Rider's Corner - Bar, restaurant, rooms & bike rental

[Rider's Corner]

If we had to limit ourselves to one sentence to describe Rider's Corner it would be this:

Bike friendly establishment with good food, good atmosphere and the drive to contribute to the region's motorcycling community.

Opened in December 2010, it was acquired by former Head Chef, Tum and regular visitor, Ian in August 2018. Since then, our focus has been on upgrading the ambience, improving the amenities and generally just refining a good thing. There's new menu items, including signature Chiang Mai dishes, like Khao Soi - and patrons regularly tell us that it's the best they've eaten. We've gone big on coffee... with our own blend of beans which are ground to order. We've upgraded rooms and a big new upgrade of amenities and the bar will be completed before Songkran.

We don't limit ourselves to bar, restaurant, rooms and bike rental. We live and breathe bikes. We ride. We help bike riders who need help.

Call in for a coffee, a beer or just to shoot the breeze around the table of tall tales.

 

[Rider's Corner]

Here's one for the table...... a young rider called in. Do we know anyone who can inspect a bike for the rider, please? Tell us more.

The bike went under a guard rail, is an insurance repair and the rider doesn't feel qualified to sign off on the repair without some advice.

Sure... we will have a look, ride it around the block and tell you what you might want to discuss with the repairer. We aren't experts in repair... but we know when something's bent, etc. We're not in the business of offering guarantees, but we sure as hell will help a biker who needs help with something like this.

 

[Rider's Corner]

and I'd been so careful to not bring sex into it...

I think the issue was one of experience... or the lack of it. That corner is a full 180% hairpin... and there was a loss of control, possibly caused by clutch action - loss of rear grip as a result... BANG, rider down. Yes, incredibly lucky... as she just missed a minibus and ended up further down the mountain than the bike

The skid marks tell the tale.... as they so often do

I was recently on a ride with another relatively inexperienced rider. Three days in, they mentioned to me that they thought they had "mastered the friction zone. I hope I haven't been damaging the bike too much whilst getting the hang of it". Ahhh... please explain. What do you mean. "using the clutch to keep the revs in the right range through the corner". Okaaaaay....

I suggested that rider might want to focus on getting into the right gear BEFORE the corner... that way, avoiding the need to even think about the clutch during the corner. There's more than enough else for a new rider to concentrate on and taking the clutch out of the equation boosts the rest of the deal. I got a nice thank you after that ride.

 

[Rider's Corner]

It's been a long time between updates. We are still here, among a steadily decreasing field of venues in Chiang Mai.

Covid hasn't been kind to us, with mostly empty rooms and patchy demand for motorcycle rentals and even meals. Some days are busy, some aren't. Through it all, we've stayed open most of the time - with some short term shutdowns so Tum and the staff can get out and ride.

We've been busy during Covid. We kept the staff on, we did some renovations, with a new ceiling, changes to the cafe side, new restroom, etc. We've also got a brilliant young teacher working with all staff and family to improve their English language skills.

Early on during the shutdown, we started providing meals for homeless Thais, then, in conjunction with the Ulysses Club Thailand, we cooked near on 15,000 meals for the neediest of the needy in a delivered food program that ran for 83 days.

Menu development has focused on expanding our burger range - with "the Depression Burger" being an incredibly popular addition to the range. This is a burger that came out of the Great Depression in the 1930's, developed on Route 66 (which was what we originally named it, but it's become known better as the Depression Burger).

Then we started on our range of Mexican food. Initially with Chiang Mai's tastiest home-made tortilla chips and hand-cut salsa fresca (pico de gallo) - available in mild, medium or hot. This, and all our Mexican range of foods benefits from our home-pickled jalapenos. We also do guacamole and chips, tacos and burritos. The taco / burrito range started with Pork tacos al Pastor and Alambres de Pollo (tender marinated pork or seasoned grilled chicken), but the range now includes fish and shrimp - and a new favourite.... shrimp cerviche.

Better yet, combine that with guacamole for something really special.

But wait - there's more. We've built a top-notch reverse flow Texas smoker. The meat out of this massive device will knock your socks off.

Get ready for the best range of fusion ribs and traditional Texan style slow-cooked smoked meats the north of Thailand has ever seen.

 

[Brian]

How's the smoker running?

 

[The Bigfella]

The smoker is going great. We've even managed to make some improvements to it in recent times and there's several new items in the menu

 

[The Bigfella]

Strewth.... it's been a while. I just got back to Thailand a couple of weeks ago and, have to say, it's great to be in a country where I can actually get an appointment with a specialist doctor. I'd been a bit quiet for the last couple of years here due to an eye problem - a side effect from prescribed meds. Got told it was a 3 year wait in Oz - straight in here and its nice to be able to see again.

I wasn't entirely slack whilst back in Oz. We've now got an ex-army Landrover Perentie 6x6 in the fleet and are gearing up for a Simpson Desert double crossing next year - bikes and truck. Given the old KTM525EXC I bought from Justin was never green booked, I will ship the key components I've pulled out of it back to Oz and grab a frame there (a registerable frame is just $250 at the wreckers). I've already got the motard wheels back there, so it makes some sense, given the changing attitudes to unregistered bikes here - back in the "old days" I rode that unregistered bike in Thailand and, ahem, across borders into three other countries. That's not happening these days.

It's a bit of a beast - with a 3.9 turbo diesel Isuzu engine. We've been working on it and have 240 litres of water in, 1100 watts of solar on it, with 800 Ah of lithium. Both gas and induction cooking... a decent queen-sized bed, an iconic Trailblaza fridge/freezer and more. That was $480,000 of taxpayer's investment back in its day.... We've also got an off-road ex-army trailer to go with it, but it needs some mods to get the track widened to the same as the Perentie - the 6x6s were made 200mm wider than the 4x4s.... which makes for 3-across seating up front.

The fleet here in Thailand is getting some work too... the older bikes are having overhauls, tyres, etc done and there's 23 new bikes in the fleet, with more to come. Transalp 750s, NX500s (due next week), Royal Enfields (a couple of Himalayan 450s and a couple of the Hunter 350), ADV350 and ADV160s, and ten Giourno 125 Honda scooters.

We picked up the Royal Enfields yesterday - fortunately all our 500Xs went out just before the Enfields were ready. If anyone wants one of our back row bikes (Honda 250XL and maybe XR, DRZ, Yammie YZ426 etc... come have a chat, but bring your wallet too).

These are two of the Giournos, with a couple of ADV160s and an ADV350 next in line. They are a great little scooter. We've got new, lower, daily rates and if you or friends want a long term rental deal, come in for a coffee and a chat and you will get a great deal

Here's one that would see Plod have a fit in Oz - carrying tyres around the waist. We picked up three for CRFs yesterday (there's 11 of them in the fleet now).... and here's the easy way to get them home

Whilst on the topic of CRFs, it's worth mentioning one of the maintenance issues we've encountered. The camshaft runs directly on a bearing surface in the head and we've had a couple of those go pfft. We've got a new cylinder head going onto a bike this week for just that issue. We keep a mixed fleet of 250s and 300s because some travel insurances will only cover riders up to 250cc.

We've heard that a couple of the main hire services in town will no longer allow their CRFs to go off-road. We are here to support the riding community and we simply will not shy away from providing rentals that can take people into the fabulous off-road areas that are to be found in northern Thailand. We've got additional initiatives to support that and we're always up for sharing info.

Last, but not least, we're heading into Halloween and then Loy Kratong - the lantern festival

Enjoy