Day 85 – Had our Broken Pedal fixed at Two Wheel Shop in Korat
Today we rode 96kms and we found only 4 resorts. Two of the resorts, despite having a shit load of signs announcing their locations from the main road, were not yet finished with construction and therefore NOT OPEN. One other resort was fairly nice, but it overlooked a very loud trucking road and the cost for a night was 1,200 Baht. We finally found one resort that was set back about 500 metres from the road, it was a little older and not so fancy, but for 600 Baht it suited us just fine. The 600 Baht price even included a kind of breakfast.
The day started with a visit to the bicycle shop. On the way into Korat, Natt’s right pedal had exploded and was grinding it’s way towards a final death. One of the bearings apparently died and on our day off yesterday I removed it from the bicycle and dismantled it. I was sure I had the tools to fix it, but I didn’t.
So we headed 5 km the wrong way to the AWESOME Two Wheel Shop – Bike and Service Centre, where the owner Noi had everything we needed to get going again. He did a much better job than I would have. So for 150 Baht and about 45 minutes of our time the pedal was fixed and we were ready to go. This guy’s shop, although small, has a massive collection of tools for every occasion. He is definitely the man to visit if you’ve got a unique problem that needs fixing. He is ‘mister bicycle-fix-it’ in Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima.
When we started off again, we cycled down back roads that were super quiet. One road was particularly nice, it looked like an old road that did not go anywhere useful. I thought maybe it was so quiet because people were using a newly built bypass road nearby or something. It was 30 km long and got us to within 3 km of the road intersection that we were looking for…. but it ended in a sandy dirt road; a cattle trail really, with a corral at the end where cows were being loaded onto trucks. Was very pretty, but covered in ‘bull-dust’ as we Aussies call it.
We finally found a gate that let us off of this cattle trail, where we eventually found a paved road. We took some awesome photos that I really hope turned out great. After the impromptu photo shoot, we cycled on.
We headed slowly uphill for 30 kms towards the border with Lopburi. The temperature got HOTTER and HOTTER. Since we had started late we ended up cycling during the part of the day we’re not keen on, but it was nice to have a bit of a sleep in this morning.
We finally found a room, where we slept well after a big meal and a cool shower.
