Famous Thai Youtuber Paddy Doyle tried cycling from north to south. Gave up at Pichit. He was riding a heavy bike with a low seat setting as you can see. Probably better to plan better, practice for 6 months and use a faster bike.

 

Have you ever wanted to do this?

 

 

I have bicycle toured in SE Asia and Southern Thailand. It's not easy. I just watched part 4 of Paddy's trip and have not seen part 5. Filming whilst riding will make it even more difficult and time consuming. The bike looked fine and I used a mountain bike then hybrid for my rides. It's not a race and one has to accept that it will never be easy if pushing to cover large distances each day. I thought Paddy was being a bit ambitious in his time frame. 60-80kms per day is doable (my last long distance ride was in Myanmar in 2016 from Kawthoung to Mawlyamine at age 49 and it was tough on me). Occasional days were 100kms to get between towns with places to stay - no issue with that in Thailand. 

When I heard a few weeks ago that Paddy was doing this, my immediate thought was how tough it will be mentally on him, not just physically. So different to motorcycle touring.

Long distance cycle touring is for adventure and achievement and experiences. I hope Paddy tries again at a slower pace. 

Maybe Paddy could look up "Ed Pratt" on YouTube for inspiration. Ed solo unicycled much of the world over a number of recent years. Some very remote and harsh conditions.

 

A little more experience, higher seat height to help his knees, and try in December/January to ensure no unusual (El Niño) heatwave and he should be able to do it.  

29 minutes ago, soi3eddie said:

I have bicycle toured in SE Asia and Southern Thailand. It's not easy. I just watched part 4 of Paddy's trip and have not seen part 5. Filming whilst riding will make it even more difficult and time consuming. The bike looked fine and I used a mountain bike then hybrid for my rides. It's not a race and one has to accept that it will never be easy if pushing to cover large distances each day. I thought Paddy was being a bit ambitious in his time frame. 60-80kms per day is doable (my last long distance ride was in Myanmar in 2016 from Kawthoung to Mawlyamine at age 49 and it was tough on me). Occasional days were 100kms to get between towns with places to stay - no issue with that in Thailand. 

When I heard a few weeks ago that Paddy was doing this, my immediate thought was how tough it will be mentally on him, not just physically. So different to motorcycle touring.

Long distance cycle touring is for adventure and achievement and experiences. I hope Paddy tries again at a slower pace. 

Maybe Paddy could look up "Ed Pratt" on YouTube for inspiration. Ed solo unicycled much of the world over a number of recent years. Some very remote and harsh conditions.

 

Paddy talks about him in video 5. He averaged 11kph. Should be doing 22kph.

Mae Sot to Nakhon Phanom be better or just go along mekong or do ruins to ruins Phanom Rung to Sukhothai etc

58 minutes ago, Dolf said:

Famous Thai Youtuber Paddy Doyle tried cycling from north to south. Gave up at Pichit. He was riding a heavy bike with a low seat setting as you can see. Probably better to plan better, practice for 6 months and use a faster bike.

 

Have you ever wanted to do this?

 

 

Only mad dogs and Englishmen would cycle outdoors during the summer hot season. Not to mention being on the road in Thailand moving at 11kph when the average vehicle is moving at over 60kph and with the average driver not knowing where the brake pedal is. What could possibly go wrong? 

Only a fool would ride a bicycle in Thailand, especially on the main roads. Much better and faster in a car. 

Just now, Neeranam said:

Only a fool would ride a bicycle in Thailand, especially on the main roads. Much better and faster in a car. 

What I thought in the first episode. Lots of trucks. He picked highways. Super dangerous.

Is he super famous? Never heard of him, neither has my wife or kids.  

1 hour ago, Dolf said:

Have you ever wanted to do this?

 

Yes, done it many times.

I just never put it on the YouTubes.

10 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

Is he super famous? Never heard of him, neither has my wife or kids.  

He is fairly famous. Not like Mark Weins but top 5 Thai vloggers for the English market. He went to 78 provinces on a scooter.

 

He is a bit of a wimp but he does good camera work.

19 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

Is he super famous? Never heard of him, neither has my wife or kids.  

 

I thought this was another "Paddy" - Aussie YouTuber who speaks almost perfect Thai. He's ok, I like his channel.

1 minute ago, Celsius said:

 

I thought this was another "Paddy" - Aussie YouTuber who speaks almost perfect Thai. He's ok, I like his channel.

He's OK but I think his Thai is not so good, but better than a year ago. 

31 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

Only a fool would ride a bicycle in Thailand, especially on the main roads. Much better and faster in a car. 

I've biked over 100k in Thailand over the years. It's bad but not as bad as people think.

He didn't have to give up if we would choose a  (much) longer route which took you off the highway. He made it sound like you must use that highway but in reality there are plenty of other roads available.

 

Anyways, it was a bad idea given his fitness levels. Taking 10 hours to cover less than 100k is crazy and guarantees you'll be riding in the midday heat. He should just be focusing on getting up some reasonable level of fitness and he can easily tackle this next winter.

9 minutes ago, NorthernRyland said:

He didn't have to give up if we would choose a  (much) longer route which took you off the highway. He made it sound like you must use that highway but in reality there are plenty of other roads available.

 

Anyways, it was a bad idea given his fitness levels. Taking 10 hours to cover less than 100k is crazy and guarantees you'll be riding in the midday heat. He should just be focusing on getting up some reasonable level of fitness and he can easily tackle this next winter.

I think Hua Hin to border would suit. 1000km lots of back roads.

I don't want to sound overly critical, but this bloke doesn't strike me as the sharpest tool in the shed. Lots of enthusiasm, but not enough critical thinking skills. It's one thing to venture off using a conventional form of transport to reach a hotel in the countryside of a rural area in a developing country and then make a happy little vlog about it. But it's a completely different thing to go long distances on a bicycle on dangerous open roads, without any said experience, with only a moderate level of physical fitness, and not much understanding of the challenges you will face driving cross country in a very extreme climate and challenging environment. 

 

I think the take away from this is, if you're going to do something as difficult as this, that you do your research first, get proper advice from people with good experience who have already done what you're attempting to do, and just be more prepared in general. 

 

He was quite brazen and unprepared and I would say the silver lining for him from his experience is that he wasn't accidentally taken out by one of those big trucks. At least he lived to tell about it and he can still go back another time and give it another go if that's what he really wants to do.

 

I've also driven some fair distances myself on the highways in Thailand on a proper motorcycle, while wearing full gear and, given the high volume of big trucks, the heat and all the dust coming off the trucks and going in your face, it's still no cakewalk. 

 

I would have never ventured out to do what he tried to do. There are much safer, more exciting, and far more interesting ways to challenge yourself physically with a travel adventure. Hopefully he's better prepared and chooses something more rewarding for his next go. 

 I too follow Paddy, and he has very strong legs to do all the mountain hiking he has done, but I agree with everyone else, that he was not physically ready for this bike ride. Yes, his seat was way too low, and had almost no cycling experience. I am 63 and ride about 40km a day 5 days a week, have never done super long distance but have done 90km with hills and I know how tired my body was. I ride in the morning before it gets too hot. I was actually amazed that he did as well as he did. I never would have thought a guy with basically no cycling experience could ride over 100km on his second day. I was rooting for him but had my doubts that he could accomplish his goal, maybe if he does more research and training he could try it and succeed in cooler weather and off the big roads, but I have to give him credit for attempting such a challenge. 

3 minutes ago, Tedly said:

 I too follow Paddy, and he has very strong legs to do all the mountain hiking he has done, but I agree with everyone else, that he was not physically ready for this bike ride. Yes, his seat was way too low, and had almost no cycling experience. I am 63 and ride about 40km a day 5 days a week, have never done super long distance but have done 90km with hills and I know how tired my body was. I ride in the morning before it gets too hot. I was actually amazed that he did as well as he did. I never would have thought a guy with basically no cycling experience could ride over 100km on his second day. I was rooting for him but had my doubts that he could accomplish his goal, maybe if he does more research and training he could try it and succeed in cooler weather and off the big roads, but I have to give him credit for attempting such a challenge. 

How much would a bike like his cost in Thailand?

2 minutes ago, Dolf said:

How much would a bike like his cost in Thailand?

Sorry, I have no idea. I would make a guess at about 10,000 baht, but again, just an off the top of my head guess.

Never look how many famous cyclists have died in these roads , No Thanks 

He struck me as a bit of a scatter brain trying to make a quick buck on YT with all of his antics, a jack of all trades and master of none. This time no respect for cyclists or what they know shown. Can just imagine the smile on his face at the Taylor Swift concert.

1 minute ago, Hamus Yaigh said:

He struck me as a bit of a scatter brain trying to make a quick buck on YT with all of his antics, a jack of all trades and master of none. This time no respect for cyclists or what they know shown. Can just imagine the smile on his face at the Taylor Swift concert.

Well he gave up teaching to do Youtube. These guys need to keep making videos. Poor planning and no idea how to ride. 

3 hours ago, Dolf said:

Well he gave up teaching to do Youtube. These guys need to keep making videos. Poor planning and no idea how to ride. 

 

It's really only about the money with many of these video creators who depend on social media to sustain a living. They constantly need to feed the content-beast to remain solvent and presumably he saw this as an easy way to pump out 10 videos (or more) with lots of "spews for views", which would otherwise require him coming up with 10 separate, new and interesting ideas. So he was solidly determined to do this journey, hoping for a nice ka-ching from it. 

 

Otherwise, he could have stayed curled up comfortably with his girlfriend in Bangkok, whilst never having to venture out to do something as dangerous as this. It's the perceived fame and proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that often pushes people like him to take such big risks, and with quite a few of them ending in disaster. 

 

If there is any doubt about what I am saying then please note that, even under duress, he manages to perform a 3 minute advertisement in his video (starting at the 6 minute mark) for some eSIM data roaming service, whilst hoping to get an additional whack every time some viewer signs up for the service using his discount code. 

 

Truth is, much of what these YouTubers push as being the great "sponsors" of their channel are often an even greater disservice to their viewers. I assume many of the YouTubers truly know very little about the integrity (or lack of) of their sponsors. 

 

The poor ratings and reviews on the TrustPilot link below for the service he was flogging speaks for itself in terms of the quality and reliability of the services they offer:

 

https://trustpilot.com/review/airalo.com

I get a sore ring cycling once around the golf course perimeter, so long distance stuff isn't for me.

15 minutes ago, jesimps said:

I get a sore ring cycling once around the golf course perimeter, so long distance stuff isn't for me.

Bit too much info there...

I would have been more impressed if he had tried it on one of these.

 

Good on him for giving it a go. He'll learn from his experience and do better next time.

 

I used to bicycle tour a lot in Australia, often riding several thousand kilometres at a time. We rode Melbourne to Brisbane and back again (3,000 km), Brisbane to the top of Cape York (2,000 km) etc. etc.

 

However, we used to travel much lighter using typical road bikes and no more than 5 kg of gear. You don't really need to take much. Typically we would cover 120 - 130 km per day and sleep under bridges or by the side of the road. Sometimes we'd stay at a caravan park for a special treat. Obviously in Thailand it is cheap enough to stay in hotels and not have to cook your own food.

 

Riding with a friend helps because you can compete and motivate each other. You can also slip-stream each other making things a bit easier. You might have different, but complementing, styles. For example, I liked to leave early in the morning and would force my friend to get up early. My friend would force me to ride in the late afternoon when I would get lazy. Of course, after a 10 days or so we couldn't stand each other and might ride the day separately, at our own pace, and meet up at night at an agreed location.

 

Riding in hot and boring conditions is hard and normally we would leave early (5:00 am), rest between 12:00 - 4:00 pm and ride a few hours in the late afternoon. Getting food poisoning, or other illness, makes things even more discouraging, but normally doesn't stop you from riding.  If there are two of you, there is less talk about quiting becasue you know it will affect the other person. You also don't want to be the first to admit you're in trouble.

 

It's mainly physcological. Daily motivators include stopping for food/drink, resting near water under shady trees, reaching a decent camping place, stopping at a public swimming pool/river etc. Sometimes, on really hot days, we might spend the afternoon in an air conditioned public library or shopping centre. You really want to avoid riding when it is >35 degrees because it will suck the life out of you.

 

I think route planning would be important in this case, to try and avoid days and days of riding hot, flat and boring highways; and to try and take advantage of any prevailing winds. In Australia, we would normally head for the mountains during summer and head for the tropics in winter.

 

Maybe the rider should try splitting the journey into two separate trips and try to find alternative routes even if they are much longer. The simplest way to lsucceed would be to find someone who is like minded and not cycle alone.

It might have been a safer journey if he had tried this stunt in 1905.

Much cooler back then, too, without the impacts of Global Warming and the increased effects of the present-day BURNING SEASONS.

 

Maybe he should have taken along a large tank of Oxygen and Mask?

 

 

I watched part of this video.

Quite interesting, actually.

But, it would be safer to be fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, maybe.....me thinks.