Day 31 – Repacking the Panniers and Leaving Hua Hin
After a couple of days break from our ride, to join a wedding in Surin, we arrived back in Hua Hin to repack our panniers. Today we will swap from the 4 large and 2 small panniers to 4 small and 2 large ones, something we most likely should have done from the start. Running two large panniers at the extreme front end of the bike has left both with several 10 baht-sized holes in their bottoms. They just hung too low, they might have survived if our stand/rack was on the highest position, but even then maybe not. Our stand/rack was in the lowest position, a good inch closer to the ground.
The good news is that we will have to drop off some more stuff into storage, I believe this will be our final reduction, giving us our final packed bicycle weight for the rest of the trip. I am keen to get everything weighed at the conclusion of our ride to see how much equipment we’ve been hauling around.
Leaving Hua Hin we will visit Insight Language School for a quick visit, the school is where I have been taking Thai lessons for the 9 months leading up to our trip. After visiting the school we will go to the Tourism Authority of Thailand office in Hua Hin and then Cha-am, the two offices being only 25 kms apart. We will end the day’s ride by making our way to the amphoe meaung of Petchaburi province, where we will visit the local bicycle shop and get our log book signed.
We have cycled this area many times before and are very familiar with the roads, making for a relatively uninteresting day. Once we leave Petchaburi the route will mostly be new to us and we will be cycling virgin territory in the months to come.
I am trying to organize a small group of students from MUIC Cycling Club to come out and ride with us in Nakhon Pathom with help from Laird Allan, a teacher and cycling club advisor at Mahidol University. It would be great to get some more press coverage and also a good opportunity to meet more cyclists.
At the wedding in Surin we caught up with many old friends, most are avid cyclists, and they informed us they have had a great time keeping track of our journey through our website and Facebook page. This gave me a great boost in making sure that we keep updating and producing interesting and varied stories from our trip. A little bit of encouragement is always a good thing, so thanks to everyone at the wedding who inquired and chatted to us about our trip. It was very satisfying to hear we are being read.
I think Natt will call the TAT offices soon and let them know we are coming, there may be be a little more press to be had, but if not at least they will know who we are when we arrive.
NOTE: John Graham and I worked on fixing the problem of our destroyed bicycle stand rubber feet. We found a collection of old bar end caps in his workshop that looked like they would do the job, the old feet had been cut through by the metal stand tubes.
I think this is a design problem with the tube/stand by Hase. I would have expected the rubber feet to last more than 30 days/2,500kms. I will send the photos to Hase Bikes and get their thoughts about this, it’s only a small problem really, but having the metal tubes scrape on the ground when you start to ride off is not so good.