Day 110 – Chiang Rai to Wiang Pa Pao
Today was supposed to be mostly flat and around 80kms. It was and the cycling was easy except for a couple of steep hills. The SHOULDER was shocking, most likely the worst we’ve seen this whole trip, rough and unrideable. Luckily the traffic gave us a wide birth and the road was not super busy.
I smashed my knee on the GPS mount (did it a few times previously) since it is not in the most perfect location, but it’s been a long time since I hurt myself. The chain jumped off the rear cogs when changing down and I smashed the GPS mount, turning the GPS off somehow. It was rather painful because of the location I hit it with my knee.
I locked it up and jumped off the bike. Natt unclicked and grabbed the bicycle from me and I ran over to the the side of the road cursing. Natt pushed the bicycle 5 metres off to the side of the road and found some shade. This all took 15 seconds or so, by this time I hopped over to Natt and we put the bicycle up on its stand.
Then Natt started to what I could only assume was hyperventilate since I’ve only ever seen it in the movies, but that is exactly what it looked like. She was very light headed and was about to fall over. She sat on the concrete barrier and I tried to get her to take deep breaths, I checked her pulse and it was regular, strong but fast (we had just been working it up a hill). And she said everything else felt fine, but she was having trouble breathing and felt dizzy.
So we waited. I kept trying to get her to take big breaths, she managed a few in between her panting. Finally she moved to the ground and sat, the world stopped spinning and she was all good. Very strange. Maybe it was the fact we’d ridden 80kms and she’d only eaten a small breakfast and drank less than 1.5 litres of water. Who knows, but I didn’t like it. And I guess she didn’t either.
We got back on the bike and cycled the last 50m to the top of the hill, then it was all pretty much downhill into the town valley. Easy, it was not big hills today, it was only a couple of 600m peaks. Tomorrow is the BIG ONE, 25kms of climbing to the half way point and 25kms down the other side. I expect it to be up and down up and down, it might well be our biggest day yet.
