The bells! The bells! Cycling in central Vietnam

We are heading south through Vietnam, as part of our "sabbatical" - riding around SE Asia (and maybe other countries, tbc) on our tandem (www.badgerandfrog.com). In the past few days we've been following the main artery through Vietnam, the QL1 which runs all the way from the north to the south of the country.

Our experience of Vietnam has been incredible: wonderful people, beautiful countryside, excellent infrastructure, fantastic food, great quality guesthouses - all perfect to make for a great cycle tour.

However, following this arterial road is tough. We are riding a bullet proof Cannondale MT1000 mountain bike from 1999. It handles everything we have thrown at it - has been shoved inside of and on top of planes, vans, buses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyFHnC1mpKE), trains - has been ridden over crazy rough roads, handled biblical rain, lightning, sand, dust, rocks, everything! Despite this, the roads have been hard to handle.

Setting the scene
Let me try to set the scene...

Noise
First: imagine a world where engines stop running after 200 metres. That is, unless you beep your horn. A lot. About every 200 metres.
Second: imagine a world where traffic violations are negated if you beep your horn, before, after, and ideally, during the performance of a crazy manoeuvre.
Third: imagine a world where car, bus, scooter horns are so loud that they temporarily partially deafen you as they rattle pass inches from your nose.
Fourth: imagine a world where if you are a truck or bus driver you are expected to drive like a dangerous lunatic, safe in the knowledge that it is part of your job description, and that other road users will respect you for doing this (I will excuse car and scooter drivers from this category - they are by and large good and respectful drivers), as long as you beep your horn!
Fifth: image a world where this is the norm. Where this is established driving culture.
(Nota bene: I seem bitter about this - but remember I have lived in London, Italy, and Boston (MA) so I'm used to crazy driving, but this is unlike nothing I have ever experienced - yes, even in London.
To add on to this - most guesthouses and hotels back on to this main road. They have poor sound insulation, so you are exposed to the ongoing cacophony 24 hours a day.
And, to add on to this even more, in some cities we have what I can only call "The Communist Alarm Clock" - between 5:00 am and 06:30 am public address systems in the streets blare out music and talking which wakes you up.
The bells the beeellllls!!!

Mud and rubble
Like much of the rest of the country, the road is being constantly developed. It is being dug, widened, re-surfaced, extended - seemingly along it's entire length. We can see where houses that used to line the original road have been simply cut through by the developers - leaving exposed staircases and inner rooms exposed to the elements. Maybe in the near future the road will be wide and perfect and wonderful, but for now, February 2015, we find a muddy, dug up road, that forces us to leap between road and pavement, and rubble, and mud. Despite us having a mountain bike tandem we are finding the bike taking a pummeling, and we've ripped up another tyre yesterday, despite us using the toughest continental touring tyres we could find. 
We can also add sand into this part. This road kind of follows the coast. I say "kind of" because sadly it does not hug the coast, only allowing us infrequent tantalising glimpses of the beautiful coast. However, there is plenty of sand and salt around, just adding to the fun we've found from the mud and rubble.

Pollution
The roads are polluted. Ignoring the heavy manufacture lining the roads, the heavy lorries and buses kick out visible fumes. It's like how I imagine Victorian England rolling into the industrial age. The exhaust fumes from the traffic hang heavy in my lungs and a few days spending 6+ hours in the saddle. There's a description here which just covers the tip of the iceberghttp://climate-journal.asia/motorbikes-make-space-for-bicycles-in-hanoi-vietnam/ .

The result

The traffic forces us to hop between road and the hard shoulder/pavement area. Buses and lorries particularly will overtake at any moment, on a single carriageway, approaching a blind hill - and, as detailed above, as long as they beep their horns, then it's all fine. Yesterday, on top of our usual near misses, we had two very very near misses, once from a bus and once from a lorry forcing us to evacuate the road. That's not so easy on a fully laden tandem, with about 235 kg in total, including the riders.
Here's a video showing the view from the back of our tandem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2thP3LDlKM

Other options?
There really are no other options to get from north to south, without spending weeks finding side roads. That's a shame, as the side roads are truly stunning, but it would take some significant time out of our trip, which will sadly not last forever.

Solution:
So, we will fast forward from our current location, in Qui Nhon (http://badgerandfrog.com/where-on-earth-are-we-now/), thankfully off the QL1 to Ho Chi Min City (ex. Saigon) on the train. This will save us about 8 days and 700 km, and whilst we are disappointed that we will not complete this part of the jounrey, the combination of saving about 8 days, avoiding the pollution, and avoiding the crazy driving, make it an absolute no brainer.

We are very much looking forward to being able to enjoy this awesome landscape again!

$6 of pure bike saddle heaven!

Laos does not have a lot of bike shops. There are even fewer bike shops as we know them in the US or the UK. Most people if they have a bike problem will travel over to Thailand for a day and get spares and workamnship out of the country.
There are plenty of shops selling bikes - but these are of the lower end Thai and Chinese commuter bikes, and they do not sell spares.
My seat has been killing me, I had started with putting one flip flop on it, and then it become two, then three, and then the flip flops started wearing out.
I tried Lydie's lady-specific saddle which was a great improvement - but I felt guilty about her having to use my old terrible saddle.

The old saddle, with flip flop cushioning

And then something wonderful happened. As we were riding into Thakhek, Laos we started to see kids riding fixies rather than the standard Thai Turbo-brand bikes. The area is very flat and there is a real bike culture there.

We found several bike shops selling fixies in all colours of the rainbow. And best of all there was a bucket of saddles in the back of the shop. Nasty, cheap, ugly, wonderful, beautiful saddles. Literally, the only saddles I had seen for sale in all of Laos.

A bike shop in Laos!!

I dug and I explored in that box, long and hard. Eventually I decided on a what Lydie has described as the biggest saddle she has ever seen. Poorly made, plasticky, with a cut out down the middle and some rudimentary springs at the back.

And the price - a magical 45,000 Kip - that's under $6 - NICE!

My new saddle! Huuuuge.

I was fearful as I removed the flip flop saddle off and put this new one on - but it has been amazing. It has revolutionized my riding life. I still get discomfort, but it starts later - after about 15-20 km, and doesn't reach that level of intensity which was forcing me to change my position every minute, and making the cycling a misery!

Long may it last.

In fact - if I could, I would happily buy a new saddle at $6 every day if I could guarantee this level of cycling happiness - it would be worth it!

So, my tips for cycle touring saddles:
     Make it big
     Make it springy
     Make it with a central cut out

Breakfast snacks anyone? Laos-style

Meaty breakfast treat?

This morning we were looking for breakfast in Thakhek, Laos. We have got into a routine of having omelette and bread and were looking for some different options. We saw a small cart outside a restaurant with some interesting looking meaty snacks on them and went to have a look.
Under scrutiny one of them turned out to be dried crispy frogs and another dried crispy grasshoppers.
#NoThanks #I'llStickWithMyOmlette

Crispy dried frogs

Dried grasshoppers

The art of finding a comfortable saddle

I am one of the group of cyclists that has severe problems finding a comfortable saddle. Any ride leads to discomfort within an hour. I have tried a huge range of saddles, with varying levels of success.

Currently, on my race bike I ride a Fizik Arione Tri 2 (http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/components/saddles/product/review-fizik-arione-tri-2-saddle-30846/) - this is the most comfortable saddle I have been able to find, although I have it at a crazy angle, at about a slope of 25% to the front. Looks odd - but it works.

It's a problem. Okay, I'm big boned for a cyclist, and have wide sit bones (http://yoga.about.com/od/howtospeakyoga/g/SitBones.htm http://www.artscyclery.com/learningcenter/measuresitbonewidth.html) but how can this still be a problem after all this time? How can there not be a saddle that suits me, someone who has done a lot of miles on different bikes? Clearly, I am a lot of kg heavier than the average pro cyclist whom most saddles are aimed at, but this situation seems crazy to me.

And it's not just me - many pros suffer from the same problem. One recent well publicized issue was with seasoned pro Ivan Basso who missed the 2013 Giro D'Italia with a golf-ball sized sore and ended up with a month off the bike - an absolute disaster for a professional bike rider.

I've tried a lot of saddles - The Specialized Romin, Brooks, the list goes on, but I have yet to find something that really suits me on any bike,

Fast forward to now and I have a huge problem. Currently I am riding a fully laden touring tandem around southeast Asia,

Fully loaded tandem touring

Take those pains and multiply them a hundred-fold. I'm not underestimating here. The weight of our tandem, with both of us on board must be over 250kg. As captain (http://sheldonbrown.com/tandem.html) I am responsible for steering and holding the weight of the bike in a straight line, along with avoiding road debris (glass, sharp rocks etc) and navigating and tricky issues. All the weight seems to be multiplied onto my saddle and gives me so much grief I cannot describe.

There is a routine that we are into. For the first 10 minutes the bike seems heavy and twitchy, and the legs are cold and stiff to get going. After a while we get into a routine. Then the hands start to get sore - holding all that weight on standard road handle bars is tricky and not for the faint of heart. The saddle I have chosen is the standard one that came with my bottom of the line Claud Butler mountain bike in 2006 (150GBP new for the entire bike - similar to this http://www.evanscycles.com/products/claud-butler/cape-wrath-2005-mountain-bike-ec004575?style=5801) - it is a heavily padded wide saddle, and in my tests prior to leaving on this Asia tour, it was the only one that was comfortable over 50 miles. After about 30 minutes the bottom feels something - a quick shuffle and it's ok again for 10 minutes. Then the time between shuffles gets shorter and shorter, decreasing to me needing to perform the bottom shuffle every minute. After more than 4 hours on the bike, it becomes extremely painful all the time, with the only relief coming from a short break. This limits the distance we can ride, and the pain that I am in after riding is done.

Interestingly, despite the angle of the saddle being tipped crazy forward (25-30% - I have played with this a lot), the pain really goes away when cycling up hill. Maybe it's not going away, and then focus shifts to the legs as we struggle to get that beast of a bike up another hill.

Another approach I have tried, is simply going slowly. Going hard builds lactate - I find this on my road bike - when I sprint, the lactate in the big muscles - backside,  quads, hamstrings - builds up quickly - and the pain comes in more quickly. By going slowly I am playing with a delicate (!!) equation - there will be a longer time in the saddle - so more time for the ass to hurt over. By going quicker, there is less time for the ass to hurt, but the lactate builds up quicker, and the pain comes on quicker. When the pain comes on more, more breaks are required and ends with a longer ride distance.

The last few days, as we have gone over the 1000 mile mark in this trip, the pain day by day has come on quicker and harder, and I have to do something. I have been imagining new designs saddles as I am riding along.

I have ordered a saddle from kickstarter that will be arriving to me in 2 months time - the Infinty Saddle (http://www.infinitycycling.us/) - this is a new approach to saddle design and does away with padding and uses a broad frame - when this arrives I will be providing a review.

Infinity Saddle

Of course, the Sheldon Brown site provides an excellent review of saddles (http://sheldonbrown.com/saddles.html) and the one that I am most interested in with my experience right now is the concept of split saddles - they are cast aside by him, but there are plenty out there - with names such as Spongy Wonder, and Moon saddle (http://www.bikeforums.net/fifty-plus-50/150921-has-anyone-used-spongy-wonder-spiderflex-seat.html). The reason they are rejected from the racing world seems to be due to the nose being essential for control, leaning and steering. This may not be a problem on a touring tandem.

Spongy Wonder

And then of course there is the Brooks Champion Saddle - a sprung leather saddle that is well loved by many tourers.

Brooks Champion Flyer

I will be trying different saddles as I can get my hands on them - at my current state I sill be struggling to continue riding in a few weeks so need to do something drastic.

I've snapped a few images of some saddles that I've seen on working bikes in Thailand - how these guys can continue pedaling working bikes and pedocabs just defeats me! Maybe I am being soft and need to "Zitto e Pedala" - shut up and pedal!

PedoCab in Thailand

Close up of PedoCab saddle, Thailand

That's gotta hurt! Thailand

For me it has now reached desperation point. Today as we were cycling along I saw a manky discarded broken flip flop on the side of the road. I jumped off the bike, ran down the road, picked it up and put it on my saddle. The result? Heaven!!

It is now taped on to my saddle, and working so much better than without. I don't know how long it will last, and if the comfort level will stay, but I will be experimenting as much as I can to find something acceptable in the forthcoming months - watch this space!

The discarded flip flop taped onto my saddle

Pleasure! Relief! Ahhhhh!