Paul on his Sam Hillborne and I re-rode the trail we discovered two weeks ago, but this time shortened the approach by driving his truck about 15km south of town so that we could explore a bit further before I had to get back to teach yoga. Paul also brought along his friend Rob, who borrowed my 1991 Gary Fisher Sphinx 29er (not a typo). Actually it was sold back then with 38mm knobbies and drop bars as a monstercross (another category that didn't exist in '91), but recently I put some Jones H-bars and XC Comp thumb shifters on for more technical off-road riding, and 50mm Marathon XRs.
Photos start here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gernothuber/page2/ We skipped the long dirt mountain pass, and rolled up the little remote valley in beautiful warm morning light, made even softer by the high air pollution from burned-off fields and forest understory. We zoomed past the Wat and were able to get more than twice as far up the dirt trail this time, and hit 68 instead of 30 stream crossings. We once again had to turn around because of time constraints, as we spent too much time taking photos, but by the time we turned around, the trail was mostly non-existent, running straight up the creek bed for hundreds of feet at a time, with only occasional on-land sections. But occasional ATV tire tracks where the trail entered and exited the creek showed us that it is actually in use, and that the locals really just drive up the creek. A few times the water was deep enough to submerge the hubs, but we kept going. Coming back down the trail, without stopping for photos, took us 35 minutes, during which we crossed the creek 34 times, so not quite one crossing per minute! Back on the road, once again racing against time, I almost ran over a 6 to 7 foot snake of unidentified species. I am pretty sure it was neither a cobra nor a python, but that's about all I can say. It looked grey with longitudinal stripes. It came out of nowhere crossing the road just in front of me, and braking with all I had I stopped less than a foot from it. Fortunately it just wanted to get away. Once again the Hetres on my rSogn did great, only failing on steep slick clay exits out of the creek. Gernot "68 stream and 1 snake crossing" Huber Chiang Mai, Thailand -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
