Ride Report: BikeHedonia rides the world (one way or another)

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

On 22/04/2022 at 18:25, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Great stuff Grace. Had a fair bit to catch up on (speaker wasn't working on laptop) and its was all enjoyable stuff. Can't believe the bikes whole structural integrity hangs on two plastic spacers, mental. 

You look like your handling it all with aplomb, even the slippery stuff look forward to hearing how your first official tour job goes. 

Never heard of the coconut crab, looked it up, that is one fearsome crab "can eat chickens, kittens and birds but mainly prefers coconuts"

 

Thank you, so glad you enjoyed the video catch up...  Am experimenting with making more frequent vids, will see if people get excited about the trip or get bored ("yeah yeah we get it, you rode somewhere again" lol). 

Yeah, it is super interesting how the whole 690 basically bolts together with two (rather small bolts) and two (rather large spacers). The thinking behind bolting everything straight into the fuel tank is because it obviates the need for any actual subframe at all, thus saving weight. I appreciate this (when it works haha).

Can eat kittens but prefers coconuts... thank goodness for small mercies...

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

6 minutes ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

After putting my bike back into one piece and dodging the highway traffic came one of my favourite days in Cambodia... a dirt road up along the Thai-Cambo border, through the edge of the Cardamom Mountains. What a place. To top it off, I then landed at some sort of Chinese razor wired labour camp (I'm not kidding).... talk about a wtf moment.
 

 

 

According to Ed Marsh vloggers need to make their Moto vids "toilet length" so short n frequent could be good  

You know you posted 2. 12 already.. need more sleep or less caffeine?  

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

5 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

According to Ed Marsh vloggers need to make their Moto vids "toilet length" so short n frequent could be good  

You know you posted 2. 12 already.. need more sleep or less caffeine?  

haha thanks for the heads up... maybe less caffeine, more sleep and less of the dried fruit of which I just ate my bodyweight? Or maybe more. I dunno. Here's 2.13 in case anyone's killing time right now.

P.S. I feel like that is a length of time which varies from person to person and according to the quality of the region's drinking water...
 

 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

16 minutes ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

P.S. I feel like that is a length of time which varies from person to person and according to the quality of the region's drinking water..

 

Or the amount of dried fruit they eat..

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

52 minutes ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

haha thanks for the heads up... maybe less caffeine, more sleep and less of the dried fruit of which I just ate my bodyweight? Or maybe more. I dunno. Here's 2.13 in case anyone's killing time right now.

P.S. I feel like that is a length of time which varies from person to person and according to the quality of the region's drinking water...
 

 

One on cafe lattes how apposite!

Malnutrition is an interesting topic, suffered in every country for differing reasons. In the UK it's generally due to lack of education resulting in rickets. The remedy for the nations malnutrition (after discovering the terrible state of the working classes meant they weren't fit to fight a war) was to introduce free school milk in 1946 and that to a large degree worked. Then Thatcher thatcher milk snatcher decided to stop this in 1971 and so we see the necessary return of rickets in the UK.

What I find most surprising is knowing the impact poor diet has on peoples lives that nutritional education wasn't introduced to the UKs education curriculum til 2014 so we'll continue to see a disproportionate number of childrens lives effected until the better educated 2014 generation are the breeders!

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

12 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

One on cafe lattes how apposite!

Malnutrition is an interesting topic, suffered in every country for differing reasons. In the UK it's generally due to lack of education resulting in rickets. The remedy for the nations malnutrition (after discovering the terrible state of the working classes meant they weren't fit to fight a war) was to introduce free school milk in 1946 and that to a large degree worked. Then Thatcher thatcher milk snatcher decided to stop this in 1971 and so we see the necessary return of rickets in the UK.

What I find most surprising is knowing the impact poor diet has on peoples lives that nutritional education wasn't introduced to the UKs education curriculum til 2014 so we'll continue to see a disproportionate number of childrens lives effected until the better educated 2014 generation are the breeders!

WOW... I am very familiar with rickets from my Dickensian through to between-the-wars readings but I had NO idea that people in the UK are suffering from it again. That is WILD. And that nutrition wasn't in the curriculum until 2014... crazy. Really interesting, thank you so much

[XTreme]

18 minutes ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

I am very familiar with rickets from my Dickensian through to between-the-wars readings but I had NO idea that people in the UK are suffering from it again.

The fucking morons voted to go back to the Dickensian era Grace!

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

9 minutes ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

WOW... I am very familiar with rickets from my Dickensian through to between-the-wars readings but I had NO idea that people in the UK are suffering from it again. That is WILD. And that nutrition wasn't in the curriculum until 2014... crazy. Really interesting, thank you so much

Theres also an enormous amount of dental decay in toddlers in the UK.

Poor nutrition during pregnancy (babies teeth are already under the gums when they are born) coupled with the poor education that led to that state then continuing to work its magic causes a lot of problems. Its hard to believe but fizzy or sweet drinks in babies bottles in some areas is common.

Then there are the well meaning partially educated who are trying to do the right thing by switching to raisins, apple juice and other perceived healthy alternatives that equally cause rot. Dried fruit is worse offender because is sticks in the teeth and keeps the acid production going until its brushed out.

Health promotion in the UK is patchily done and poor. Its always consisted of finger wagging, guilt tripping messages and a like of punitive measures after the fact rather than education before the damage is done, this causes the majority of people to completely switch off to any official channels because no-one likes being told their lifestyle choices are wrong and whatever has happened is probably their fault.

So there you go, theres a lot of prevalent preventable disease in the UK. Heyho.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

16 minutes ago, XTreme said:

The fucking morons voted to go back to the Dickensian era Grace!

I hear VOX are doing very well in Spain... 

Morons everywhere

[XTreme]

27 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

I hear VOX are doing very well in Spain... 

Morons everywhere

The rise of the right is a problem everywhere Caroline!

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

31 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Theres also an enormous amount of dental decay in toddlers in the UK.

Poor nutrition during pregnancy (babies teeth are already under the gums when they are born) coupled with the poor education that led to that state then continuing to work its magic causes a lot of problems. Its hard to believe but fizzy or sweet drinks in babies bottles in some areas is common.

Then there are the well meaning partially educated who are trying to do the right thing by switching to raisins, apple juice and other perceived healthy alternatives that equally cause rot. Dried fruit is worse offender because is sticks in the teeth and keeps the acid production going until its brushed out.

Health promotion in the UK is patchily done and poor. Its always consisted of finger wagging, guilt tripping messages and a like of punitive measures after the fact rather than education before the damage is done, this causes the majority of people to completely switch off to any official channels because no-one likes being told their lifestyle choices are wrong and whatever has happened is probably their fault.

So there you go, theres a lot of prevalent preventable disease in the UK. Heyho.

I would have imagined that, having the NHS (which is awesome) makes public health everyone's (and every govt's business, even the conservative ones) because goodness knows nothing is as cost effective as prevention. But... ah yes... sorry I was living in a fantasy world for a moment there. Prevention is much longer than the election cycle, and as you say, people don't like being told what to do... 

Speaking of dental decay in toddlers... it kills me that in Vietnam and Cambodia it is almost impossible to buyany UHT milk which has not been sweetened and (this is the worst part, for me) that includes the milks which are specifically marketed to toddlers as being vitamin enriched especially for toddler nutrition. People simply don't have the education to disbelieve marketing like that, and I think to myself: those companies could be making almost as much money selling that milk without the added sugar. Almost, of course, but not quite. Like the Nestle baby formula scandals, it's just so sad that capitalism trashes the health of whole populations for such negligible marginal gains.  But, I guess I'm off on a tangent here... I think we're on the same page anyway.

[XTreme]

9 minutes ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

I would have imagined that, having the NHS (which is awesome)

The morons voted to sell it off to the Yanks Grace!

I know.....it's like we're living in a parallel universe.

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

1 minute ago, XTreme said:

The morons voted to sell it off to the Yanks Grace!

I know.....it's like we're living in a parallel universe.

It's a national tragedy.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

56 minutes ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

I would have imagined that, having the NHS (which is awesome) makes public health everyone's (and every govt's business, even the conservative ones) because goodness knows nothing is as cost effective as prevention. But... ah yes... sorry I was living in a fantasy world for a moment there. Prevention is much longer than the election cycle, and as you say, people don't like being told what to do... 

Speaking of dental decay in toddlers... it kills me that in Vietnam and Cambodia it is almost impossible to buyany UHT milk which has not been sweetened and (this is the worst part, for me) that includes the milks which are specifically marketed to toddlers as being vitamin enriched especially for toddler nutrition. People simply don't have the education to disbelieve marketing like that, and I think to myself: those companies could be making almost as much money selling that milk without the added sugar. Almost, of course, but not quite. Like the Nestle baby formula scandals, it's just so sad that capitalism trashes the health of whole populations for such negligible marginal gains.  But, I guess I'm off on a tangent here... I think we're on the same page anyway.

We certainly are.

I like your fantasy world, I dally there sometimes too, it involves organisations acting from the right motives, doing things for the greater good while also retaining individual humanity. Unfortunately if theres money involved it attracts scum.

I had the same sugar experience in Nepal. Every item in the ‘super’markets its possible to load with it they have and the sugary snack isles dominate over half the store

It’s hard to go out there, see the world, gain a wider view without also seeing the damage pursuing profit does.

I see some hope in the much younger generations in the UK who are en masse sick of sucking it up and very pissed off with the old order. We’ll see.

I just finished a book you might enjoy about a solo female RTW traveller who occasionally tries to politely touch on the damage capitalism causes- Got2Go Lea Rieck.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

2 hours ago, XTreme said:

The morons voted to sell it off to the Yanks Grace!

I know.....it's like we're living in a parallel universe.

No they didnt.

The public were and still largely are clueless about what's going on, they don't know what they're voting for and how can any of us when we're constantly lied to.

People don't like politics, they don't want to hear about it and can't talk about it without it being reduced down to a tub thumping team sport rather than any sort of productive discourse. But then that wouldn't be conducive to power mad egomaniacs holding onto their power bases so instead we all just agree not to talk about it even though it effects everyones lives everyday more dramatically than any other influence. Politics is even a banned topic on here.

This madness stems from the idea conversation is something to be won rather than an exchange of ideas or information. Folk get personally invested in an idea often latching onto the first thing they hear from whatever news outlet or bloke in the pub they favour without much further thought or research and suddenly we have a team sport that lets people who should be held accountable for the things they do off the hook just because their teams behind them... yer but it would have been worse under such n such

So no no-one deliberately voted to sell off the NHS, its being done slowly and quietly largely behind the publics back.

[boboneleg]

What chance have the public got if they listen Prime Ministers questions, and that's besides the Tory twats that are ogling porn instead of listening to the debate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, I may have popped into politics there.................

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

I've been neglecting the chronicles. Here is some viewing to accompany your daily ablutions.

I made some new friends and fell over in a rice paddy.

 

[XTreme]

4 hours ago, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

I've been neglecting the chronicles. Here is some viewing to accompany your daily ablutions.

I made some new friends and fell over in a rice paddy.

 

No injuries Grace?

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

34 minutes ago, XTreme said:

No injuries Grace?

Not at all. Just a momentary dirt nap

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

Nice one. Your new Singaporean friends seemed good humoured about their crappy bikes. Are they going to join you in Thailand?

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

On 16/05/2022 at 13:51, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Nice one. Your new Singaporean friends seemed good humoured about their crappy bikes. Are they going to join you in Thailand?

They were indeed. Really nice, good humoured people, it was a real pleasure to meet them! Normally I ride alone because most people are not such good company when dealing with the travails of life on the road, but these guys were ace. I'm hoping they'll come up to Thailand for a ride soon, although fortunately/unfortunately they are gainfully employed which means they might have to wait a while for their next set of holidays to roll around... 

[Tym]

Great now apocolpse now is playing in my heed. 

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

On 17/05/2022 at 10:55, Grace (BikeHedonia) said:

They were indeed. Really nice, good humoured people, it was a real pleasure to meet them! Normally I ride alone because most people are not such good company when dealing with the travails of life on the road, but these guys were ace. I'm hoping they'll come up to Thailand for a ride soon, although fortunately/unfortunately they are gainfully employed which means they might have to wait a while for their next set of holidays to roll around... 

Thats nice to hear. I agree completely. Most people seem to manage about 3 days before they start getting narky about irrelevant stuff. I generally state right at the outset that sometimes its good to break away from the group to ride on your tod for a bit as it stops things getting stale.

But really its to stop tensions between folk who are getting on each other’s pip!

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

We got the EC300 back after its rebuild, I'm beyond stoked. Unfortunately it's raining for the next ten days/eternity so I am doing admin for the upcoming tour season.

But how gorgeous is this beastie?

 

[Grace (BikeHedonia)]

But I digress. 

In Cambodia there were magnificent abandoned ruins, with no-one around. I didn't go to Angkor Wat, I just rode alone along the King's Road... temple ruins to temple ruins. Highly recommend. 

This is my favourite video from my whole month in Cambodia. I just wanted to show you this place. It was incredible. 

I did, however, receive a complaint that the dirt roads featured were too good, and thus the videos were boring. 

Next time I'll make sure I only film the quicksand sections   Quicksand temple quicksand temple!

Grace