Here is part 2:
The second part of the onslaught was a test of mettle!
Having made it this far I was caught behind a clunking bus and minivan, effectively pinning me to the lane until it got clear. By this time Bards viking blood had carried him far far ahead and I had a mighty gap between the riders and myself.
I didn't know the roads from adam, but the SSR boys did, and they didn't hold back the horses.
Once I saw 2 riders waiting for me. They waited for me to catch up then roared off into the distance again!
We arrived in Mae Sot before nightfall and with about 600 km on the clock from Bangkok.
The rogue entity, John who joined us at Klong Khung had vanished in the night!
Which was probably for the best as a few of the SSR wolves wanted to duel him.
In the morning when we woke up, or rather when Trent woke us all up, we discovered he'd buzzed away at 6 in the morning.
'That's the last we'll see of him' said one.
'Not so, I think he's gone on ahead.' Said another, along with myself.
After some noodle breakfast and some charity donations it was time for the relentless mountain roads of the 105.
Fueling up was the usual chore, although Trents perpetual looping around the pumps on his bike raised the usual eyebrows.
A chirpy biker on a Transalp buzzed in while i waited. He'd just come from Mae Hong Song the previous day on the 105. I asked him what the roads were like.
'Brilliant, but take it easy, don't rip into the corners.'
'Hmm, you obviously don't know the SSRs!' I countered ruefully, pointing out Trent doing his perpetual loops, seemingly in a trance....'
At first the way was nice and smooth, with gentle turns you could power into. Then came the harsher ones and as I kept to my comfortable groove, the others got their lean on and screwballed through them like roadrunner. I took in the views and rolled the film for you all to see.
No point in being the fastest rider to the coffin
After about 30 minutes I caught up with the others, but for the wrong reason, one of them had tumbled-down. The corner was a bitchin' hairpin AND was on a downhill gradient with gravel near the edges, one of my most hated style of corners.
Luckily it was a lucky low-side and he was able to self-rescue the bike and himself to continue.
Some first aid from myself later and a good few smokes to cool the fiery nerves and we continued.
BBBK weaved him magic on the GPS.
'We can cut across onto Highway 108 and get into Chiang Mai that way.'
This was wisdom, but meant Mae Hong Song would have to wait another day to be stormed by the SSR crew.
Without further ado we continued, albeit with one rider having bent forks to contend with.
I must say though that he still kept ahead of me and left me behind, so the magic hadn't left with the accident at least.
To be honest a few bikers are trending towards mesh jackets. But these aren't good at resisting damage, with the trade-off being its cooler to wear in the tropics.
The bikers at the end who crashed said his mesh jacket was shite. It ripped and he gashed his arm slightly.
If he had been wearing leathers he's of not had a mark on him we all reckoned...
