Danny Straub in Thailand

Danny is a recent transplant to Thailand and has been willing to put up with my torture on the off-road trails in Chiang Mai. Here's a clip of Danny demonstrating how to duck paddle up a heavily rutted section of uphill.

Off Road with Robert

I found a sweet 97 Yamaha TTR Raid 250 for Robert and today was our inaugural off road ride. We started off with me on the mighty WR200, aka muppet chaser, but quickly returned it to the crafty hands of Mr Ball so he could continue his work on the carburetor. With the DRZ400S in hand we headed back to the 700 year stadium to continue our ride. We did see the muppets on the trail but opted to explore some trails that haven’t been mapped yet rather than chase their butts across the mountain.



If you’ve ridden the single track trail from the 700 year stadium to Huay Theung Thao you know there are two places where there are nasty branches hanging low and where the foliage makes it difficult to see the trail. After fighting to get me and the DRZ through, I stopped and got out the Leatherman with saw blade to do a little trail maintenance.



Here’s Robert trying to use his puny little 85 KGs to pull a branch from the undergrowth. I said “Here Son, let me show you how to do that” as I weigh in at just a few more kilos than him. We got the trail pretty well cleaned up but have to go back with the "chainsaw in a can" to finish the job.



All in all, we rode 50 km off road and had a great day. I was really nice to have my best riding buddy back on the trail with me. I hope we can share many more rides together.