{"id":12319,"date":"2014-02-21T15:58:12","date_gmt":"2014-02-21T15:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geoffjones.com\/?p=12319"},"modified":"2014-02-21T15:58:12","modified_gmt":"2014-02-21T15:58:12","slug":"se-asia-bike-ride-phu-phong-to-pleiku","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/?p=12319","title":{"rendered":"SE Asia bike ride &#8211; Phu Phong to Pleiku"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/1-IMG_0191.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-12321\" alt=\"1-IMG_0191\" src=\"https:\/\/geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/1-IMG_0191-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>This promised to be the toughest day of the tour and t didn&#8217;t disappoint! \u00a0With 77 miles and 6609 feet of elevation gain but only 1400 feet of descent it was hard work, especially with dodgy pedals &amp; seemingly no shops that sell quality ones.<\/p>\n<p>The traffic was particularly horrendous with huge overloaded trucks squealing down the hills carrying sugar cane &amp; cassava (I think) added to them the endless buses screaming past and overtaking the trucks and I&#8217;m amazed that there aren&#8217;t a LOT more accidents. As it was a lorry had overturned and if the driver survived it would have been a miracle.<\/p>\n<p>I also kept thinking how in the hell did PeteL drag big guns up &amp; down this road in the war, especially in the monsoon&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I eventually resorted to plugging in the headphones and listened to Matt Darey thus blocking out the racket \ud83d\ude42 whilst grinding my way up the hills. The left pedal sounds as it it has lost a bearing and makes \u00a0a clicking noise, the new right pedal has all but seized up. Otherwise the bike &amp; gears performed well with the endless changes from the lowest gear and straight into the highest gear on the descents.<\/p>\n<p>I eventually sailed down into Pleiku and saw the huge Hoang Anh Gialal Hotel where I managed to get a room on the 9th floor overlooking the town for $50. A bit of luxury \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Here is the never to be beaten Strava:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.strava.com\/activities\/114873955\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-12320\" alt=\"Phu_Phong_to_Pleiku___Strava_Ride\" src=\"https:\/\/geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Phu_Phong_to_Pleiku___Strava_Ride.jpg\" width=\"611\" height=\"271\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Phu_Phong_to_Pleiku___Strava_Ride.jpg 1019w, https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Phu_Phong_to_Pleiku___Strava_Ride-300x133.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Phu_Phong_to_Pleiku___Strava_Ride-768x340.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 611px) 100vw, 611px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>and a <a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/photos\/+GeoffJones47\/albums\/5982806897395510721\">few pictures here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This promised to be the toughest day of the tour and t didn&#8217;t disappoint! \u00a0With 77 miles and 6609 feet of elevation gain but only 1400 feet of descent it was hard work, especially with dodgy pedals &amp; seemingly no shops that sell quality ones. The traffic was particularly horrendous with huge overloaded trucks squealing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking","category-south-east-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}