Friday, September 28, 2007

Off road again















I've been riding off road with Justin just about every other day for the last month. If we had enough gear and didn't have to dry our boots out after every ride we'd probably be out every day.

Anyway, Luke just got back to Thailand after being in blighty for two months. He was anxious to see some of the trails we had discovered and anxious to get back on his CRF250. It had rained hard the previous two nights and the trails were wet so we thought we would head for the south side of Doi Pui and explore behind the Night Safari.

The south face of the mountain has somewhat steeper trails but they tend to be more hard/sandy/rocky/gravelly with very little clay so we thought that would be a good choice. It turned out that water running down the sandy hard packed trails didn't make for easy uphill riding so we abandoned our quest for the summit and headed to explore an enduro trail near the 1269 I discovered on a scouting trip a week earlier.

On the way to the enduro trail I heard a funny noise behind me and at the time, didn't think much about it as Luke and Justin were taking turns to see who could ride the longest wheelie. I got to the next turn and waited a few minutes for my friends and went to look for them after a few.

That funny noise I heard was Luke's CRF sliding up behind me and nearly tagging me while Luke rolled along the road and did a Hiekel on one of the cement posts. Justin said that if I had slowed to see what was making the noise I would have been whacked by the CRF from behind. Luke had rolled on hard in 5th gear coming out of a corner and because he was on knobbies he low sided.

Damage? The CRF now has a nice sharp edge on the left foot peg, the bark buster on the LH side has been shaved down a little. The cement post was merely bent 20 degrees to one side. Luke's RH palm has some road rash and his white butt is going to be sore from the slide down the road.






























Those are Justin's hands and Luke's butt. What are mates for anyways? If they won't loan you money for stereos and CDs, what good are they?

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the "boys" to rest up so we can continue our ride. I'm the old man of the group, they're supposed to be waiting for me!

We get to the enduro trail and we're having a blast roosting our way up the hill. I decided to ride TP and had the misfortune of whacking a rock with my left boot. I damn near cried it hurt so bad. I stopped, cussed, hopped around on one foot and waited for them to come back before I headed home for the shower and to Chiang Mai Ram hospital for a 300 baht xray. Nothing broken, the area under my metatarsal bones is swollen and bruised as well. 100 meters from where I split off with the boys, Justin whacked a rock as well.

Hope we can go out again tomorrow!

BBQ

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