Our little Honda PCX150 was never meant to be a cruiser or dirt bike but yesterday it showed us its capabilities at tackling just about everything this area has to offer in terms of riding. We recently joined a newly formed motorcycle club and headed out into the mountains with at least a couple dozen riders for a few hours. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought this was some type of initiation as we encountered steep winding mountain roads, washed out gravel, rain, fog, mud, and road construction. With our 60 000 km or so of motorcycle cruising experience around North America on our Kawasaki 1500 and in China on our CJ750, we managed to emerge unscathed and fairly clean at the end of the day. I was especially proud of the fact that my runners were mud-free at the end of the day, especially after tackling a long stretch of ankle deep mud without having to put my feet down!
The group has been recently sanctioned (this week) as a branch of the Ulysses Club, a club for motorcyclists over age 40, that originated in Australia. The Friday ride was only the second organized group ride but the large number of folks that turned up for the event are a good indication of the interest in town regarding this type of activity. There was a good variety of larger bikes present along with a few scooters for good measure.
We headed out on Highway 108 from Chiangmai towards Doi Inthanon National Park. This first jaunt was a typical highway that could be found anywhere else in the world and we were able to make very good time. Our little Honda kept up with the best of them at an average speed of about 100km/h. This is about as fast as I would want to go on a scooter! They are just too small and light to feel really stable at higher speeds and I find the wind blown effect increases exponentially very quickly. About an hour from town we took a right onto 1009 and headed up into the park. Read More
