Khon Kaen Bike Week 2009 |
PreludeI arrived in KK and buzzed into the trusty and cheap Roma Hotel. 230 baht for a fan room, albeit on the hot side of the building. It was still good value, as long as you got in the room half-cut and late on at night. From the stay there 2 years ago it was improved somewhat. I’d planned on going to the first day of the festival, which was usually promotional stuff and dealers wowing with their new merchandise. But I was drained and tired. The road fatigue was pissing me off along with the bullsht of taking out the video footage using archaic equipment in the web cafes. Indeed it had me at snapping point a few times already but this night was the final straw. Every web cafe was unable to even process the data. I really should of expected this, but owning a mid to high end laptop means you take it for granted. Countless times their PCs would either shut down or just not even recognise it at all! Sick to the stomach h I left and decided to leave it for another time in the next city. I vowed for the umpteenth time to bring my laptop with me the next time to process the video footage on-the-fly so-to-speak. This presented its own problem, how to carry it without using the bulky Bergen. I’d carried it before using this, but it becomes a journey of masochism once your back aches for hours on end. I’d need a tank bag, and a fairly big one at that. Red Baron Bangkok was the obvious answer, but making a Bangkok run at this stage of the tour really wasn’t appealing. The Biker Gangs Turf.As if by providence I rode past a fully stocked and equipped bike shop just on the north-eastern fringes of the city. On my left was a small shop, laid out neatly and crammed with biking apparel it had sportsbikes, motocross’ and sportscruisers. Outside was a resident biker gang sat at one of those thief-proof tables and benches. Drinking the chang and shooting the shit it was obvious that they used the place as a base for operations. In addition about half wore similar leg armour to mine, albeit on the outside of their clothing along with sturdy gloves. They all rode those compact and tidy motocross bikes, well maintained and powerful. While easy for a Thai to handle.
Interestingly a stand-along female Thai biker was with them. Being a tomboy she was in the gang as an equal you might say, not as one of their mistresses or the like which seems quite uncommon as far as Thailand’s biker gangs go. As I rolled up with the auxiliary fan whining they all stopped talking. They were friendly though, whether this was down to riding the CBR or not is unclear, but their leader, holding court at the doorway made himself known. I walked to the leader and held my breath, if this place had a tank bag my prayers were answered. They were, they had small and medium. Choosing medium I gauged it’d fit my laptop just. 2800 baht I haggled them down to in the end. It had the crucial magnets, 8 of them, which were padded to prevent scratches. The selling point on it is the ‘zoom-zoom’ capability, as the thai leader put it, of it expanding to nearly 50 liters when fully unzipped. In addition it has a waterproof cover.
Now with this the Storm Child was converted to touring spec. The drawback is that precludes the use of a tank-mounted camera, along with being less easy to lie-down on long blasts. The Main Event - KK Biker Week |
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