Today is a big day as we are headed to YSS Suspension for our 10 am appointment. It is 112 km and google says 1 hr 35 min, but despite that we left at 0730 and with traffic we arrived just after 930.
We certainly did not expect the road to be a 6 lane divided one. We can not take the toll as motorcycles are banned and the fine is 300$. So we were happy to find a road we could do 80 km most of the time. There is uncontrolled access and quite a few lights in the towns, but we still made good time.
YSS is easy to get to and is just a bit off the access road 34 to the city.
We were warmly greeted by the service staff and the CEO Mr. Pinyo and our contact his personal assistant Ms. Gift.
She advised us that they had prepared a program for us for today and that it included new front suspensions for both bikes, a custom rear suspension with piggy back for Dan’s bike and an inspection of the new shock in the 650. What we actually got was even more. They installed fully adjustable front suspension to the 650 and also a custom made suspension with external piggy back as well.
The upper bolts on both bikes for the shocks were bent and they sourced out 2 of these as well. Mr. Pinyo noticed this bent bolt within 5 seconds of coming over to see the bikes his guys were working on. This was all done while they are trying to get several bikes modified to take to the Chaing Mai bike week this weekend.
They weighed all the gear and luggage and us to set the bikes up using the computer and special sag gauges.
We were treated to lunch with the management team as well as a tour if their massive factory.
When the bikes were finally ready at almost 7 pm they had one of their drivers take us to the hotel they had booked for us! Talk about the royal treatment. It was a 30 km and 45 min ride in traffic that we were glad we did not need to do on the bikes in the dark. Once we checked in and showered (wow did we stink) we headed out of the hotel. This is located on a 6 lane divided thoroughfare where the divider is a 4 foot wall. As we were walking thru the lobby and said we were going out for a walk the reception called out “ Don’t cross the street!” We did not plan to since we had driven past a massive open air and packed seafood Bbq place right next door. We did notice there was a zebra crossing 50 m further on to get to the Tesco and 7 -11 across the road. They actually have barrels filled with 6 ft long wood poles with 3×3 ft red flags on each side of the road. We saw pedestrian pick them up to carry as they ran across the road. No one slowed down for them.
The restaurant is buffet and you pay your 16$ at the door. This covers EVERYTHING. There are huge displays of fresh seafood of all kinds on ice. You can scoop live prawns out of the tanks and cool them in an ice bath so they don’t jump off your plate on the way to the table. There are so many shellfish we could not even recognize, crabs, and huge shelled creatures that looked more like bugs than lobsters or crabs. In addition there are all sorts of meats and salads, drinks, and desserts. Once you get your table they set up a big container of super hot coals with a grill on your table and you get cooking! Crazy fun.
This morning the driver picked us up at 830 for the ride back to YSS, and this was a much quicker 30 minutes. We met with Mr. Pinyo who wanted to make sure we were happy with the set up after testing today. We had had the specs checked by their head of the race division who had flown in from the Netherlands for bike week. We had a small photo session and set out at 945.
