This is what winter has looked like for Jan Feyser, Robert Schulz and Max Kruse from team Ronny-Racing this year. Traveling Asia for 6 months, building trails, shredding bikes in the jungle and nothing but good times!!!!
If you think about a trip to Thailand, you probably think of pretty beaches, cheap food, and crazy parties. Well, you will find all this, but let me tell you there is a whole lot more!
Before our first trip to Thailand, when Loose Riders boss Tim told us about a new Bike Park in the mountains of Chiang Mai and invited us for a trip to check out the place, we had never even heard about mountain biking in Thailand.
When we first got to Thailand in early 2017, we were completely blown away by the Thai mountain bike scene, the trails they have, the unlimited potential this place has to offer, and of course by the beauty of the whole country itself. Riding trails in the wildest and deepest rainforests was an all new and completely unreal experience and we couldn't get enough of it.
At this time, the Bike Park Chiang Mai was still in construction and we quickly realised they are a great crew with great visions and the resources to make a project like this happen, but also that there was quite a big lack of experience with building trails, jumps and everything else a good Bike Park needs.
And so, in October we came back with the mission to build some sick jungle tracks, shaping the Jump Park and building a new Pumptrack for Bike Park Chiang Mai. First part of the job were the basics, finding the right areas which are accessible for uplifts and then fighting through the deep jungle to mark the trails.
Because of the fact that we were not allowed to use any heavy machinery in the woods, we were forced to get creative.
Of course, we wanted some proper tracks with jumps, berms rock gardens etc... but moving tons of rocks and dirt for a single take off and landing?! We would still be out there without even a single trail finished. So we tried to connect as many natural features like big rocks, gullies and rock gardens to one sick track to save us time and work on just moving dirt and the result was just sick.
With the crazy, sticky clay, and communicating with excavator operators that did not speak English, shaping Thailands first propper Jump Park was quite a challenging experience for all of us.
Thailand is opening up more and more for the mountain bike scene and it's more than worth it to bring your bike on your next trip!!!
Massive THANK YOU goes out to the crew at Bike Park Chiang Mai, Loose Riders Global Alliance and all our other Sponsors for making all this possible... you are the best!!!!
Chiang Mai plenty of DH that's well covered on TF etc ......for trail riding the people to talk too are Mojo adventures
mojo-adventures.com
Trails up north were okay, but very lonely without the influx of travelers that normally are riding there.