Chiang Mai Mountain Biking
The young American bloke in the Hostel that worked in Shanghai, had given the Mountain Bike Ride he had been on a big rap. I trusted him as he seemed to know what he was talking about. It was possible to book the ride through the Hostel. I was beginning to wonder what wasn’t possible to book through them.
Mini bus turned up at 8.30 a.m. to take me to the bike shop.
Good Bikes – Now So Good Protection
There were a number of people at the shop. There appeared to be some confusion as who was doing what ride. There were three on offer for the day – easy, intermediate and ‘technical’.
I was booked on the intermediate ride. It turned out that the others on the ride were Hungarian women in her late thirties, an American bloke and a young Pommie bloke who was working for the company and learning the rides.
We piled into a Ute type vehicle and headed off. The road took us up the mountains that are very close to the city. It actually got quite cool as we climbed. I recall being told that were got to 1650 metres. I should have had my Garmin with me.
Surprise that I Knew About Brunei
On the way up the mountain I got to chat with others. The Hungarian woman (now Kaitlin) is a teacher at the International School in Bandar Seri Begawan. She was amazed that I knew about the place, let alone having been there.
It would appear that it has change a lot since 1985. I suspect don’t look the same either. Just as an aside, she looked pretty good.
Not too Much OH&S Here
We met our guide at the top of the mountain. After a very short briefing – “stand-up and look where you want to go” – we headed off.
Great Scenery and Trails
The ride was great. We passed through a Mung (indigenous tribes people) village shortly into the ride. This include stop for some locally grown coffee – excellent stuff.
Most of the ride was on forest tracks. These were eroded to varying degrees – some seriously. This made for some challenging riding. Kaitlin turned out to be a seriously good rider. As she said there is not an awful lot to do in Brunei and she has got into MTBing in a big way.
There was some single track stuff on our ride. We also crossed the “Technical Route’ which is virtually all single track and steep. There is no fu**king way I would do that ride. You would have to have health insurance with cover to fly you to very good hospital just in case.
Towards the end of the ride, the American bloke had a major spill. It was on an innocuous stretch of track. This is often that case when you lose concentration. Luckily he was young and fit was not hurt.
We finished the ride with a very late ‘lunch’ – more like an early dinner, by a beautiful lake.
Night Market
At night I went to the Night Market. It stretched virtually the whole length of a street (almost 2 klms) in the Old Town. Check out Flickr. Again, I am amazed as to the amount of stuff (a lot of it crap in my mind) for sale in such markets.
Flickr Link
Mountain Bike Ride Link
billrider2013 
Looks great fun!