Bike MOT

Liddy
From Pa Daet we set off happily, enjoying being off the beaten track. Unfortunately about two hours into our ride, Mike's bike gave up the ghost and his chain resolutely stopped working. Sam pedalled manfully for a few hundred metres, but his little five year old legs were clearly not going to shift all 100kg of Mike + panniers + bike.
Mike took it all apart but to no avail, it was badly broken. He hitched a ride to the nearest 'garage' but the mechanics there had no idea where to start. Whilst I was en route to the garage, my bike also started to shudder and  by the time I had arrived, my gears had broken. Ouch.
Fortunately we were only 30km from Chiang Rai (a big town) so we hopped on a local bus and headed there, where we found a very snazzy bike shop. One day and a hundred and fifty pounds later, we picked up our new and improved overhauled bikes. The contrast is remarkable, like giving up a battered old pick up for a new state of the art BMW. I've got a reinforced rim on my back wheel (they took one look at Meg and said that I needed some extra metal work!) and various other bells and whistles which all in all mean that we are now able to boost along very happily. Money well spent!