Bangkok Bicycles by Mark Burton

A regular visitor to the Alps, Mark has also ridden our High Alps Challenge, the Tour du Mont Blanc and came out for the Etape. He has recently moved to Bangkok where it seems to be a rather different challenge to be on two wheels…

Once upon a time, I considered myself a pretty hardened cyclist. In a previous existence, my daily commute was a ten mile, rush hour slog through the very heart of central London, fending off buses, traffic and that small army of angry alpha cyclists who treat each ride as an Olympic time trial. I thought I had mastered the art of city cycling, building an potent blend of handling skill, awareness and nerve.

Then I moved to Bangkok.

After careful study of the subject, I’ve decided that cycling in central Bangkok is lunacy. Even being on one the back of one of the ubiquitous motorbike taxis is a gamble. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with a drunk tuk tuk driver.

As you can see, not much space for a bike!

The first and foremost concern is traffic, which is legendary in both quantity and insanity. Lanes, signaling and traffic lights are largely optional, leading to a permanently chaotic dance that is not a happy place for a cyclist. Any space not filled by cars or trucks is jammed with scooters and the puttering, scrapheap-ready motorbikes beloved by locals. Bangkokians are generally very good, calm drivers, but the free for all setup and sheer volume of vehicles inevitably leads to regular mishaps. Are they trying to hurt you? No. Is it likely? Yes.

The next challenge for the intrepid Thai cyclist is the roads themselves. Given that very few mad fools would bike around town anyway, the roads aren’t exactly smooth, freshly laid carpets of tarmac. Lumps, bumps and storm drains the exact width of your front wheel all await the casual cyclist. Road furniture in Thailand also has the added bonus of constantly moving, as the main obstacles are the shuffling, friendly soi dogs who have no qualms about ambling into the road at will.

If you can handle all that, you still have to deal with the climate. Bangkok has two weather settings – sweltering and raining buckets whilst sweltering. Anything below 30C is seen as a cooler day here, and that includes night time. Thai people in Bangkok love November and December, the winter months, when a really cold day might be as low as 25C and they can don coats and scarves and enjoy a beer outside. Suffice to say this does not make for a comfortable cycling experience; it’s like riding through a warm bath.

You do see the occasional road cyclist in Bangkok, and on some frighteningly fancy machines. Everything about Bangkok screams disaster for an Ultegra groupset, but high end kit is all the rage around here. Hats off to those brave few – I am not among them.

The irony is that Bangkok does have some great cycling in reach. Out by the airport, a recently purpose-built 25km track, officially called the Happy and Healthy Bike Lane but locally as the Skylane is a dream. It’s just a shame that you can’t get there without a car.

Beyond Bangkok, there’s a lot for cyclists to love. Occasionally I spy groups heading out of town on a Sunday morning, heading for the quiet surroundings which are much more bike-friendly. I’ve never worked out where these clubs are or how they work, so answers on a postcard if anyone knows. Out in Chiang Mai and Phuket and in the national parks like Khao Yai, there are some incredible routes, from sweeping, alpine-grade mountains like Doi Inthanon in the north to calm beachside stretches under coconut palms in the south.

I’m not totally bike-starved here in Bangkok. Just over the river from downtown, via a boat that’s effectively a fence panel with an engine, is the ‘Green Lung’ of Bangkok – Bang Krachang. When I need a cycling fix, this is a lovely, quiet and almost traffic free area of palm trees, jungle and the gentle pace of life that epitomises Thailand more widely. The riverside shack will rent you a beaten up hybrid for about two quid, and from here you can cruise around enjoying the feel of being on two wheels. It’s not the road bike life of old, but it’s something.