Motorcycle Touring in Isaan?

[FolkGuitar]

I'd like to spend 3-4 days riding the roads through Isaan. I can find plenty of information about cities and towns but very little about good motorbike routes to explore.

Any bike riders (pedal or motor) who have some favorite routes and willing to share? Long ones are great, and I can always join together several short ones if it comes to that. We prefer mountain travel, but riding along the rivers is nice too.

GPS co-ordinates, OSM routes, or even just the Rt numbers from point A to point B will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[DILLIGAD]

Take a look at GT riders site

[malathione]

crazyguyonabike has several trip reports based on cycling.

Personally, I like to ride along the Mekong. Good riding (for a bicycle) all the way from Loei to Ubon, lots of side roads to explore.

[Arwon]

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/locales/?locale_id=211&doctype=journal

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

[Denim]

Been all over Isaan on motorcycles. Most of the roads are pretty straight and boring. One of my favorites heads to just north of Mukdahan between two ridges of hills. Lots of nice sweeping bends. Forget road number....will look it up.

[FolkGuitar]

Thanks for the info, folks. I appreciate it.

[NightRider70]

Where will you start and end?

[FolkGuitar]

Where will you start and end?

We'll start and finish in Chiang Mai. The bike we'll use is a Sport Touring style with hybrid tires so bad dirt roads are no trouble at all. We don't care much for visiting museums or such, but do enjoy the occasional ancient ruin. Mostly, we just want to ride... 6-8 hours a day is no problem for us, and we prefer to stay at higher elevations if possible. I realize this will be a very different ride from our last one along the Burmese border between Doi Ang Khan and Tachilek, spending time exploring roads north of Mae Salong. THAT was a nice 4-day wander around the region. I'm not a knee-dragger on trips like these. We're sight-seeing, not racing, but I do enjoy the twisties too.

Right now the plan is to ride to Phitsanulok the first day, then ride east through the National Parks towards Khon Kaen then north to Udon Thai on the second day. By then I'm afraid I'm out of mountains, so well just continue north to Nong Khai, then follow the river around towards Loei... I can see all the major roads for these routes, but I'm looking to hear about some smaller roads that the bike riders prefer.

I've got a Garmin Zumo 600 GPS that we've used for years loaded with a very good (and recent!) OSM map, so it will be no problem to plan out several different routes in 'BaseCamp' and upload them to the device so we can have a few different choices when we see what the roads actually look like. And then we'll pray....

[NightRider70]

Skip Khon Kaen->Udon Thani->Nong Khai if you intend to take the big road, it is super boring.

After you get to Loei, ride north to Chiang Khan, it is a odd little town. Then follow Laos border west and north into Nan. 1268 is a cool ride.

[FolkGuitar]

Skip Khon Kaen->Udon Thani->Nong Khai if you intend to take the big road, it is super boring.

After you get to Loei, ride north to Chiang Khan, it is a odd little town. Then follow Laos border west and north into Nan. 1268 is a cool ride.

We've spent a bit of time riding along the roads around Nan, Bo Klua, etc. and love 'em. We've done two 3-day trips around that area. Along with the mountains between Doi Ang Kahn and Tachilek, Nan roads are favorites. But this time we want to explore Isaan. While we prefer mountain riding, I realize that this trip we just aren't going to get much of it, other than perhaps Phitsanulok to Loei or perhaps Phitsanulok to Khon Kaen, so maybe just a few hours of it. I can deal with riding along the Mekong for a few hours... Different, but might be pleasant. As I said before, we aren't looking to bury our pegs on this trip. We're going for the country-side sightseeing. Meditative rather than Exciting. Maybe find some dirt roads to explore?

[fang37]

Don't forget Fang.

There are many lady-boys just waiting to PLEASE YOU!

[villagefarang]

I would probably do Chiang Kham to Chiang Khan hugging the border as much as you can. Alternatively some of the 12 is not bad and if you like remote parks you could take a side trip up to Phu Hin Rong Kla National Park. Much of Isaan is not very photogenic, however. Below is a map of mine.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z88c0z2p2SyE.kOtG5vv2AxY8&usp=sharing

[FolkGuitar]

My thanks to all of you for your suggestions. (Fang37... you're gonna have to sit this one out...)

Villagefarang, your map is great. What software do you use for it. It doesn't look like Garmin BaseCamp. I think we'll use the eastern half of your route for some of our ride.

[villagefarang]

I drew up the map on Google Maps after we got back and posted it on my blog. I like to go old school with maps and roadsigns when we are on the road but I do look at Google Earth before we start a trip. I don’t like a machine telling me every turn to make. That takes away much of the adventure for me.

[FolkGuitar]

I drew up the map on Google Maps after we got back and posted it on my blog. I like to go old school with maps and roadsigns when we are on the road but I do look at Google Earth before we start a trip. I don’t like a machine telling me every turn to make. That takes away much of the adventure for me.

We usually wind up using it much more in reverse than on the go. Not being able to read Thai, I find general roads I want to take while still at home and mark them as 'via points' rather than turn-by-turn directions somewhere. I'll mark the towns that we know have places to sleep by the name of the hotel/guest house. Then, at the end of the afternoon and tired, I can just have the GPS figure out where we are, which is the closest guest house or hotel, and it will show us the quickest way to get there. Often, the dirt roads we take aren't on the maps. But the GPS lays down a track of where we have been, and that's what gets downloaded back to the computer, and I can send that to Open Street Map so that the dirt roads get added to the OSM maps. A lot of folks are contributing to OSM in Thailand these days, especially the dirt-bike riders, so the maps are becoming better and better!

[villagefarang]

I have a friend who is really into contributing to OSM but it really isn't my thing. For someone who had a lifelong interest in maps, this new technology has made it easy for him to get involved in something he really loves.

[FolkGuitar]

I have a friend who is really into contributing to OSM but it really isn't my thing. For someone who had a lifelong interest in maps, this new technology has made it easy for him to get involved in something he really loves.

It's the best thing that's happened in the Map world in a long time. Previously those of us who enjoy maps used a (then) free program called 'OziExplorer.' It allowed us to plot tracks on a GPS and overlay them onto maps that we scanned into our computers. Unfortunately, it took rather a long time as we had to carefully match the scale of our input to the scale of our choice of maps that we first had to scan into the computer. As you know, anyone can do this now with GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth as long as you stick to the roads that exist on those programs. OSM has taken this to the next level by allowing us to chart ANY track and add it to a communal map EASILY. ('Easily' being the operative word.) OziExplorer was rather difficult to use back when it first came out. I don't think I was ever able to use it accurately...

We can see some of the differences when we zoom in for a real close-up of the input. When looking at your map overlay, it's very easy to follow your track when driving as your line comes very close to the existing roadway. But imagine that you were hiking instead. In some cases your line is more than 100 meters from the actual road surface. When following a trail on foot, this could become a serious problem... one side or the other of a ravine or river, cliff face, etc. We don't need that accuracy for our driving (hopefully!) but the hikers would need it for their treks. Now, with OSM's ability to import direct GPS routes, and assuming that the GPS is giving an accurate reading, we can reduce that error down to 2-3 meters.

I know that OziExplorer has changed considerably since its inception, but as it's now a paid-for product I don't know to what extent the changes cover. It does seem to be aimed more towards Australian mapping too, rather than world-wide coverage.

[Mr Moo]

Folk Guitar,

One of my favorite runs was from Sakon Nakhon Rt 12 towards Kalasin. You travel a brilliant biking road, pass the Kings summer house (actually off the road) plenty mountain and hills (not bad for "Flat" Issan).

Attached is a picture of my 1996 1500 Kawasaki Vulcan Custom Cruiser parked up near Kings house in 1998.

I am currently in Brazil (lots of good biking here too) but will return to sleepy old Sakon next year.

Keep your face in the wind.