coldfusionPaul

Be aware that garmin power buttons tend to fall apart, I've had this happen to 810 and 1000 edge models. Cycling friends have seen this with the 5xx models as well. In the US you can walk in and get a replacement but here it's "at least" 5k THB AND a 3 months wait.

Wahoo or bryton seem ok/cheaper replacements, maybe even iGSPORTS though not sure about live segments (I've been using their cadence sensor, lasted 3++ years).

most decent bike shops will stock them & yes you shouldn't pay much more than 1700 THB. rit's bike shop up in ban na, nakorn nayok sells them for 1600 but shipping will probably make same price as everywhere else.

that said, i've given up on continental 4000, QC/QA seems spotty. i'e gotten a few that lasted past 7k km & a bunch more (>25%) that didn't make it to 1k km. i didn't notice at first but the ones that died prematurely all had sidewalls that split. from what i've read that seems to be a common issue with those tires these days.

Before i had a properly sized bike fitted to me, i had several serious shoulder and wrist issues. Spent months in and out of PT. Once I had a properly sized bike fitted by a professional, all those problems went away.

If you haven't already, I suggest getting your bike fitted once you recover. I'd also double-check that setup if the fitter and LBS servicing your bike are different (speaking from experience ). 

geez i hadn't realized it was that long ago. see the following, again give route 304 bangkok-to-chachoengsaoa a miss.

bangkok-to-pattaya

Sukumwit road is hell it's whole length. Route 304 (suwinthawong road) is under construction in several spots between bangkok & chachoengsao. Best to avoid both (though once you get past chachoengsao route 304 is ok).

Below is a recent ride from Eastern Bangkok down to Rayong. It avoids the 304 construction and gets you into chachoengsao and headed south towards Pattaya. I did several rides to Pattaya but a few years back--I'll need to dig out of archives and post here. You should be able use those to figure out a route into Pattaya.

It's a long hard slog because of the 304 construction. Averaging 25km/hr isn't impossible but I'd never try that much of a ride at that avg speed on a fixie (or even a mountain bike). There are some semi-steep hills between Bangkok and Pattaya (conveniently near the end of the ride) plus the wind is going eat your soul or try to murder you.

There's always something everywhere in thailand, I wouldn't be discouraged traveling in rural areas.

Strava almost chanthaburi ride

you can't go wrong with a Topeak 'joe blow'. has an "accurate" pressure gauge . "smart" head (both presta & schrader) and lasts a really long time (i've had mine for >15 years & just replaced the head last year).

world bike? i switched from giant to specialized because of world bike (though i still buy my top peak stuff from them, no choice).

yeah world bike is expensive but they're not that expensive & i've never seen them screw somebody over that much. doesn't sound quite right. there must be other items on the bill. if not new wheels, maybe spokes, brake pads, etc.?

There hasn't been a Giant dealer on Ramintra in years. Perhaps you're thinking of another shop? 

8k sounds quite high for tires. As the other posted suggested, did they change wheels to accommodate tubeless tires? Did the previous ones use tubes? In any case the bill should be itemized.

if you have a "modern" samsung phone it should come with an "S health" app that taps into fatsecret.com database (or i guess you can install via google play it if not). while it doesn't have a set of complete thai food data, it has quite a lot & you can add your own customized foods--a bit of googling will usually turn up nutritional info that comes "close enough" to the missing ones.

the cycling "hype" has been going on for a decade now and is about a billion baht industry. for the most part it's not just the rich but lower/middle-middle class folks. you can find decent cycling shops & riding groups in the middle of nowhereburi.

standard safety advice for cyclist groups is to "take the lane" which is what they appear to be doing most of the time.

i've seen very few cycling groups do pace lines correctly here, this is actually far from the worst (think brownian motion). because of that i've given up riding w/groups years ago, scared the crap out of me too many times.

when i have to ride highways i tend to stick to the shoulder as best i can, which goes against best practice though i've never been dinged by cars doing that. i have been dinged by side view mirrors a number of times in bangkok, 90% on hathairat road where passing on the left seems to be a thing.

in any case, motorized vehicles need to drive more responsibly/defensively here. driver behavior pose far greater danger to cyclists than cyclists' own behavior.

can anyone suggest any thai language sites/youtube videos for interval training. my google-<deleted> hasn't turned up anything.

thanks.

no its not "a relatively simple task" to go from 1:50K to 1:4K. the difference in the amount of data is extreme & pretty expensive to gather. who's going to go out & gather 1:4K geology or soil data? those agencies barely had budget to do 1:50K. in most cases 1:50K is fine for planning & exploration, you'd only need larger scales once you found something interesting.

and no you cannot simply print any scale you want, if the data was gathered at 1:50k then that's what it is. you can zoom in 1:1 but it would be all wrong--dangerous in the hands of geographically illiterate people.

or just have it delivered.

http://www.wishbeer.com/Craft-Cider-s/1847.htm

america for its fantastic craft beers. rogue, deutsches, fat tire, prairie, anderson valley, etc.

i can make a plain loaf of bread in my bread machine for 15-16 baht (not counting the cost of the machine & electricity). however i only use it for the kneading/proofing/rises--it has way more patience than i do. i finish final shaping/kneading myself & then into the oven. i only ever use the full knead/bake cycle for bread that no one will ever see (like stuffing,etc.), the severin model i have (also verasu) leaves an ugly anus in the bread loaf. i also use it for pizza, rolls, & baguettes.

cycling round trip bangkok-ongkharak (nakhon nayok): high 39, low 25, avg 32.2, wind roaring out of the south. burnt to a crisp.

going to get even hotter, 2015 is predicted to be an el nino year.

http://www.sdlwonga.com/ i have a couple of their stock jerseys & they are ok.

most of the 2 years spent looking for AF447 was waiting for permission from various governments to conduct the search. another large chunk of that time was wasted because the search model was based on the assumption that the blackbox pinger was actually working. once they re-worked the model, it took about 6 days to find the wreck.

the "bike path" along the ramindra expressway isn't what i would call "standard". it runs on the sidewalk in some places where its blocked by signs & at the start near ramindra road, by plant vendors for a KM or so. i see more cyclists on the main road than on that "bike path".

i think nong chok district is one of the more bike friendly places in bangkok. wide road shoulders along many roads (well until the big floods, many are now paved over), many food/coffee shops have places to park your bicycle, police on your side, etc. i chalk that up to the local bike clubs who have waged a long campaign for acceptance of cycling.

i ride a bit (>10,000 KM a year for the last 6 years) & i feel relatively safe except in bangkok--i expect bangkok drivers to act stupidly & i ride accordingly, that rule's kept me safe so far. my biggest worry is the shape of rural roads. i ride out of bangkok along the canals & there's no telling when one canal-side road will be "under construction" or pulverized by 10-wheeled trucks.

cycling is quite popular now & has a certain chic to it. i imagine things will only get better in the future.

just some more FYI, i've found that road shoulders are usually in way better condition than the actual roads (if they were paved properly in the first place). they are hardly used by anything heavier than a motorcycle & if you get the "line" right, no or very little debris either.

i've cycled from bangkok along route 304 up past phanom sarakham dozens of times (just did a ride a few weeks ago along that route on the way out to sa kaew). its no more dangerous than any other road in thailand & i personally feel safer along that road (or route 305 up to nakhon nayok) than any road in bangkok--bangkok drivers' utter sense of entitlement makes them very dangerous. i feel safer once i'm out of bangkok (i'm scared sh*tless the first & last 10km in bangkok on any ride i take).

there are a few bad spots along 304, in particular the intersection with route 319 (just north of phanom sarakham, just before entrance to army base). inbound its downhill with a complicated set of turning lanes (i saw look of surprise on more than a few drivers faces), the outbound road surface is a mess so cyclists have to move over into traffic (asphalt is all buckled up into bike tire eating ruts). plenty of vehicular accidents there. if this accident didn't happen there, then it could have occurred anywhere & was just that, an accident. the cyclists certainly are not to blame.

and just FYI, its very bad form to ride your bike on the sidewalk. sidewalks are for people walking not people riding bicycles.

nope to all of the above for the backend. it actually dates from the early 1990s & won an award from the smithsonian institute for heroic data use. it was really cutting edge when it was first built.

it *used* to run on some big unix boxes & i think ran on basis db s/w (its been quite a while). we tried in vain for several years to directly connect to it from some municipal offices to verify information for tax deadbeats/cheaters but that dept never let go (their data "silo" was more like a medieval castle).

thailand has had some very big & useful databases for more than 20 years now, for instance the national rural database 2 (NRD2C) was a village level db that had everything from population to livestock to basic health data & it was relatively easily available. once that data was married tro village locations you had a really powerful tool for analyzing rural thailand.

thailand's IT sector, even in the government, is really not as bad as some folks seems to think.

wondering if anyone has done a ride to lopburi from nong khae via phachi? i have a basic route:

http://goo.gl/maps/YIlE

but wondering about the state of these roads for a road bike. way back in 2008 i tried nong khae to phachi more or less along the same route but gave up as the road was in a sorry state.

any advice appreciated.

thanks.

http://bicyclethailand.com/bike-stores/

my LBS is pk bikes. good work, reasonable price, not sure about their english.