cassava to some stage before taking it to the big factory?

Leaving this hilly area, the Eucalyptus trees of Thailand are one of my favorite things to look at in the world.
Just take a moment to enjoy that view...

Lots of hard packed sand like this today, I loved it.  Maybe I played around too much in light of still having 170km remaining on the books, but hey, these roads right here were completely the reason why I brought the MTB!!

Maybe from budget constraints, time constraints, who knows, but transitions like this are very common around here :)

Of all the small towns and villages I have passed through, I have never seen something like this.  A tiny town, not much
more than these houses you see, and this spirit house was directly in the road, the road even widened to accommodate.

Nearing the scene of my derailleur's demise... death at my own stupid hands.

Close-up view of a tapped rubber tree.  You can see one drop in the air there.  The rubber trees can grow on quite a steep
slope, they also require much less water than rice, or even sugarcane, and there is a huge trend in Thailand right now to
move from planting rice towards either investing in or growing rubber themselves.  I won't start what would be a long
discussion, but the global rubber market is not moving in a way these poor farmers would like it to...

They are still beautiful though, in their own way.

Back on the main road, debating if I should hitch a lift or continue with my now single-speed bicycle...

I pressed on, stuck in what was at least my favorite gear, hey could have been even worse!  I have previously been stuck in the granny wheel, spinning like mad, I think that time I pressed on for about 120km as well.  Irritating in the extreme, but probably funny to any other cyclists seen me along the way :)

Yesterday though, at least I had a gear I could work with, not only spin but still make decent time on the way home,  and even felt up for going at another off-road climb!!  Not wise, but the fun of it, as well as the nice views, gave me motivation to carry on (I think I had exactly 100km to go to reach home when I came out of this little distraction)

Lovely view from the climb to Phu Pra, Ta Kan To District, Kalasin Province.

This is the last photo I snapped before it got too dark, I was waiting and waiting to get hit by rain... and it never fell.  So lucky, of all the minutes spent annoyed with my aching rear, as well as my creaky bike, it would have been much more irritating to have to ride home in the dark AND in the rain.  Could easily have been the case, so I am extremely thankful for this :)  The sunset was lovely as well!  I made it home at 730, for Thailand that means it had been totally dark already for almost an hour.

195 Baht spent today, and here is a list of what I ate and drank WHILE riding -

Oatmeal dates raisins - around 400 Cal
8 Bananas 2 Dragonfruits - 300 Cal
Rice and 2 eggs - 250 Cal?
2 Granola bars - 460 Cal
2 Soymilk - 320 Cal
Crackers - 300 Cal
Coke - 180 Cal
Rice cakes - 200 Cal
2 Sponsor - 220 Cal
2 Coffees - 30 Cal
Coconut - 130 Cal

and 12 x 600ml = 7.2 Litres
------------------------
Estimated Calorie Intake: 2820
Calories that Strava says I used for the ride: 8,340
My own estimate: 5,000
(I think that I use 400 cals per hour on the MTB, so that times 12.5 hours for today)

Ok, so I am sure that I did not use that many calories, Strava definitely overestimates the MTB stats there, but I also am sure that I used far more than 2,800...  I think that I set a new PB for lowest time off the bike, out of the 14 hours 30 minutes I think I only rested for 2 hours and 10 minutes.  Having the gear problem made it so that I was going to have to ride nearly 6 hours without a break to make it home with any light left in the sky.  I couldn't do it, I had to take a breather, and I think I got home about 20-25 minutes after the sun was totally over the horizon.

Also, if you're going on all-day rides like this, or planning to, which you should! so many more possibilities of new experiences than just riding 50km day in day out, well then remember too that you will have a lot of energy stored from whatever you ate the day/days before (unless you rode 200+km the day before as well).  Truly, if the ride is long enough then you will be heading for a deficit indeed, it is so difficult to eat as many calories as you are using when the weather is hot, you're working hard, and you are trying to only eat 'normal' food (not eating gels, not using sports drinks) - but you will make it up again by eating a huge dinner.  So, actually only eating 3,000 calories on the ride was fine, I felt fine, I got home at 730pm and couldn't fall asleep til around 11pm (must have been the second cup of coffee!).  I ate a big dinner, I knew I wasn't riding the next day, so no problem about the seemingly large difference in Calorie use/Calorie intake.

Ok, thats all for now!  Enjoy the photos a second time round, I know I am still enjoying them myself.  It was SUCH a fun day out there... Can't wait to convince someone to come with me for round 2!