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I did actually drive a tuk tuk, but I'm really posting this thread because I’m in SE Asia until May, so I might as well send home pictures of some of the bikes I’m seeing. We’ve been in Sri Lanka and Thailand so far, with Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam (at least) still to come. Been here a month so far so I’ll try to slowly catch up to now and then maybe I’ll kind of stay on top of this. The trip isn’t motorcycle focused, no big ride through Vietnam or anything. But I’m motorcycle focused so I can’t help taking pictures of all the cool and weird bikes I see. My wife has been very patient so far. I've only been on a scooter til now but I'm hoping to rent a dirtbike or a grom or something more fun eventually. My real dream is to ride in Hanoi or Saigon. So back to the tuk tuk. We were visiting a friend’s family in Sri Lanka. They have a spot in the country and a tuk tuk to get around their land. I've learned that a tuk tuk is something a little bit different everywhere you go, so this might not look familiar to everyone. I suspect Sri Lankan tuk tuks are the same as Indian tuk tuks.  Like this. The one I drove was a Bajaj RE 4 stroke. Most of these pictures are actually of a different one (a 2 stroke, as it happens) because I was so overcome by my experience that I forgot to get my phone out. Mine was green. The sticker on my tuk tuk, and my new philosophy (in life and in tuk tuk operation).  Here’s the cockpit.  Right handgrip is a twist throttle. The chrome knob under the steering column is the forward/reverse selector. Parking brake is the lever to its left (looks like it’s coming out the bottom of the knob). Brake is on the floor. Left handgrip is a combination clutch and shifter. Closeup.  You pull the clutch in as normal, then rotate the lever and the grip down to choose a higher gear. Mine had three. In the picture it’s in neutral or first so it’s in the high position. Very strange to use, although I didn't go fast enough to shift so I didn't have to get used to it. Starting is fairly normal. No choke. Ignition is like a car’s. There was a lever on the floor to the left of the seat (you can see it poking out at the lower left in the above picture). When it didn’t start easily the driver gave that a couple pumps. Someone who knows something about engines should explain that to me. Driving is terrifying. I wasn’t in the insane Colombo traffic, which is probably good. But I was on a very steep, very uneven dirt road, which was terrible. The brakes were poo poo. Anemic would be overselling the power. The lone front wheel makes you feel like you’re constantly going to tip over. All that said, I made it down the hill and back up without incident. The little tuk tuk that could. Oh and:  Single-sided front fork. Kind of. Also an underinflated tire. A couple extra tuk tuk pictures while I'm on the subject.  View from inside  Don't Be Felouse. Those sorta deaths head tabs holding the top down were very popular. In future posts: tuk tuks in different area codes (none of which I was invited to drive), the bikes of Sri Lanka and Thailand, the Bangkok Motorbike Festival, Ducati’s Grom fighter.
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Feb 6, 2016 14:58
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I love that that guy riced out his tuk tuk, it has a sassy saying on it, a Suzuki logo, a website, and a picture of a fake Bugatti veyron, amazing. E: how is this related to his tuk tuk? http://www.nasab.com Beve Stuscemi fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Feb 6, 2016 |
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Feb 6, 2016 16:11
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:I love that that guy riced out his tuk tuk, it has a sassy saying on it, a Suzuki logo, a website, and a picture of a fake Bugatti veyron, amazing. Every tuk tuk is riced out, it's just a matter of degrees. Lots of chrome, lots of lights, lots of Engrish sayings. There's actually a subreddit for them somewhere I've heard. (e: I guess this? If I'd known it sucked I would have taken more pictures.) Lots of ads too, especially for the shops that make the sayings stickers. No idea about Nasab. Special innovative solutions for the industry since 1984. The best one we rode in had a huge speaker/sub system on the shelf that's behind the seats. We asked the driver (more like gestured) and then we drove around blasting just the cheesiest Bollywood sounding music. ought ten fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Feb 6, 2016 |
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Feb 6, 2016 16:33
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That's positively luxurious compared to the ones I took in India. 2-stroke or CNG only, I never saw a 4-stroke motor. Crazy-pants, 99% lost drivers, too.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:28
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How do they not tip over and murder everyone inside 100% of the time?
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Feb 7, 2016 04:19
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sharkytm posted:That's positively luxurious compared to the ones I took in India. 2-stroke or CNG only, I never saw a 4-stroke motor. Crazy-pants, 99% lost drivers, too. Yea, I was in India for three months and they only got shittier and shittier the farther away you got from Dehli. Dehli>Mumbai=Bangalore>Jaipur>Goa>Kochi>Hampi. Drove one through the mountains in Jaipur; honestly the craziest shifter I've had a chance to experience on the worst road I've ever driven on. 10/10, would nearly kill myself again.
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Feb 7, 2016 09:37
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Yeah that does look different from the ones I saw in Cambodia, there it was a trailer (could swivel) attached to the front of a moped. Also, they had 'water cooling' by having water from a jerry can drip on the head. Saw lots of Groms there too, and some of the lesser KTM Duke models.
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Feb 7, 2016 13:52
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That shifting mechanism and front fork are right off vintage Vespas, which makes sense since I think tuk tuks like that are all derived from the Vespa Ape ("wasp bee"). Bajaj made copied Vespas (I think on license from Vespa at first, and then kept making them and eventually derived their own) for decades - since the '60s or '70s with a VBB copy (Bjaja Priya?) and then eventually copied Sprints (early Bajaj Chetak). The Chetak eventually evolved into it's own bike derived from the Vespa P and became a 4-stroke, made into the '00s. So that's why a Bajaj tuk tuk would have Vespa-type equipment. A friend of mine has an Ape truck, and it's got a smallframe Vespa motor. Smallframe Vespas never came with anything bigger than a 125cc (2-stroke of course). He's rebuilt the motor with a 135 kit, expansion pipe, bigger carb, etc. but it is still as slow as you'd expect from a vehicle with a motor intended for a 160 lbs economy scooter moving around an enclosed cab, pickup bed, and extra wheel. High Protein posted:Yeah that does look different from the ones I saw in Cambodia, there it was a trailer (could swivel) attached to the front of a moped. Also, they had 'water cooling' by having water from a jerry can drip on the head. Saw lots of Groms there too, and some of the lesser KTM Duke models. Also made by Bajaj.
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Feb 8, 2016 06:05
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Gay Nudist Dad posted:That shifting mechanism and front fork are right off vintage Vespas, which makes sense since I think tuk tuks like that are all derived from the Vespa Ape ("wasp bee"). Hey cool. I did see one or two of the bigger Ape three wheel trucks (can't remember the name of them). quote:Also made by Bajaj. Ahh, that makes sense. I saw a couple of the 125 or 250 Dukes. Those and a Hypermotard in Colombo were the only nice bikes I saw in Sri Lanka. Almost everything there is some Indian-made standard: Bajaj, Mahindra, TVS. The only Japanese manufacturer with any kind of presence is Yamaha. Their FZ-S is pretty popular (and also made in India, I believe.) It's a 150 and I saw a lot in the newer Yamaha color scheme (grey and blue with blue rims, like the FZ-07). They looked pretty great.  Imagine slight variations on this and that's every bike I saw in Sri Lanka  A rare dualsport, which is insane. Their roads are largely terrible and universally narrow. I don't understand why everyone wasn't riding something like this. Also some kind of cruiser in the window. The same shop had a more modern Kawasaki dirtbike too, but we were on a bus and I didn't get a good picture.  For Gay Nudist Dad I promise future posts will be better. The bikes have gotten more interesting, and I've gotten my camera out more.
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Feb 8, 2016 09:06
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Ducati's Grom Fighter Thailand is where things get good. We started in the south in the islands. Scooters are the predominant species down there, every flavor you can imagine. We're out of India's sphere of influence and into China, Japan and Korea's. Vespas are around and all the countless knock-offs like the Honda Scoopy. But finally I saw some dirtbikes, sumos and sportbikes in Phuket and as we went north to Khao Sok and Phun Phin.  I would ride this  Yes.  Gixxer  GBS scooter. Are GBS jokes still funny? And then, in Phuket, I saw this:  The Ducati Mini Monster. Says "Ducati Corse Mini Monster" right there on the red trellis frame. It's a brilliant move by Ducati. While Americans are making GBS threads their pants for faux retro scramblers, everyone here in Asia is buying a mini bike. Honda and Kawasaki dominate the market right now with several different models. So why shouldn't Ducati get in on the action? Then I noticed another one. A different one.  Huh. That doesn't really look like a Monster.  Zoom. Enhance. I've seen probably a dozen of these by now, all a little bit different. The first one is actually something called a GPX Demon (The company, GPX, is Thai and they have a few different models of mini bikes and small standards. Not the only Thai motorcycle company, as I discovered at the Bangkok motorcycle show). The second one is a Honda, obviously. It's a modified Grom. The GPX is better suited. It's pretty obvious where their designers took their cues from.  And an unmolested Demon for comparison.  There are some actual Ducatis in Thailand, though sadly no minibikes. But I love the ingenuity of the customizers and wink-and-nod designers at GPX for making them possible.
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Feb 10, 2016 11:59
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I'm glad that ducati hasn't actually made a minimonster. For a moment there, I felt really deprived. Thanks for taking those photos. Love seeing these crazy bikes modified to their region. Keep it up!
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Feb 10, 2016 18:32
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ought ten posted:Honda Scoopy That reminds me; I went into a Honda dealer in Cambodia and they only sold two models: black Scoopy and white Scoopy. I did see a Ducati dealer in Phnom Penh though, and a KTM one full of RC-somethings, probably because nobody there buys those.
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Feb 10, 2016 19:59
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ought ten posted:And an unmolested Demon for comparison. Oh my god how do i get one of these
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Feb 11, 2016 06:10
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Are the indian ones LPG powered and retardedly loud? I convinced a Thai tuk tuk driver to give me his keys in a bar in Chang Mai years ago, and took off around the block with my girlfriend in the back, only on the second left i drove straight into a police checkpoint. Seeing as i was drunk and had a bag of weed in my pocket i blew though the checkpoint and hare assed it back to the bar (2 more lefts). parked it and ran inside. About 5 mins later the place was full of cops but luckily all us foreigners look the same to them so they didn't know who to arrest, they figured out who owned the tuk tuk and chewed him out for a while, but he didn't give me up thankfully. edit: I'm pretty sure the one i drove had a floor clutch pedal and a stick shift between my knees like this one.  The throttle was motorbike style and the brake pedal was on the right. echomadman fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 22:14
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 My god I wish I could get my hands on one of those.
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Feb 12, 2016 06:39
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Z3n posted:Oh my god how do i get one of these Shipping can't be that expensive. What's your address? echomadman posted:Are the indian ones LPG powered and retardedly loud? They're gas as far as I know, but they are stupid loud. The noise level was a bit better in Sri Lanka than it's been over here in Thailand, but still I think all the tuk tuk drivers must have permanent hearing damage. Plenty of scooters and motorcycles here with short little cans tearing around making a racket. That tuk tuk you posted is like the ones I've seen in Bangkok and up here in Chiang Mai, with the dong stick shift. I'm 12 and it makes me laugh when they change gears. And yeah a lot of tuk tuks and light trucks have LPG stickers in Thailand. I didn't know if they were real or not. Cool. High Protein posted:That reminds me; I went into a Honda dealer in Cambodia and they only sold two models: black Scoopy and white Scoopy. Ha. I like how whimsical and playful a lot of the scooters I've seen over here are. Especially the Vespa style ones have fun graphics of animals and flowers or weird Engrish quotes about how much fun it is to scoot around.
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Feb 12, 2016 11:58
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ought ten posted:There are some actual Ducatis in Thailand, though sadly no minibikes. But I love the ingenuity of the customizers and wink-and-nod designers at GPX for making them possible. My father lives/works over there too. There is a Ducati plant in Chonburi right across from the plant he runs, I think it has to do with companies being required to produce poo poo in Thailand to sell it there.
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Feb 12, 2016 15:58
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ought ten posted:
A top box wasnt enough storage capacity for this guy i saw the last time i was over.  Thailand is great for bike tourism, its well worth renting one up around Chang Mai and just hitting off in any direction for a day.
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Feb 12, 2016 19:04
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echomadman posted:A top box wasnt enough storage capacity for this guy i saw the last time i was over. That's awesome. We're up in Chiang Mai now and it definitely seems like it's becoming ADV territory. Lots of big bikes for rent here. I'll do a post of all the kitted out bikes I see around.
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Feb 15, 2016 11:38
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THE BANGKOK MOTORBIKE FESTIVAL This thread is probably going to be all downhill from here. The Bangkok Motorbike Festival is THE premiere Bangkok motorcycle show. Like everything else in that city, it was held in a mall. It didn't come anywhere close to the scale of the bike shows I've been to in the US, but the major manufacturers were there and lots of bikers turned out for it, so plenty of good stuff to see. I have new respect for bike and car photographers after this; taking pictures of shiny bikes crowded together under weird lights is tough. There were actually lots of guys there with big cameras but I suspect most of them were amateurs with deep pockets, not media. Either way they only seemed to be interested in the booth girls. I'll break this down by manufacturer. I don't really have anything intelligent to say and nowhere near the knowledge of models and markets to say what was there and what wasn't, let alone draw any conclusions from that. I shot what I thought was weird and cool. There are a few bikes I left out so I might have a picture if it's not in here. Also I skipped BMW because they only had boring regular bikes. Part 2 will be the customizers and the riders who showed up, arguably more interesting than what the bike companies brought. Honda Honda's big display was the Africa Twin, of course. They brought the manual version. You don't need my crappy pictures of that. They also played up their softer ADV models.  500x  Crosstour. This weird rear end thing   The Honda NM4. 670cc, DCT They had a stock Grom/MSX but nothing interesting. Yamaha Yamaha's offerings disappointed me. I think they have some of the best bikes in this market with the MT-03, the R3 and R15 and the M-SLAZ, but they hardly had anything cool.  KTM KTM's on a rampage, orange everywhere. They had some race-ridden Enduro I didn't take a picture of, but they had lots of fun little bikes from their Indian shop, I assume.  250 Duke, 390 in the background  Reverse Suzuki  Seen some of these on the streets  When did the Gladius get so swollen? Benelli Benelli didn't have their own stand but their bikes were sprinkled around. From their joint venture with Indian company DSK  TNT25  TNT600GT Kawasaki  My favorite minibike, the Z125. Might be the Pro model even GPX  The DEMON, Z3n's favorite  And in white  Their standard. CR5 200 That's it for the MFGs. One thing that was interesting to look at (though I didn't take any pictures) was the gear for sale. Independent sellers had all the standard stuff for sale, A*, Dainese, Shoei, everything you can think of. Prices were about the same as in the US for that stuff, but the no-name gear you can get for a lot cheaper.
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Feb 15, 2016 12:31
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Awesome thread, keep the pics coming. Did you ever manage to sell your DRZ before you left?
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Feb 16, 2016 17:27
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Incredibly, I did not. Spent a few hundred bucks to send it to my parents' for the winter. In a way it was even more embarrassing than moving home would be. I'll try again in the spring. Glad you're liking the pictures. I'll get the rest of the show up soon.
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Feb 18, 2016 04:05
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Bangkok Motorbike Festival Part 2 These are all the bikes outside the manufacturers' booths. Some of them are just what people showed up on, others come from customizers of varying skill and budget.  Tron bike   Honda Ronin      AHAhahha    Check out the craftsmanship      I'm never going to stop loving minibikes     Ducati_riders.jpg. The picture doesn't really capture how they parked as far from everyone else as was physically possible.  
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Feb 19, 2016 16:41
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ought ten posted:
You laugh, but could your bike slide on asphalt for 30 miles with no body damage? I think not 
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Feb 19, 2016 19:36
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ought ten posted:Driving is terrifying. I wasn’t in the insane Colombo traffic, which is probably good. Pffft, you haven't lived until the geriatric driver of your tuk tuk goes 'gently caress this' and drives in the oncoming lane in rush hour, whilst looking back now and then to hold cheerful conversation. builds character posted:How do they not tip over and murder everyone inside 100% of the time? They do, the first day i was there all those years ago we came around a corner to find the aftermath of one of the things rolling onto its side  Oh and another crazy driver who decided not to let off the throttle for a roundabout, clipped the inside curb and had us up on two wheels for a short distance  ought ten posted:Ahh, that makes sense. I saw a couple of the 125 or 250 Dukes. Those and a Hypermotard in Colombo were the only nice bikes I saw in Sri Lanka. I have a few friends who love their bikes and have pretty nice ones, but of course they're smart enough to not drive the things on most of the 'roads' in Sri Lanka, the bike scenes huge over there, but the problem was up until a few years ago the biggest bike you could have (If I'm remembering right from what they told me) was a 125cc or a 250cc. Also their import tax is something insane, like 50-100%. Sorry for the little hi-jack, spent ages working out there and still for some reason love that hell-hole. I'll try to think up some more crazy driver stories from whilst i was out there if anyone's interested.
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Feb 22, 2016 02:23
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Keket posted:Pffft, you haven't lived until the geriatric driver of your tuk tuk goes 'gently caress this' and drives in the oncoming lane in rush hour, whilst looking back now and then to hold cheerful conversation. Not at all, I'd love to hear more. I'm really fascinated by the bike culture in south east Asia in general, and amazed at how well the insane driving works.
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Feb 22, 2016 05:12
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If anyone ends up in Chiang Mai or northern Thailand in general, rent a good bike and take the road from Chiang Mai to Pai. We did it by minibus, which is good if you like being carsick. It's about a three hour, 150 km trip. 762 turns to get over the mountains. There are bike rental shops in Chiang Mai have sport bikes and sumos and pretty much anything else you need. This is just one section:  https://goo.gl/maps/LBAzosiYdWS2 Here's a crappy video of crappy riders to show you the turns, but the road surface is all new now. Smooth, clean pavement. There's some sand and dirt on the far insides of a few corners, and of course there are insane Thai minibus drivers, but otherwise it rivals the best roads I've seen or ridden. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jpKAieWAM8
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Feb 22, 2016 14:47
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Keket posted:Pffft, you haven't lived until the geriatric driver of your tuk tuk goes 'gently caress this' and drives in the oncoming lane in rush hour, whilst looking back now and then to hold cheerful conversation. I've experienced this except it was on a motorcycle taxi in China. A+ would ride again.
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Feb 22, 2016 16:03
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ought ten posted:If anyone ends up in Chiang Mai or northern Thailand in general, rent a good bike and take the road from Chiang Mai to Pai. There's a really good full loop you can do that brings you back to Chang mai from Pai, the mae hong son loop. I still have the paper roadmap i bought when i rode it in pre gps days. http://wikitravel.org/en/Mae_Hong_Son_Loop
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Feb 22, 2016 19:56
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I just saw <INDEX> and giggled uncontrollably.
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Feb 24, 2016 10:29
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Slavvy posted:I just saw <INDEX> and giggled uncontrollably. Good eye. Yeah that brand's everywhere. Did a real double take the first time I saw the logo.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:43
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Slavvy posted:I just saw <INDEX> and giggled uncontrollably. What am I missing?
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Feb 24, 2016 19:25
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Feb 24, 2016 19:45
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My brain reset for a second when I saw that. *error not shoei*
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Feb 24, 2016 23:47
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I thought that might be what they were going for, but enough letters were off that I can't imagine anyone mistakes it for a shoei. Is the joke just that they bought a cheap helmet?
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Feb 25, 2016 00:25
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Apparently they are a not-very-highly-regarded Thai brand of helmet http://www.indexhelmet.com/page.html
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Feb 25, 2016 02:56
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Coydog posted:I thought that might be what they were going for, but enough letters were off that I can't imagine anyone mistakes it for a shoei. Is the joke just that they bought a cheap helmet? The D E are definitely similar enough to the O E on the Shoei to warrant a double-take. Is this an airhead BMW with a single-sided swingarm?  what the gently caress is going on
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Feb 25, 2016 07:02
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:Apparently they are a not-very-highly-regarded Thai brand of helmet It's funny because I haven't seen any other really blatant rip offs like it. And there are Shoei helmets and lots of other name brand gear here. I'm sure some of it is fake but most that I've looked at up close appears to be legit. Daniese, A*. Even Bilt is over here.
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Feb 25, 2016 12:41
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The rumors of my demise in Hanoi motorbike traffic are greatly exaggerated. Made it to Vietnam by way of Laos. Still have to catch up and post some bikes from northern Thailand. For now here are some police bikes from Bangkok.  Police Harley. Now they ride K1600s, which you can see in the back of the next picture.  AMF Harley  Their logo.  Police CBR 300 in a really great color. Bangkok motorcycle cops told me the guys in brown were the national police. They have matching brown outfits and like to ride around two up. It's a good look.   Police tuk tuk. A few hours later we saw him driving home with someone in the back. Police job doesn't pay too much in Thailand. ought ten fucked around with this message at 11:41 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 06:44
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Sagebrush posted:Is this an airhead BMW with a single-sided swingarm?
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