Bicycles United Asia Vol 3 No 1

Vol. 3 No.1

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BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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CONTENT Volume 3 No.1

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Editor’s Trail

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Happy & Healthy Bike Lane

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Un Ai Rak Khlai Kwam Nao

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Bike Un Ai Rak

COVER PHOTO CREDIT: ART CYCLE

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Tham Luang Cave Rescue

Made in Thailand

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Saman Kunan Tribute

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Vincita 31 Years & Counting

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JKC First Bicycle Factory

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Just Call Me “K”

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Holm Bikes

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Demonte Cycling Apparel

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68 Plusone, Beyond Cycling Caps

Erdeeni

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Meet Croe and Ton

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Bueng Non Bon

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Happiness is Visitng HappyBike

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Bitter Better, Better Bitter

80 104 Hat Yai

Bangkok Bed Hostel Photo Credit: One& Fine Day

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Run Like A Local

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Asia’s First Two Wheels Platform

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A Man & His Mission

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Style & Touring

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Mai Phuak Railway Station, Den Chai BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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EDITOR’S TRAIL

Dear Friends of Bicycles United Asia,

We are back and going into our 10th issue, when we first started with the 1st issue it was my objective then and is still today to write about cycling through a different perspective. We became a cycling media communicating to people who are cyclists and non-cyclists, men, women and children. These very same people have become our friends since then.

We focused on all categories of bicycles because every bicycle and its rider has a story and we wanted to build a community of cyclists, only consisting of pro riders, road bikers, mountain bikers, touring riders, folding bikers, urban riders, bmx riders, fixed gears bikers but to everyone. Thus our slogan “It does not matter who you are or what you ride. What matter is, you ride a bicycle”.

With each issue of the magazine from one to nine, we have covered a lot of topics with in depth interviews. Recalling back to conversations with a reader several years ago he said to me “Bicycles United is like a Readers Digest magazine, only yours focus on cycling. It tells us stories and I like it”. Though I had to stop publication due to other obligations, these words have stayed on with me ever since.

With the 10th issue, it is one that is dear to me as it is an entire issue on Thailand, a place I have called home in the last 37 years. There is so much related to cycling that is unknown internationally and even locally. With this issue I hope readers will learn more about Thailand in relations to cycling, come and explore Thailand by bike. As for those in the cycling trade, Thailand’s cycling industry has products that are of international standard that may be interest to all cyclists, don’t forget to support the local bike craft industry.

I hope everyone enjoys the magazine as much as I have enjoy doing it.

Enjoying my solo mission to writing stories for you, if you have a story to tell do contact me.

Safe ride whoever you are, wherever you are.

Kris H.M. Gomeze Founder, Editor, Publisher, Writer, Photographer, Creative and Designer: Bicycles United Asia E-Magazine

No part of this publication maybe reproduced without written permission from the publisher.

All views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily the views of the publisher.

For Editorial, Marketing and Sales enquiries contact: Grin PDB LTD. 845 Pornpailin Business Point, Onnut Road, Suan Luang, Suan Luang, Bangkok 10250, Thailand T: +66 63 5629 E: bumaasia2018@gmail.com FB Page: Bicycles United Asia Instagram: Bicycles United Asia Twitter: Buma Asia 2018 8

BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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HAPPY & HEALTHY BIKE LANE

Happy and Healthy Bike Lane

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H. M. King Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun (King Rama X) officially opened the Happy and Healthy Bike Lane at Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bang Phli District, Samut Prakan On Friday November 23, 2018,

n arrival to Happy and Healthy Bike Lane, His Majesty the King was welcomed by Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, Samut Prakan Governor Mr. Chatchai Uthaipan, Airports of Thailand PCL Chairman of the Board of Directors Mr. Prasong Poontaneat, Siam Commercial Bank Chairman of the Board of Directors Mr. Anand Panyarachun, Chairman of the Executive Committee Dr. Vichit Suraphongchai, and other senior officials. After H.M. the King presided over the opening ceremony, he graciously planted a commemorative “Ruang Phung” or the “Yellow Star” tree. In celebration of the Happy and Healthy Bike Lane’s inauguration, His Majesty led a bike procession to cycle before departing. Previously known as Sky Lane the name “Happy and Healthy” Bike Lane or “Charoensukmongkolchit” in Thai was bestowed by His Majesty the King to raise and increase public awareness on healthy living and promoting cycling activities.

Jointly operated by Airports of Thailand Plc and Siam Commercial Bank Plc the 23.5 km cycling track is fully equipped to international standards. Open from 6.00 am – 9.00 pm, the bike lane incorporates the best of world-class standards, with a blue lane for general users and a purple lane for more experienced bikers. It also features a 1.6-km short distance bike lane, a parallel running track of the same distance, and a bike lane for children. In addition, the project well-equipped with facilities comprising a parking space with security system, a 1.2 km bridge linking the car park to the bike lane, an emergency medical center, shops selling and renting bicycles, bicycle equipment and accessories and food and drink to accommodates cyclists.

Photo Credit: Happy & Healthy Bike Lane & Khao Sod English

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Credit : Khao Sod English

BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

Credit : Khao Sod English

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“Un Ai Rak Khlai Khwam Nao” At Winter’s End

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is Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun presided over the opening ceremony of the Un Ai Rak Khlai Khwam Nao festival on December 9, 2018 together with HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn and his two daughters HRH Princess Bajrakitiyabha and HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana. This was followed with the “Un Ai Rak Bike Event 2018” led by His Majesty.

For 43 days the “Un Ai Rak Khlai Khwam Nao” featured exhibitions to providing visitors with the opportunity to learn more about Thai history and the value of the waterways of Rattanakosin. Visitor experienced river based culture amide numerous species o fplants and fantastic artistic creations, such as: the model of Aisawan Thipphaya-at Paviilion, the Thai-style pavillion in the middle of a lake at Bang Pa-In in Auytthaya, royal barges and forms of buildings from the early Rattanakosin period to the present day.

Visitors had the opportunity to visit Royal Family shops, experience the taste of Thai cuisine as well as enjoyed a variety of cultural Thai perfomances. They can also take part in a merit-making activity by purchasing “Matcha Pha Chok” tickets for lucky draws and lottery for charity, with many prizes on offer.

Visitors are encouraged to dress in traditional Thai costumes worn during the reign of King Rama V, or other forms of traditional costumes made of Thai fabrics from various regions of the country, which reflect the Thai way of life through clothing.

Credit: UnAiRak Fanpage

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THAILAND

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national cycling event “Un Ai Rak Bike Event 2018” was held on 9 December 2018 where His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun of Thailand lead the cycling procession from the Royal Plaza on the grounds of Dusit Palace in Bangkok to Lat Pho Park in Samut Prakan. Though the event was held in Bangkok, people nationwide participated in every province with over 600,000 people from all walks of life took part in the various cycling activites that day.

The mass bicycle ride event was intended to encourage the public awareness on the importance of health promotion through exercise, to enhance love and unity within families and society as was as to promote traffice discipline.

His Majesty lead the ride with his two daughters HRH Princess Bajrakitiyabha and HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana cycling a total length of 39 kilometers. Cyclists who jointed the “Un Ai Rak Bike Event 2018” cycled along the route passing various canals and waterways as well as the Khlong Lat Pho Water Management Project which was initiated by His Majesty the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Credit: Un Ai Rak Fanpage

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THAILAND

The following are images of Un Ai Rak in Bangkok and many provinces, sourced from facebook and Instagram to share with our readers around the world. We would like to show to all the enthusiasm of the cyclists of all ages and the happiness this event has brought to the people of Thailand once again.

Following the Bike for Dad in 2015, His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun of Thailand has once again taken his love for cycling and shared it with his family and people across the nation which has shown how the bicycle ride event successfully encouraged the public to be aware of the importance of health promotion and to enhance love and unity within families, friends and society.

BANGKOK

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Credit: Ball_Red Bicycle

Credit: Bua Bua

Credit: nba_nz

Credit: pin_to_ya

Credit: Nation Photo

Credit: rachwong.chakri

Credit: Sweet Varn Varn

Credit: Bicycle Wind

Credit: ai News Pix BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

BANGKOK

Credit: Color Mind

Credit: Lek Nalinee

Credit: nationtv22b

Credit: thenoomclub

Credit: rachaingallery

Credit: nnoteji

Credit: thainews.prd.go.th

Credit: beejung_love

CHACHOENGSAO

Credit: nwnt.prd.go.th

NONGKHAI

NAKON RATCHASIMA

AYUTTHAYA

KHON KHAEN

BURI RAM

CHAIYAPHUM

Credit: Nation Photo

Credit: njptower

Credit: nammon_puwa

Credit: beam_sasitornn

Credit: tom_crubb

Credit: sodapure

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HAPPY & HEALTHY BIKE LANE

YASOTHON

SAMUT SONGKHRAM

SAMUT SAKHON

Credit: Ratri Bunshoo

Credit: Ratri Bunshoo

Credit: Jade Buaroy

Credit: Maison Pran

Credit: Tidarat NaKa

Credit: Srisuda Wannapatao

Credit: Srisuda Wannapatao

Credit: University Phayao

Credit: Puang-Oy Chaidee

PATTAYA

PICHIT

SUKHOTHAI

CHONBURI

PHAYAO

NARATHIWAT

UTTARADIT

PRAE

Credit: maxima.jirayus

Credit: aisaerinew

Credit: phattharawut_io

Credit: TAT Prae

Credit: TAT Prae

Credit: Amm O Sanguan

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UBON RATCHANTHANI

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SURAT THANI

Credit: ood_ood

SURIN

CHIANGMAI

Credit: Banchai Suebsang

Credit: ChiangMai PR

LAMPANG

SISAKET

RAYONG

MAHA SARAKHAM

Credit: Sawat Karakan

Credit: Chanachart Tengsiri

Credit: Csr airayon

Credit: Ekamat Jantorn

Credit: phuketnew

Credit: Piyawit Wattananutwat

Credit: Nuanphan Bualert

Credit: Krongsak Wuttimanop

Credit: Ranjeet Singh

KANCHANABURI

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NAKON SI THAMMARAT

PHUKET

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A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO SAMAN KUNAN

Photo Credit: Richard Barrow Thailand

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The Tham Luang Cave Rescue of the Wild Boars Team T

In June and July 2018, a cave rescue mission successfully saved the Wild Boars Team and their Coach who was trapped in Tham Luang Nang Non Cave in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand

welve members of the team, aged eleven to seventeen and their 25-year-old assistant coach entered the cave on 23 June 2018 after football practice. Shortly afterwards, heavy rains partially flooded the cave, trapping the group inside. Efforts to locate the group were hampered by rising water levels and strong currents, and no contact was made for more than a week. The rescue eort expanded into a massive operation amid intense worldwide public interest. The rescue effort involved more than 10,000 people, including over 100 divers, many rescue workers, representatives from about 100 governmental agencies, 900 police Officers and 2,000 soldiers, ten helicopters, seven ambulances, over 700 diving cyclinders and pumping of water out of the cave.

Tham Luang Nang Non is a karstic cave complex beneath Doi Nang Non, a mountain range on the border between Thailand and Myanmar. The system is 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) long and has many deep recesses, narrow passages and tunnels winding under hundreds of metres of limestone strata.

On 5 July at 8.37pm, Saman Kunan, a 37-year-old former ai Navy SEAL and volunteer of the rescue mission, made a dive from Chamber 3 to the T Junction close to Pattaya Beach to deliver three air tanks. During his return he lost consciousness underwater. His dive buddy attempted CPR without success. He was brought to Chamber 3 where CPR was attempted again, but he could not be resuscitated. Sam died of asphyxiation on 6 July between 01:00 to 02:00 after losing consciousness while placing diving cylinders underwater along the route.

A member of ai Navy SEALs class 30, Sam had left the SEALs in 2006 at the rank of Petty Officer 1st class and was working in security at the Suvarnabhumi Airport when he volunteered to assist the cave rescue. He was posthumously promoted to Lieutenant Commander by the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Navy, an unprecedented rise of seven ranks. A Royal sponsored funeral was held on 14 July 2018. On the same day, he was also awarded the Knight Grand Cross (First class) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant by King Rama X. A memorial statue of him by was created by Thailand’s National Artist Chalermchai Poonsipipat is built as a memorial at the site. Sam Kunan is survived by both his parents and his wife, Valeeporn Kunan.

The head of the rescue mission and former governor of Chiang Rai province, Narongsak Osatanakorn, said that the cave system would be turned into a living museum to highlight how the operation unfolded with the aid and assistance from the many international rescue teams. Thailand’s National artist Chalermchai Kosipipat will build the museum that will also be housing a 3 x 13 metres canvas painting done by local Thai artists and will also include photographs and items used in the rescue operation.

Sam has a great passion for adventure sports and Bicycles United Magazine was very fortunate to have interviewed him in our “Man of the Bike” issue back in 2014. To honor Thailand’s Hero Sam Kunan, we include the interview in this issue for readers to know, remember and honor his heroic efforts.

Photo Credit: Richard Barrow Thailand

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A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO SAMAN KUNAN

A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO THAILAND’S HERO

SAMAN KUNAN

A Reprint of the Interview with Sam Kunan in Man of The Bike Issue where Sam tell us about Adventure Race.

Many of you may know, heard or seen the sport that uses more than one skill in a single match or tournament. In “Triathlon” it requires swimming, cycling and running combined in a race. The bicycle is one of the essentials used in competitions of this nature and the competitors must properly train their body well and fit to be prepared for the race.

Today is about a sport which some of you may or may not be familiar with.

It is another sport that will take a step beyond triathlon that will include running, swimming, cycling and may also include rope climbing and paddling. This is called the “Adventure Race: 22

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“Adventure Race” was designed

by Gerry Chamley, a skilled mountaineer and orienteer to test orienteering skills in extreme circumstances in 1968 as the Karrimor International Mountain Marathon. The race requires two athletes per team, the two must overcome all obstacles together to reach the finish line quickest possible with the best teamwork and map reading abilities. Should you leave your team mate behind, you will be judged as failed which is why the team who follow the Cycling has been a popular sport with Sam for years, whilst studying in the Class 1 of the Naval Academy in Sattahip, he was introduced by the trainers and they took on to practise and train for this sport.

He then became interested in this sport and had been cycling since then.

rules and reaches the finish line first is considered the champion.

Thailand started to have this competition for the first time in 2007 and have been an increasingly popular sport event with many different events taking place more frequently than before.

We first want to let you know what is an “Adventure Race” before we introduce our Thai athlete who is part of the international team from Hong Kong which is the leading team in Asia. Saman Kunan otherwise know as “Sam” works with the Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited (AOT), his position being Security Office at the Suvanarbhumi Airport.

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“Having the interest and passion in the bicycle myself, I decided to buy my first bicycle, a mountain bike in the touring format. Using my bike in all my training and competitions. I did not even win at all then, it made me feel I have to develop my own capacity for cycling which is why I trained very hard to develop and improve myself continuously until I reached the point to try out other alternative bike types.

I was given the opportunity by my seniors: Bancha Bupphamaro and Dech Tana (former Thailand’s National Track Bike Team) to join and practise with the Navy’s Team and went around participating in all the different competitions You can say that I travelled to almost every province to participate in these competitions”.

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A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO SAMAN KUNAN

Sam started racing in his first official mountain bike race, the Singha Caltex Mountain Open 2001” in Nong Nooch Tropical Gardens, Satthathip finishing 6th in the 18-29 Age Group Class B. That was the beginning of knowing his own capability and knew he is ready to take on challenges to winning future races.

“Up to today I have both the experiences of on and off the field, taking in both the good and the bad. This is the norm of being a biker and athlete in Thailand but this is not a problem or obstacle for me. Intstead it taught me how to handle all issues and allowed me to improve for the better”.

Sam had the opportunity to be a member of the Champion System Adventure Racing Team (Hong Kong) in Adventure Racing sports. He is part of the team that consists of various international nationalities.

“At the beginning of 2012 Champion System Adventure Racing Team’s Manager Mr. Ryan Scott Blair (U.S.A.) accepted both young Jay Chataraboon Krienchayapraipana and myself to be part of the tea. It was very good for the country as only two persons in Thailand was selected. Jay is an athlete that is

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very strong and skilled, he is also one of the leading Asian athlete in Adventure Sports.

In adventure racing it consists of a variety of activities that is well blended, both cross-country running, trail running, cycling on mountains and road bikes depending on what is technically organized.

However the requirement is mainly using the mountain bike as the landscape is mostly on mountain paths and trails of the country competed. Bicycles and equipments must both be prepared by the tea.

For the paddling activities, the organizers will provide the kayaks for all the teams. The type of water includes bother rivers, creeks and sea. The diffinculties arising will

depend on the water conditions.

For me personally the responsibility for a team competition is to take the main responsibility but actually everyone in the had the same responsibility being either a male or femaile competitor. We must have the knowledge and understanding of the techniques and the ability of managing the sports equipment to swimming, paddling, cycling and also the throwing of the ropes as well as the high brides and places. This also includes the high-rise buildings as the part of the test to try out the team’s ability.

In the plan of C.S.A., tournaments are mapped and schedule for the entire year. This depends also on the preparation and training of the athletes as well. The Team’s Manager will inform the athletes in advance of the schedule so they can further prepare and evalute their fitness capability. Being in a competition all must work and collaborate together as a team to go against all obstacles to win.

Some competitions locations can be very harsh as the routes for the races cane take one day or up to three or four days to compete.

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I had the opportunity to join in many overseas international competitions and I am very proud to have reach the target and goals I set upon myself. In China’s Wenzhou Outdoor Challenge 2013 based on buddy couples competiting in 4 days from April 13-16, I finished 9th with the timing of 20:15:56.50 hours. The most impressive race is the triald rach which I finished 4th in the Hong Kong Oxfam 100km.

The Trail Walker 2012 was by first trail race of which my responsibility was the Teams Supporter

and as the routes was so nice and cool, I did not feel exhausted and just continued running on. 1,200 teams or 4,800 people was there so running 100km you definitely will not feel lonely.

My most recent race is the Lanna Adventure Race Championships which is a team competition consisting of 4 people in 4 races in 4 provinces from May - August in Chiang Mai, Lamphun, Mae Hong Song with the last race being in Lampan. I won the Open Men’s race as well as the Overall Race BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

winning 3 of the races. My future competition plan is a least once in my life I want to be able to participate in the adventure race of the “Redbull Wulong Mountain Quest” as this is one of the greatest world class adventure race. The winning purse prize is one of the greatest world class adventure race. The winning purse prize is in one of the top three of the world and my team have stood on the podium ranking 5th in 2011.

When I don’t have the race abroad, I will join in triathlons, running to mountain and road bike races to test my fitness ability regularly. For practicing time I will divide the time into three periods in the mornings, afternoons and evenings. When I end my working day it is evening time for practice bit I not practice too hard if I had a busy and hardworking day. I will mostly take up light cycling or rowing for one to two hours. And the next day I will practice early in the morning if I will be working the late shift. Due to this I will workout from early dawn to late in the day with 2 hours of cycling and 20 minutes of running. I will take a nap before I go for my shift. I have been training like this for almost six years. If I feel too exhausted I will take time off to avoid over exhaustion as this will be an effective way when practicing.

Each athlete’s working career is similar and scattered in many countries throughout Asia and Europe, which is why our team does not get the opportunity to practice together except when they all come to Thailand. This occurs occasionally and they get to practice together with Jay and myself. Most of the team members come from Hong Kong and we

meet in Chiang Mai to train so as to get familiar with the international terrains as like China and Mongolia’s sports organizers.

As an after thought Sam says, I would like to recommend the adventure races to the young ones. If you want to be strong and energetic, you have to make the time for training as well as have the passion for outdoor activities such as swimming, rowing, running and cycling. I want all the yound people to have the interest to take up sports of this nature. In addition to getting new experiences, the return is very rewarding and you would not have wasted your time if you develop the skills as well as continuous learning of new techniques. It is a very fun and enjoying sport though it can be quite tiring when participating in races. But when your heart is into it, nothing will stop you from succeeding.”

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MADE IN THAILAND

“It is through cycling that we can build communities and promote tourism” - Yingsak Singhaseni, Founder VINCITA

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Vincita 31 Years & Counting with Yingsak Singhaseni A

When I first stepped into Vincita’s office the first thing that caught my eye was the desk, I always believed that a desk can make the man. Why?

nd that was my first question to the Founder of Vincita, Thailand’s first and leading manufacturer of cycling bags and bike accessories. “The desk belonged to my father, I think it should be around 90 years old or maybe a little bit more” says Khun Yingsak. These days you don’t really find traditional wooden desks in offices and that’s why this one really caught my attention. This one is well used and yet well looked after. I believe a respected desk is one that is filled with knowledge and experience that will continue to inspire us.

How Vincita started? I was the Export Manager of Vee Rubber Tires selling bicycle tires internationally.

After working for five years I left the company and so did my wife who also worked there. With my experience in the international cycling industry and with contacts mostly in Europe especially in Germany, France and Italy we decided to remain in the cycling industry. We sold cycling accessories such as bike chains, tires and also looked into bike accessories items that was good to sell in Thailand. And that’s how we started about 31 years ago.

Back then one of my customer from Britain told me Thailand was well known in the clothing and shoe industry. He said to me “why don’t you consider to do something in the bag manufacturing business and sell to me as I buy a lot of bags from Taiwan. In those days we didn’t have much to start off with, we had to source the materials as well as find people to sew the bags. But then we also thought it would be good to design our own patterns and outsource the sewing in order for us to just focus on the sales but where to find the right people was the difficult part.

The first thing we did was to contact the Department of Export for Small Industries where budgets are BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

allocated for upcountry home industries. Housewives or those who wants to make use of their knowledge and skills to make additional income will join in the home industries projects. I travelled upcountry to visit and talk to them, I drove to many places in the Isan and Northern provinces to meet the people. Recalling back the drives at times are quite enjoyable.

In the meetings with the people, I supplied them with the patterns to sew and make the bags for us. But at times it became quite complicated as it seems their way of life is quite different to those in Bangkok. They do it at times whatever they feel like doing and then they can stop for what ever the reason. It was difficult to control, it was like they were working to their time of convenience. You see if they didn’t focus that this is an industry type of business then it becomes difficult for us. This did not quite work for us as we had contracts to fulfill, we must deliver all our goods as contracted to our customers.

We had to find an alternative solution which was to open our own factory. Actually we had a factory on hand, it was originally opened to produce bike molds but it was not a success and cost me quite a lot of money then. We restarted the factory and adapted it to work on our bag production. We used some of the same people like Khun Chalong our Factory Manager who became our Production Manager. Everyone had to re-learn the trade, how to sew and make the bags.

It was not easy for them, one even bought a sewing machine to practice at home until he was good at it.

Khun Chalong has been with us for over 30 year now, he has an eye for details and oversees all the production work for us.

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MADE IN THAILAND

In those days most of the cycling bags were either made in Taiwan or Indonesia. China did not enter the market as yet and Vietnam focused mainly on producing knapsacks and carrier bags started out later in making bags for cycling. I guess it was good timing for us too that when the markets opened for the cycling industry we were able to produced for the OEM sector under the customer’s brand. The markets were good for the OEM business as normally customers will not buy without a brand. That’s why from the very start we focused on doing OEM business.

Things changed fifteen about years ago and I started selling some other cycling products. In first year I sold about five million baht worth of business but in the second year it went do to zero sales. More competition had come into the market and we lost on some business.

Orders we could sell for over two million baht was not easy and quite impossible to sell when China entered the market.

In view of the overall market situations we started to reconsider on quite a few things, one of them was to create our own brand but then I was not sure how to go about this. My two daughters Pailin and Gem had graduated from University and joined in the family business. Earlier before I had planned and paved the way for them to work in our family business but they weren’t quite interested. That was about ten years ago though, it’s good they decided to join.

For the cycling bags we were lucky since it was start of the cycling boom here in Thailand and Asia. As we were the first to get into this industry people were aware of the VINCITA brand. We sold all types of bags from ranging from mountain bikes, road bikes to touring bikes, urban and folding bikes.

It seems that the once popular BMX bikes faded after cycling started to boom. First came the mountain bikes followed by road bikes. People bought road bikes mainly for racing, wore colorful bike jerseys and started buying accessories as there were so many cycling events happening. We started to increase our products and then employed sales staff to sell our range of items. The cycling industry has since slowed down and we had to take necessary measures by reducing the number of product items, reduce staff and outsource certain items.

We use to get regular orders from a German customer about six million baht worth of business but now it was difficult to handle. With Germany’s REACH 28

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compliancy rule it is much stricter, everything that is imported into Germany must adhere to the rules of REACH. REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals.

This is part of the European Union regulations in relations to exporting where they can penalize all parties involved who goes against this rule. This rule is made in relations to chemicals being used not only in the production of goods but also in the materials used. Forms have to been filled to indicate what chemical types are used on each of the materials and expected quantity exported to Germany annually. Because of this the production cost have to increase to meet REACH standards.

Many suppliers have lost business because of this criteria and also in competition with China for this market. It is quite impossible to match China’s prices.

In terms of product lines we have a huge line, bag types alone are over 100 items not including accessories. Our bag sales are mainly from overseas customers followed by the local market. In Thailand our accessories line sells better than the bags by 50%.

Through our OEM business we received lots of feedback which is good for us to help progress along the way. Geting feedback from customers on the product was an important factor for us when we first started. Our OEM customers will not order products they cannot sell, that says a lot why they still order with us.

For overseas markets they don’t have a variety of bright colors and models. We too don’t change our models or bag colors often since we know what sells. We did try once on bright colors for one year.

Sales was good for one year with no demand for the following year. Best to keep it as it is, having more colors meant an increase of stock of materials and products. If you see in our showroom we have black, grey, blue, red and these are the colors customers are interested in.

Mountain bikes don’t require much bags, touring bikes requires much more even for city bikes since more people bike to work and for leisure that’s why we have a city bike collection designed by my eldest daughter Pailin. Our key customers are from the Benelux countries, Belgium and Netherlands who has a network of 600 dealers on hand. Our distributors BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

buys the Vincita brand selecting the series that they want to sell.

In Germany there is the buying co-op that buy and finance products for those who wish to open a bike business. In many other countries too the government supports the cycling industry, unfortunately it is not so for Thailand. In the old days one of my relatives participated in bike races during the time of when National Cyclist Preeda Chulamonthon raced.

There were bike makers who would cut the frame tubes, measure and bike fit riders, making the frames on the spot in a location near the Central Hospital in Bangkok. Today people buy readymade bikes, if the government supported the cycling industry then more bikes can and will be made in Thailand.

It is good to have the many events and cycling races but these does not support the local communities where the races are held. It is mainly go to the race then off back home after the race. There is no promoting of both the local communities as well as tourism of the event or race destination. However if it is a touring event it will be much more beneficial to both sides, communities and tourism sector. This is because the riders stop at various places to meet the people, enjoy the food, scenery and stay at either homestays, hostels or hotels.

Bike touring makes communities grow, it is a win win situation for all. For some if it is not convenient to ride to the destination they drive with their bikes packed in bike bags and get away for a few days just to enjoy a good cycling trip.

Because of this we have now created our own touring bicycle under the Vincita brand called “North Point Touring Bike”. It is sold through selected Vincita dealers of which you can buy just the frame set or the complete touring bike. The majority of our Thai customers are from the touring bike sector, they mostly use Vincita bags and they know our brand and quality very well. We have many touring bag types to choose from even though there are many other bike bag companies but they have less choices in their selection as compared to ours.

Anything produced under the Vincita brand must be of quality, value for the cyclist as well as promote the local communities through cycling. For our new bikes we will be having more new colors and also adding smaller bike sizes. Currently the largest size is 53 with the smallest being size 44 and we 31

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will go down to size 40. Our touring bikes are made in Taiwan as they are one of the countries that have the expertise and the production quality to do so.

For bike shows we have participated in Eurobike from the beginning of our business. It was only in the last two years I did not attend and my d a u g h t e r s w e n t i n s t e a d . In the old days the show was alternated between Cologne and Milan t h e n i t settled being only Friedrichshafen.

There are different bike shows in Europe but we cannot travel to all these shows due to hotel and travelling costs. In those days we had to focus on the key show for our products.

In Taiwan, we attended Taipei Cycle every year, the show have been very successful because they have the support from the Taiwan government. Many customers from the different Asian countries including Myanmar goes to Taipei Cycle as it is more convenient for them to travel and source products themselves.

I am now 67 years old, even though I do make the overall decisions my children are also involved in making decisions. I do want them to takeover the business if they can and want to. They are young and bring in new ideas, my experience is based on the old ways. They did very well in putting VINCITA products available for sale online with the new website and systems. This was a success for VINCITA. I never thought our products can be sold online as our products are not expensive and I did worry about the shipping cost if it would be a factor for people to consider to buy or not.

In the last two to three years people bought VINCITA products online from different countries. It is a new channel for reaching overseas buyers to buy our brand. People liked the brand and our range of products, shipping was not a factor. Our best selling items are actually the Brompton range which customers find it is very good in terms of quality and usage. We have a good Brompton range including transport bags.

Nowadays people have more choices to buy goods besides shopping in malls, shopping online is a very good option for our products. We have marketed our pricing structure to be competitive and affordable so consumers can afford to buy.

is not working with us now as she wanted to get go out, explore and gain experience from working outside. I fully support her on this as she has a lot of talent and potential in both design and marketing.

My youngest daughter Gem too is good at what she does especially in sales and the management including all the day-to-day communications too. She also goes on overseas trips to visit the customers who carries our VINCITA brand as well as source new customers. These trips are important to our business in keeping good customer connections and also take the opportunity to see what the international markets are doing. Travelling overseas for business these days are much easier than in my days where we had to carry the sample items.

There will always be ups and downs in business but our timing was good when we first started out.

Everything seems to depend on timing which so far has been going our way, with the bicycle boom, the global warming, climate change and alternative energy factors. They say the combination of man and bicycle is the best as they plays a major role for a better world.

I personally think the future of cycling business can be quite stable as there are more dealers and most of them select good quality products against the poor quality goods. Even though cycling has slowed down but people are coming out again due to two key factors health and economy as these play a vital role in the daily life.

With good transport infrastructure in Thailand it will be very good for the cycling industry. There are restrictions on both BTS and MRT but if people were allowed to cover the bikes or put in bags like Japan and many other places people will cycle more. They want to get the best benefit from their bike. To be able to bike to work and travel with their bike is the best way for them to benefit from it. More people will travel and both tourism and hospitality sectors will benefit again, it is about building communities. The government has supported in some ways but I think in the future they need to support much more.

We have now already reached 31 years in our business and I would like my children to carry forward to another 30 years or more. My elder daughter Pailin BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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First Bicycle Factory in Thailand “We have been in operation for 65 years, Even though our core business is producing OEM bikes we also do customize bike service as well.

We are the only bike factory in Thailand to provide this service”.

- Somkiat Anantsorruk, Owner JKC Bike Industry

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y father, Guan Hing Seng opened the first bicycle factory in Thailand, in those days it was known as Jaroen Kan Chang. Since my father opened the business we have remained as a mid-size family business. I later changed the name to JKC Bike Industry, altogether we have been operating for about 65 years.

My father bought back a bicycle frame from Vietnam and he started to make bicycles, he also produced the “saleng bikes” they can be compared to cargo bikes and the “samlor bicycles”, tricycles used for transport that people used mostly back then.

Passengers were seated in the front and goods were placed in the back then you would be taken to your destination. These bikes were extremely popular back then, these days you can still find the samlors but a different type. Today we are remaking these samlors with a customer who has brought in the old models back to us, they will be resold for use in resorts and property developments.

He produced all of these bike types back then making the business a huge success and my father could not produce in time due the high demand. During that time the Asian Games was hostel in Bangkok, the Government requested to halt the production so as to improve the image of the roads. Due to this business dropped but still orders came in, my father continued to produce the bikes. As he ignored the ruling, he got arrested and ended up in jail and the company then went bankrupt.

When he was freed, he borrowed money from relatives to restart the business. I was born after and at that time, my father went on to making standard 26-inch wheels bikes as well as the 28-inch wheels bikes. These 28-inch wheels bikes are mostly used for carrying goods like ice blocks. One can stack almost a meter of ice blocks using the inner tube to tie it

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down. That was about 50 years ago, you can still find some of these old bikes in the Bike Museum in Taling Chan, Bangkok. Once again it was a success and sold very well, orders kept coming in. It was the most prosperous time for our business.

Not long after there was war between Cambodia with other countries and they came to Thailand to buy three main items: bicycles, monosodium glutamate and sanitary pads. The monosodium glutamate were used to stop bleeding and sanity pads were to cover the wounds. We sold out all our bicycles including the old and rusty ones too. The Warajak area since then was and is still today considered as the center point of cycling goods. The goods was paid with gold foil sheets weighed to the price of the goods. The bike business was good but after the borders were closed the industry slowed down.

Next came the trend of “Road bikes”, these bikes was mostly imported into Thailand and it was during the period of “Preeda Chulamonton”. He was the first from the Thai Cycling Team to compete in the Olympic Games back then. He won four gold medals at the 5th Asian Games 1966 and seven gold medals in the Southeast Asian Games 1968, both games were held in Bangkok. We were one of the first to produce road bikes in Thailand named “Jaguar” and “Eagle”. Sales were booming for these bikes. “Jaguar” was the more expensive in terms of pricing for the two bikes based on design and color factors.

“Road bikes” was the most popular of the period until the arrival “BMX” bike.

I have seven brothers and sister, I am the sixth. My elder brother who has since passed away brought a BMX bike, with that we started to make BMX bikes.

Not long after other factories followed us to produce BMX bikes for sale.

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Preeda too came to us to produce BMX bikes for him, he used his own name for the brand. BMX was popular in the market for about ten years then started to phase out. Once again business slowed down until the arrival of the “mountain bike”.

We started the production of mountain bikes, as a family business our expertise lies in making non-high-end bikes. We know what the market demands and we produce accordingly. We never employed sales staff. we sold mainly on credit for our established brands that are in demand in the market. Our company’s policy was to go through the “yip bour” as we call in chinese. They are brokers who has good market connections and can sell to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam markets. Since we don’t have both the time and staff to focus on these markets not to mention the collection of payments selling direct through brokers was the best way to operate.

My father was not keen for us to get higher education, he only wanted us to learn about bicycles and the trade. My brother and I had to alternate our studies, one will study in the morning and the other in the afternoon. This way we both got to go to school and learn about the bicycle trade as per our father’s wishes. We had to learn brazing and all the process involved in making a bicycle. It was like this until my father passed away, after both my brother and I continued our education.

Being a family business, I felt we had to learn more about the trade and that was by going abroad to visit bike shows. In Asia, Taiwan was the place to go so my focused turned to Taiwan. I asked customers to take me along with them to the show but they all rejected me until Sima Permyong, the owner of Asia Bike agreed to take me with him to Taiwan. In those days taking photos involved films unlike this era, one only need to use either a digital camera or mobile phone. I bought thirty rolls of Fuji and Kodak films with me to Taiwan and ended up taking 27 rolls. I took as many photos as possible of bicycle factories, all the manufacturing and production processes, everything that is related to the making of bicycles. On the trip I learned about many different technologies and use this knowledge in making changes to our own factory.

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When the mountain bike was very popular here in Thailand, we were the first and only factory to use the color laser technology process over 20 years ago. When I visited Taiwan this color technology for bike frame and parts process was just being introduced and we applied this into our factory so we were ahead of other local factories and we sold many bikes with this new color technology process.

From then on, I travelled abroad a lot and with every trip I would learn of new technologies and find ways to use it in our bicycle factory. We produced many different bikes styles in the market using new and different technologies. Other factories are always following in our footsteps, we had to move even faster to be always one step ahead in bringing out n e w b i k e s i n t h e m a r k e t . We w e re a l w a y s t h e market leader, there is always competition in every business, every factory was concerned about our strength in the use of colors for the bikes as well in the design of stickers.

From then on I always visit the bike shows in Taiwan, in those days very few bike companies in Thailand attended those shows. We not only attended the shows but seeing the importance of bringing new equipment in, we invested in buying equipment from Taiwan companies into our business. And with this we were able to build relationships and respect with the Taiwan companies. They took me to visit different factories and this gave me many learning opportunities.

Using all these knowledge was denitely a plus for me to use in our factory to increase the production and sales of our bikes. Bringing in this new laser color technology made it our key strength in Thailand’s bicycle trade and in the production of OEM bikes.

We had the flexibility to produce colors for companies as per their branding requirements.

On one occasion a customer invited me for dinner and enquired about the costs in making colors and parts for bikes. He placed an order, a huge order of several thousand pieces. Today our business in these economic times can survive because due to several factors including listening to the customer’s project needs. We always assist one step further in providing ideas and additional services.

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We have been doing a lot of CSR and I am sure more than any other bicycle factory. We worked with King Power where they donated the bikes to the “Bike for Dad” Project. We also worked with DTAC for 3,000 bikes, Amway, 3,000 Bikes, Channel 3 Family News Channel, Bangjak Fuel, Tapee Thailand, Honda, Yamaha plus many more corporations. Our latest project is with AIS, their concept is to have the bikes for rental to tourists combining mobile services.

We are also in the midst of working with a mobile phone to produce 3,000 bikes.

Many private companies come to us to produce bikes for CSR purposes. We give them new ideas such as including their branding on to the bikes.

We don’t want to just sell the bike we want to do more for them. We donate bicycles and work nationwide with cycling organizations in Thailand to help repair bicycles.

I am very lucky to have good staff, some has been working with us for a long time. One couple has been working in our factory since I was 8 years old, I am now fty already. I treat everyone like family, when they are ill I will go and get medication for them and make sure they are well looked after. When one of my staff was suffering from eye problem I personally gave him the eye drop medication every hour. If you leave it to them, they may not do so. I believe if we look after our people they will love the company and give it their best.

During the last forty years I looked after them when they are ill, sit and have meals with them. I don’t treat them as workers but as part of our family.

Since my father time to present we have made bikes for many OEM brands and some are top brands.

Altogether we have produce quite a few million bikes and also many many parts. At times when we are at our business peak we had to outsource but we do ensure the quality control. When we sell our bikes to CSR customers we provide a 30-day guarantee and will change any part that has a problem. We also provide ideas and services to our customers that is why they are happy in working with us. Yes in the bike trade it is competitive but it is not just about selling bikes at the lowest cost but to sell bikes that are safe and yet affordable to all.

Operation wise, my wife passed away last year but when she was alive she looked after the accounts and sales and I looked after the manufacturing BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

side especially the color process which is the key strength that sets us apart from other factories. We have been married for 32 years she was an excellent wife, she contributed much to our business and is much loved by our staff and well respected by our customers. My sons also help in the business.

She would visit customers bringing with her our new color schemes and stickers. She would return with new orders. She is very good at what she does. We have daily meetings with my production team.

Everything done was well processed we just go with the flow and solve problems along the way.

In better times we had about 70 staff, now we have 35, unfortunately we had to let go some, some based on retirement, others because of the difficult times. They were in tears when they had to leave. Now with the 35 staff we have been working overtime in the last few months as orders have now picked up. During the low periods we had to take Saturdays off and our staff feels bad about it.

We are also the only OEM bike factory in Thailand to customize colors for individual bike customers.

Some have old bikes that are still in good condition and come to us for customization. Many cyclists wants to have their bikes old or new customized adding their own touch to colors and design.

We have also been contacted to produce e-bikes but due to taxes and regulations it may not be that easy for customers to sell, it may take a few more years before it can be done. It may take between two to five years to be able to do so, who knows it all depends on many factors and anything can happen between now and then. Best to wait until taxes and regulations are set before doing so.

I believe the mass market to mid-markets will still do well though the business has dropped but the bicycle is still a necessity for every household to go to markets and for chores in Thailand. Not everyone uses expensive bike for this and their transportation needs.

I mentioned before we never had a sales team to sell our bikes yet we survive in the business. My family and I are all very spiritually dedicated, we pray and give offerings at the right time and moment.

We believe in believing and praying for the right purposes.

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Just Call me “K” I am Art Cycle When I first heard the words “Fixed gear bike” it was all new to me. Well let’s say I really don’t know anything about bicycles.

- Treerayut Prasom, Art Cycle Custom Bikes Thailand

H

ow did it all begin for me being in the bicycle industry?

I never studied engineering, never did any mechanic work unlike my father who was a motorcycle mechanic by profession. I never did like mechanic work when I was a kid I felt it was too messy since I grew long nails and this kind of work did not suit me or my nails at all.

When I finished my schooling I moved to Bangkok with my elder brother, we made a living by selling flowers in Pak Klong Talad area. I switched several jobs back and forth going back to selling flowers and other things. My boss was very kind to me and took me in everytime I went back to her. The last time I left her I sold jeans at the Sapan Put market.

Later I got drafted into the Army. I cried as I did not want to go but then thought have to go so I might as well make the best of it. It was at the Army Base that one of the soldiers told me to try riding a fixed gear bike to get around the base. When I first heard the words “fixed gear bike” it was all new to me. Well let’s say I really don’t know anything about bicycles. I didn’t even know there were different names or types of bicycles such as fixed gear, road bikes, mountain bikes or even a touring bike.

Wow so many different types.

I had no idea what a fixed gear bike was but I was told it had no brakes and you had to brake with your feet. I went to buy a Taiwan brand fixed gear bike, I cycled around and fell in love with the bike. It was a street bike with no design, I decided to put accessories on my bike to what I thought would make my bike look cool whilst cycling on the streets.

One day whilst starring at my bike I thought “hmm......

I want to build my own bike frame”. I have all the other BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

parts I just wanted to build my own bike frame and put together the bike that will reflect who I am. My father being a motorcycle mechanic has all the tools even for brazing so I asked him to teach me how to go about it.

He taught me how to braze by making the frame, whilst doing it he told me to watch him step my step to see what is involved in the process. This was his very first bicycle frame though his work does involve in some brazing jobs. My father has never made a bike frame yet he could teach me how to do it. I was very happy that he was the one who taught me about brazing. This is the most essential part of the trade.

I then went on to buy a Thai brand bicycle, cutting off the frame parts to make changes, even altering the angle of the frame. At that time I didn’t know how to measure the angles or knew what was involved. On my own I just learnt through trial and error, you learn a lot by making mistakes and that is when the wrong becomes the right.

When I had finished I took my new bike out for a spin but I felt it was not good enough and was lacking something.

I then worked on a second one, I did not know what the word vintage or what a vintage bike was. The bike I bought to re-construct and work on was a Japanese housewife bike. I cut and re-adjusted the frame angles to be a man’s bike.

It took me almost a month working on this project, my father asked if I was crazy taking so much time to do it.

He said if he had done it, it would have taken him a much shorter time to finish. It took me a longer time as I wanted to do it right to build my own frame so I just had to go about it slowly.

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After I finished I took photos and posted on a Thai Fixed Gear Facebook page. Since I love Fixed gear bikes I wanted to give it a go in making fixed gear frames and see how the response would be. Not long after I received a message in my FB messenger inbox. The person asked me if I made the frame myself. If so he asked if I could make one for him, he became my first customer and that was the beginning of it all.

From then on I went on to buying different bike frame types and tubes and starting doing what I wanted to do.

I began reconstructing and rebuilding the frames to how I want it to be, then began making bracket shelfs, lugs, frame ends: forged drop outs, cast ends and other component parts. I did it all by hand with whatever tools I have. From roadbikes, mountain bikes and also Japanese bikes I reconstructed them all to be fixed gear frames and bikes.

My original intention was not to be a bike builder I just love bikes and I want to make it for myself and those I know who have a passion for fixed gear bikes. I never planned for it to be a business. I felt happy knowing there are riders out there enjoying their rides on the bikes I made.

Within these five years I have made over 200 bikes that includes both re-constructing and making new bikes.

Having made so many bikes I created my own brand “ARTCYCLE” and put the badge on the bike frame.

Besides customers from Thailand, international orders started to come in, one such customer from overseas comes every few months to buy bike frames from me to resell. It started when he saw one of my bikes at the TOT Bike Market. He bought the bike and enquired where my shop was and started to followed my Facebook page.

One day he came to my shop riding the bike I made and that caught me by surprise, seeing my bike again with a foreigner. The first thing that came to mind was who is he and how did he get the bike? It was a confusing moment for both of us as I cannot speak English well, he told me he liked the bikes I made. Somehow I guess with the same passion for the bikes we were able to communicate rather well.

I didn’t think that was the start of my bikes going abroad or as we say in Thai “bai inter” Most of the bikes I make or recontruct are mainly Fixed Gear, that’s my BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

passion. I don’t want Fixed Gear bikes to gradually phase out as less people have interest in them these days. In Thailand it seems to be more of a trend so it comes and goes. Internationally it is different, it is not just a trend as Fixed Gear bikes are used everyday for both work and leisure use.

Now in Thailand we can hardly find Fixed Gear makers, I think I might be one of the last remaining. Cyclist in Thailand today even if they ride Fixed Gear bikes their choice would be to ride an international bike brand and not a local brand. I make it because I have a passion for the bikes.

Some people order the bikes for their own rides and some order for re-selling I think it is good too that they can sell my frames and bikes. There are also customers who come to get a bike made and I do bike-fitting for them. Some will bring their own bikes, I use the spec from their bikes to re-construct the bike to be in the “Pursuit” style which is one of my signature designs. I will always discuss and review with the customers as to what they are looking for. I do very few of the “Diamond” style bikes as not too many customers prefer this style.

The “Diamond” style is best used in races at velodomes or on the tracks. For road bike style I made only two, for this I have to change the fishtail design to make it suitable for road bikes. I will design and handmade all the component parts myself from scratch.

For the frame alone it takes me about one week to make if it is just the raw frame, the customer usually takes it to their supplier to do frame colors. There have been only a few who requested me to do it for them but I also have to outsource to have it done.

For all the bikes I have done I had not thought about keeping the record or photos. It is only recently that I found about 40 photos on the Facebook. Now I start to go back to keep records of not only of the bikes but also the component parts. Some of my customers who bought my early bikes sold the bike they had bought.

They said they regret it now that they cannot buy the bike back. I want to trace all the bikes back and take photos but for many customers I don’t have their updated contacts as it has been a few years already since we were in contact.

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Photo Credit: Art Cycles BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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Photo Credit: Art Cycles 48

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I also do other bike type custom parts for some customers but sometimes I cannot do because it does not suit with my style of work.

My workshop was in Pak Chong and I moved back in my home province in Sukhotai then I moved to Bangkok about two and a half years ago. When I was in Sukhotai I would travelled several times per year to buy frames and materials so I thought the move to Bangkok would be better for me where I will be able to meet and chat with more of my customers.

Some customers are surprised too that I am still in the business as they say not only is the fixed gear fading but many businesses in the bike industry has closed.

It helps in my trade to have orders from international customers. In particular I have the customer who will order about 10 frames each time he visits Thailand. This is good that they like my work and appreciate what I put into it. It really makes me feel good and proud to make and have this as branded as a Thailand bike craft. They appreciate that everything I make is made with passion and likes my style of work on the Fixed Gear bikes.

I saw on Instagram one of my bikes participated in an Alley Cat race in Germany and came in second.

On seeing the photo I recognized it was one of the frames I made. I remember it was bought by one of my international customers, it has my signature design on it so I remember it well.

meet with friends and have dinner. It usually ends around 11:00 p.m. and I would cycled back home. The next day would always be very tiring for me since I have to get up early to work again. Sometimes I sleep in waking up later than usual after I go out with my friends.

With so much to do I have to spend all my time focused on the work I need to do for my customers.

Then my friends started complaining and told me I should get out and ride more not only to relax but also to show the bikes I created.

What I see in the future for cycling? I think I will still be here with my passion doing what I love to do.

I don’t think the bike trade or industry will have an impact on me or my work. I think more and more people will grow to know about ARTCYCLE. As we are in the handcraft industry that makes a different.

You can see that more and more cyclist of all bike types likes and want to have their bikes whether old or new customized and personalized. It shows who they are and their style. And that is good for the trade.

I think the big brands can see this and many other different brands offers customization.

I really want to see Fixed Gear make a comeback here in Thailand with more events. It is fun and challenging to ride a Fixed Gear bike. You have to try riding one before you can understand what a Fixed Gear bike really is.

Another photo of my bike was one where I saw, the bike was in Hollywood, U.S.A. I always look into Instagram and Facebook on Fixed Gear bikes and events that are happening everywhere,it is very satisfying to see these photos.

I don’t have much tools to work with as a matter of fact, I have very limited tools. My international customers are surprised with the tools I have to work with. It’s okay to work with thes tools, it does the jobs I need to do.

When they are in my shop they enjoy seeing me work on the bikes with the tools and especially when I do the brazing work. It is a hot and time consuming process but indeed for brazing work one has to be patient you just cannot rush when working on it.

When I started working on the bikes I didn’t have time to ride my bike, I didn’t have anytime to enjoy my own rides. In the past I would cycle at least once a week to BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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“Making each frame is a challenge taking mefrom the lowest point to the highest peak.”

- Johnathan Holman, Holm Workshop & Studio

Photo Credit: H.M. Gomeze 50

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Holm Bikes Handcrafted

by Jonathan Holman B

Thailand never ceases to amaze me even after having lived here for over thirty five years, you can still discover something new everyday. And meeting with Jonathan Holman is another discovery to the craft of making bicycles from wood

y profession I am an actor here in Thailand. Between work queues there are moments of free time, so much so that free time can be one to two days or even up to a month. What to do with the time on my hands? With the spare time on hand between acting work I wanted to find something to while away the time but it should be something that can make extra income. I looked back to what my passion was besides acting, there were sports but being on the national team was not quite feasible since there are limited budgets to support athletes. I thought again and again thinking back to what my talent was in my younger days. For sure I enjoyed taking things apart, fixing and repairing stuff of all sorts. For sure I know I enjoy working with my hands.

One day I came across a wooden spectacle frame, it was the first time I had seen one made from wood.

I really liked it. I always had like good quality frames but they were just too costly. Holding the frame I said to myself I can make this. And so I did I bought the equipment, materials and handmade each frame. I created my own brand of spectacle frames and named it “One Eye Jacks” since Jack was my nickname. It sold very well but after a time I felt I needed to do something else or perhaps a bigger challenge to work on.

I pursued for something bigger and more challenging and that was the start of making wooden bicycle frames. After doing research and homework together with some equipment including those from making the spectacle frames I was ready to go for it. I have been cycling since I was a child, but there wasn’t much

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time to ride with my work and all. Now it all changed and even more because from making spectacle frames to bicycle frames the challenge is so much more. It was not an easy journey, there was a lot of frustration and stress along the way but I have started it and must endure to do and complete what I had started out to do.

Creating a frame from wood you can ride on is much more complicated then I thought. I had to learn about the nature of the wood, its lines, textures and durability. If it is not done correctly the frame can and will break. Also the weight and the strength each wood used plays an a crucial role for a lasting frame. It takes proper planning besides just the design to incorporate all these factors in making the perfect bike frame.

There are a variety of different wood types you can make frames from such as ash, oak, walnut, beech, hickory, maple and more. I use imported woods available in Thailand, the best wood with good strength and endurance is ash. The lines on the wood are long and straight and this is good. On other type of woods the lines don’t run as well as the ash tree. Different makers like different wood types but I personally like to use ash.

For each wood the process differs as we have to use the correct technique and methods to match and combine the woods together so as to strengthen the areas on the lines that are not straight and diverts out. By understanding the wood and its pattern lines you will get a very good frame.

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To make a frame, if I work eight hours per day it will take me about ten days to produce one. But with my acting work schedules I am producing about a frame a month. I am in my fourth year and have produced over 40 bicycles already. Within these four years making each frame has taught me a lot from patience to tolerance, from problems to solutions and with every frame is a challenge taking me from the lowest point to the highest peak. Even though at times it is tough nature has its ways of getting us through if we don’t give up first. I spent many moments reflecting to move on or to stop, I chose to move on.

I have this one frame that I still keep, this frame even today makes me either want to laugh or cry everytime I see it touch it or even think about it. It was a failure frame based on my own error and lack of patience. I keep it as a memory to my bittersweet journey in making the frames. It is one frame I feel I have lost a battle to no matter what I do to it in trying to perfect it. I still fail no matter what the attempt is. It seems to want to teach me a lesson “in order to overcome the obstacles I must overcome my own weakness first”. Again nature has its ways indeed to teach us the ways of life and yes it has made me a better person.

Most of my customers are through word of mouth, some of them have seen the bicycles liked it and put in their order. Others are friends of friends who have ordered the bikes. Besides Thailand my customers are from Japan, Belgium and United States of America. I design and create the frames and patterns myself overseeing from step one to finishing the product.

When making the bikes I am always looking for ways to perfect it, it is part of my passion I love what I do and I want the best possible. Each bike comes from a plank of wood and we have to position the design in relations to the wood lines. Besides fixed gear bikes I have also made road bikes and touring bikes each one a category on its own. I have also combined the usage of wood with carbon thereby reducing the weight of the bikes. For each bike I put together I either source the accessories or hand make them. The customers are all happy with their bike and their ride is what matters to me.

In relations to accessories I look at two styles Vintage and Sport only for my brand. As for colors I like black and chromium as you can see from my bikes. On my own personal bike I do tests in different ways and methods to improve the process in making better bikes.

Holm Bike is derived from my surname Holman, I am of American Thai descent. I use the word “Holm” which is similiar to the word “home” to give it a warm sense of feel. For Holm Bike I planned to open the first factory in Asia producing w o o d e n b i cycle frames. There are factories in the west but not in Asia as yet. There are many other BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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aspects to my vision in building the brand taking each step at the time.

In terms of marketing my focus is mainly in Asia.

For “Holm Workshop and Studio” I plan to include teaching how to make the wooden bikes with a studio to display and show the bikes.I would like to produce about 10 bikes to go to overseas bike shows in Asia.

Besides making wooden bicycle frames I will restart the production of my “One Eye Jacks” wooden spectacle frames. There are also other wooden products I am working on such as set of nesting boxes, these are items used by the film and studio industry and these will be under a separate category but still under the brand of Holm.

I am a stay home dad when I am not working in my acting profession.

Here we have our home, a cafe called “Open House Cafe” and my workshop where I make the bicycles.

I look after my son when my wife is goes to work and I get to spend time with him. If possible I would like my son to carry on the business. He is only two years old now but he sees what I do when I am working on the bicycles and hopefully he likes it and will build his interest in wooden bicycles to carry on the family business that I have built for him.

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DEMONTE CYCLING APPAREL “When customers think of DeMonte, they think of beautiful designs, excellent material, good quality and workmanship. 70% of our customers are return customers, I think this says a lot for our brand�.

- Tanat Prechanont, Founder

W

e first launched our brand DeMonte Cycling in 2015 at the Bangkok International Bike Show. I took over the reins of the company from my mother who was in the garment business manufacturing T-shirts and polo shirts. We were not a big company and as the market conditions for garment industry b e came more and more competitive it was impossible to match prices with our competitors and decided something had to be done.

I took over and changed the business but it is still related to the garment industry, we are now producing cycling jerseys instead. I am a cyclist myself and I enjoy cycling with my friends. It was because of this I saw an opportunity to do something different. In order to make the business change I went on to do the necessary research needed, worked on a marketing plan and proceeded forward. It was not a major change in the operations, we already have all the sewing equipment and staff to work on the new business.

The staff from my parents company did not mind the switch to learning about making and sewing jerseys, it is still about sewing, only the material used is different. They all are very good and detailed in what they do and they do it with pride.

Before going into this business, being a cyclist I often buy jerseys so I know the quality I want and studied prices especially those of the international brands.

The pricing for these brands in Thailand ranges from about three to six thousand baht depending on the brand and country. I wanted to produce the quality that can match the international brands but with a good pricing structure for Thai people to buy.

We do everything here ourselves from design to printing the patterns and sewing. We have a team

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of ten people with seven who works on the sewing and production. Since our launch in March 2015 we have so far produced more than 30,000 pieces which includes OEM orders, customized orders plus our own collections that we design for retail at events and special occasions.

As I studied marketing one of my key intentions was to clearly set DeMonte’s positioning in the market.

This is one very important factor for our brand and it has worked well for us.

For other companies selling jerseys minimum orders are set and the order amount can be quite high as that is what their supplier factory requires. Working with us is easier since we produce everything ourselves here in Thailand. The business for us was better than I had expected, it has been good. I think besides our designs there was the timing, we couldn’t have started at a better time.

When we first started we designed and produced collections only available for sale at bike shows here in Bangkok. We didn’t want to produce for special events but later we changed our minds as our customers were requesting us to design and produce the jerseys for sales when there are special occasions.

They sold very well thus we have orders coming in and business continues to grow for us.

Other than bike shows we sell online, we don’t have a retail shop at the moment, it is something we are considering. Most of the local cycling jersey brands here in Thailand though are designed locally are produced in China. This is why DeMonte can provide the better option for local and overseas customers. Our production and the entire work timeline including delivery is much faster. If the customer want they can also come in and discuss with us their requirements and see color proofs before the final production stage.

The decision for investing to buy our own printer for the jerseys was a very worthwhile one even though the cost was high, however the return on investment took only a couple of months to payback. It made our production line so much easier as well as faster.

Before investing in our own print equipment I had to go to third party suppliers to print the color proofs. I had to wait through long queues before we can see the color proof on the materials, then their were revisions not one but sometime two to three times. I had to go back and forth travelling quite a distance each time.

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When the cycling business started declining we still managed a minimum of 10% increase in our business.

More and more cycling teams are approaching us after having seen other cycling teams wear DeMonte cycling jerseys at the races or on the rides. Having seen and feel the quality of work and the materials used they starting ordering from us.

When people first saw our logo many thought it was a bull but in fact it is the long horn goat. The long horn is a mountain goat well suited for climbing steep rocky slopes and can withstand many harsh conditions both weather and environment. As to our brand name “DeMonte”, I wanted the name to have a link with cycling. “Monte” in several European languages means mountain. In linking both the mountain and the long horn goat we want it to represent “the endurance of the ride: as cyclist will always encounter different type of conditions in order to complete their race or cycling journey.

Cycling will always be here to stay it is never a trend or fashion, there will always be beginner riders no matter the age, there will always be cycling races, urban riders and there will always be cyclists going on touring. It is the same not only in Thailand but globally. Cycling will always be here to it is a part of our lives.

When customers think of DeMonte, they think of our beautiful designs, good materials, excellent workmanship and quality. For those who order team jerseys are always happy with our on time delivery. 70% of our customers are return customers, I think this says a lot for our brand. Besides cycling jerseys we will be including other cycling wear to our collection.

As I have mentioned earlier we have from the beginning set our brand’s positioning and we want to keep to it as is. This way our marketing direction and goals will continue to set the standard. We plan to make DeMonte not only a leading brand in Thailand but also to be an internationally recognised brand in the cycling industry.

DeMonte is made in Thailand and we are proud to be producing an international quality cycling apparel locally. I am sure our customers are just as proud to wear DeMonte Cycling Jersey as we are proud in producing them.

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“Each leather accessory for the bike is treated and handmade with care.”

- Sangchai Hadtasothana, ERDEENI

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It’s Leather, it’s Handmade.

It’s made for your bike I

I have known Khun Sangchai Hadtasothana since I first got involved with Thailand’s cycling circle.

It’s time you know about him and his brand Erdeeni too.

You will want to have a touch of Erdeeni on you bike, believe me you will.

t started back in the days of the “Tom Yam Kung Crisis” a lot of people got laid off and my wife Toei was one of those people. She is a landscape designer, as for me I didn’t get laid off in my job but instead got a salary reduction. Since she had no job she thought of finding something to do and she chose to make leather bracelets for women. She went to buy some materials and tools and did this for a while until the economy improved. Then one day she was recalled back to work and the tools were kept in the shelf for several years.

My wife’s office was located on Saladaeng Road in Silom, on her way to work one day she saw a Strida bike, she was impress with the look of it and told me about it. I bought one for her but after several rides she did not want to ride it anymore.

I took it over and joined a Strida Bike Group and went for rides with them. It was then that I got to know about Brooks saddles after seeing them on the bike group rides.

I decided to buy a Brooks Honey colored saddle as it looks both beautiful and classic, I then went to search on Google what other leather type accessories can go on my bike. There were many different types and the first piece of leather accessory I went for was a leather D.I.Y. set, one that you had to sew yourself. Toei suggested I get one and try to sew it myself.

On my next bike ride my friends, saw my new accessory and wanted one too. We lived rather close to the area where you can buy the leather accessories, my wife said to me “you can actually make it yourself ”. I bought the leather materials and started to make the different accessories suitable for the Strida bike.

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As orders starting coming in, we had to buy more materials such as colorings and additional tools to be able to manage what was ordered. After that via word of mouth by friends then by friends of friends, that’s how people got to know about Erdeeni.

For the name “Erdeeni”, it was actually suggested by my wife. It simply means “it is good” derived from a short Thai phrase. In a way it sounds quite Italian too.

I have a colleague in my office who rides a Brompton found out I can make leather accessories for Strida. He asked if I could make some accessories for his orange Brompton. Then another Strida rider from our group who also have a Brompton, a Barcelona Edition ask me to make accessories for his Brompton too. After that more and more orders started coming in for Brompton bikes.

Later I connected with a bike shop on Soi St. Louis in Sathorn to have my Erdeeni products on sale there. It so happened I met with Yok of Wheelies Cycling T-shirts in the same bike shop and we started doing bike events together. Business got better and better from 2012. The first Bike show event we joined together was at the A Day Bike Fest. thereafter Erdeeni went on and partook in different bike shows around Bangkok, from A Day Bike Fest to the International Bangkok Bike and Bike Party at Paradise Park.

At the bike shows we put on display a vintage road bike and my own Brompton bike with leather accessories on it as well as my own . People always get fascinated with the display when they go pass our booth it was a good piece to show what we can do for different bicycles from the handlebar to the frame using leather. It creates a very beautiful vintage look as well as help in protecting the bike too.

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I decided to come up with more accessories specially for Brompton bikes. I learned from a friend about selling goods on Ebay and I put Erdeeni products: the leather handle carriers for bicycle frames and also the Brompton leather wrap for the frame for sale. I opted to sell the products on Ebay as I did not have know the local bike shops too well thus I didn’t have much connections back then.

We have a quite a list of items depending on the bike types such as bags to use with the Brooks Saddle as well as leather bags for Alex Moulton Bikes. My main customers are mainly Brompton riders so I have quite a list of products for Brompton bikes including: frame wraps, different handlebar wraps, carrier bag mount release, Union Jack Mudguard Brompton plus several others. More items will be produced in the future.

I had one customer order from Moscow for a leather accessory but he also requested me to create a leather Union Jack mudguard for his Brompton. Since it was my first time in making one I did it in a mono color.

For Tokyo Bikes we have done the Japan flag flap for bike fenders. For the handlebar wraps the customer must bring it the bike. For all accessories, the colors can be customize, a good example to show is the Brompton Barcelona Edition all leather parts matches the originally frame colors.

After sending it to my customer in Moscow, I posted photos onto several Brompton fan pages. People saw the product on those facebook pages and eventually orders started coming from many different countries even from Thailand.I f u r t h e r improvised the pattern and later made it to be of dual colors: red and white and then improvised it again in a variety of different colors to match the Brompton bike colors.

Through the past years I have steadily built connections with various riders and bike shops.

Besides Brompton, Strida and vintage road bikes including touring and other bike types have come to have Erdeeni products handmade for their bikes.

Erdeeni also produce leather accessories for bike shops carrying the brands like Moulton and Tokyo Bike brand. My wife had another bike, a foldable one made by Pacific Cycles call “Carry Me� which she is very fond of. I took the bike and made several leather accessories for the bike and it looks much better with the added touch.

For everything that is Erdeeni, all is handmade from the beginning to end. Quality and workmanship is important to show each piece is treated the same and handcrafted with care.

Our customer comes from all over the world, Australia, Britain, Croatia, Indonesia,Israel, Japan, Russia, Singapore, Thailand and the U.S. plus many other countries.

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Besides leather accessories for bicycles, I have even done a leather wrapped steering wheel, of course the customer had to drive his car over to my shop.

For handlebars and car steering wheels, it takes a quite a few days as it is more time consuming. It is handmade and due to position of the bike or cars, the angles on the item can be quite complicated to do as I have to move around to accommodate the angles and curves.

Each Erdeeni handmade product will last quite a few years, since we have started so far no customer has complained. I use authentic leather for all my products, real leather is much better, the more you use the better it becomes. I recently bought some new equipment including laser equipment, customers can now customize their logos or message onto the items. The first customer was Tokyo Bike, they included laser work on a watchstrap.

Business is good and going steadily, I am still working on my full time job though it can be quite tiring at times but I have to ensure the goods are made and delivered. Once a volume of order builds up I will let the customers know they may have to wait. The customer understand and patiently awaits for their items to arrive. I enjoy making each item and knows my customers appreciates it too.

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In the past there was some competition in the local market as more people started making the leather accessories too, some copied ours so I stopped making those products.

Now you can even find my Union Jack mudguards being copied in the China market but the quality is different. I am not worried as my customers knows my quality and workmanship so we are not affected.

Besides our facebook, social media and still by word of mouth has continuously helped us gain more and more customers. Cyclists continues to see our products on various bike rides too and enquires where and how they can order. This is a good sign to keep our home business moving.

We are a small business and I make all the products myself, my wife helps me when we attend bike shows. Mostly you will be able to find us in bike shows and events. We always inform our customers through our facebook. This way we can catch up with them and they can also place new orders. We also meet many new customers through the shows.

They will talk to us about their requirements and many will also come to visit our shop. It is always a pleasure to meet with customers.

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Plusone, Beyond Cycling Caps S

“It is not just about making the caps to sell. it is the whole experience in making one.”

- Narongsak Prommala, PLUSONE

ince our first interview with Bicycles United in 2013, I have moved my studio to Bangkok. When I first moved away from Lopburi to Bangkok the cycling industry has grown. Plusone started getting OEM orders but being in the craft industry I cannot take mass orders as we are small but I can say we do more niche custom orders.

Brands or corporations started to notice us and ask that we design and produce for them. One such was the Criterium Race organized by Khun Bon. A Criterium Race can be compared to the Formula One of racing, the Criterium is a one day race for bikes.

The locations Khun Bon chose were all very scenic and beautiful to hold the races. The Criterium held at Rajdamnern in Bangkok was the best of them all. For the race he was able to invite different global brands to participate and many cyclists from many countries came for the race.

Through social media the event photos were shared

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online thus awareness grew for Thailand’s Criterium races. I was a small part of this production in creating the souvenir for the event, I was involved from the design stage, I didn’t want to be just an outsource house but I wanted to be a part of the event so I shared my skill in producing the cycling caps which they gave out as souvenirs. Basically it was a cross branding of our two brands: The Criterium Race and PlusOne. Another cross branding was with Vittorio, again it was through Khun Bon, Vittorio is the top Italian brand of tires and cycling accessories. The next client who contacted me was Royal Orchid Plus of Thai International Airways for their cycling tours through Khun Rirk of OCTO Tour here in Bangkok. The cycling tours were not only done here in Thailand it also includes cycling in overseas destinations.

For this kind of project, I will do the designs and production including sourcing the materials types and quality. We have even made the caps from silk. For OCTO we have

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have created a collection for their cycling tours, OCTO tours can be customized too depending on the type of ride. I don’t take on mass orders I want to keep it as niche as possible. As everything is handmade we can produce only limited quantities.

We have another client from the U.S. Mr. Bobby who flies to Thailand annually. He contacts me prior to produce about ten cycling caps for his charity cycling trips. He will provides me with the concept and colors of his jersey, I then design and produce the caps for him.

He also came to Thailand for the “Ride for Dad” event several years ago.

I am very lucky not only did I learn the tricks of the sewing trade from my father but also through him I am able to outsource to people he knows who have the same details and standards. With orders coming in I cannot produce it all by myself and outsourcing is the option. This way when needed I can focus on other matters.

I have more time to get involve in other aspects of the work. Besides designing, and production my work also includes marketing and branding not only for Plusone but also for other clients and businesses where my design expertise can be put to use to create a brand for customers who are either opening a new business or creating a new brand.

Even though we are a small growing business I still want to continue to create our own Plusone collection but will only produce a minimum quantity for sale.

For our last own collection we did a cycling trip to Ayutthaya with one of our customers and took photos.

It was a fun one day trip taking the train and riding our bikes. It was work combined with pleasure, we all enjoyed the day out.

To build our brand we have improved in many ways, it is not just about making a cap to sell but it is the whole experience and that too shows in our packaging.We do more brand research and study the various trends and lifestyle.

My girlfriend Dear helps me in the designs for our own cap collection as she studied fashion. We merge our ideas together and it works very well. We incorporated different methods into our work such as silk screening.

We don’t want cycling caps to be used only when BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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cycling we want it to be a part of fashion, a part of the everyday wear. The caps can make the person and create a lifestyle for them this is what we can do with the custom orders.

For our own collections we will see the trend and colors that are fashionable and will fit into people’s fashion style too.

I started my first key event at the A Day Bike Fest.

It was Khun Mi from Teddy Bike who asked me to join along with four others. I sold all my caps on the first day and had nothing to show on the other days.

I put our Designer Collection on display, orders continued to come in until the last day of the show.

I had to use one notebook to accommodate the over hundred orders which took me about three months to complete. Three years after we have made quite of number of caps. I can’t even keep count how many.

The artist of the brand “Tikkywow” is a brand where we produced the caps as co-branding and it was a fanastic design with his artistic colors. Working with the artist whose design is focused on graphics is very good. A hotel in Phuket use his graphics as part of their hotel design. This is an excellent use of his graphics into their brand identity.

To be able to do cross-branding is very inspirational and to be able to use graphics on the caps and other accessory items to build up a particular theme makes the project worthwhile.

I have several other clients from Malaysia and overseas, they see the best of Thailand and want to use this to create the caps for their cycling tours.

I work seven a days a week, opportunity is always knocking on our door and I think we should not miss it.

A good cap is hard to find, one that has concept, design and style. We are happy our customers like what we do. We are not business people, real business can be quite complicated. We just enjoy building a long term relationship with our customers.

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“We aren’t just cycling buddies but business buddies too.

We both have the same vision and attitudes” - Croe & Ton, Founders of FLOW

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MEET CROE AND TON THE “FLOW” GUYS T

About 4-5 years ago Croe (Prasert Suphapho) and Ton (Pattavee Rodphae) started out riding together in a small cycling group and little did they know then “Flow” was soon to be born.

on rides nightly with his friend from Bangkapi to the King Rama V monument. Both wanted more riders to join in their ride. His friend mentioned he knew of one rider who may be keen to join with them as he mostly ride alone. They were introduced and it kicked in well or shall I say they spun to a good start.

“It was the bike that brought us together and started FLOW” says Croe. And this is their story.

Having cycled together frequently we got more and more acquainted, we talked about many things such as the kind of jobs we do. Apparently we both work in the same field of advertising and production.

Back then when cycling became popular in Bangkok there were not much cycling apparel that were made in Thailand, you had to order from overseas and on top of that cyclists wore jerseys no matter what kind o f ride they were doing. We had to buy from overseas, we could not find many brands available in here. Clothing from overseas was quite costly, cycling frequently meant we had to continuously buy more cycling apparels.

We didn’t talk about doing cycling apparel as we wore other brands of clothing until we realize that what we were wearing didn’t meet our requirements including materials, designs and production quality.

And that’s why we talked about producing cycling apparels under our own brand starting with the T-shirt.

We didn’t know how get it started, I only knew I will do the designs myself. Now we became not only cycling buddies but business buddies as well, we both have the same vision and attitudes, this is important BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

to make us able to move forward and work towards the same goal.

Ton helped a lot as I did not have the knowledge I focused only on the designs. We had lots of obstacles in finding the people and place to produce the t-shirts for us. One time we encountered the production stopped and we were left in a muddle. Ton went to sort out the problem and went to get all our materials back. We sat down to talk what we were going to do next and how to go about it.

The small factories can all produce standard t-shirts but sewing a cycling t-shirt is different there is more to it. So much more details involved in the pattern, they did not understand what was really involved thus quality was a huge problem for us then as the factory gave up on the job.

They just did not have the patience with this kind of sewing work. Many of the t-shirts were made and more than 50% was a poor quality turnout, it was impossible to sell them at all. Initially we had planned to start off with 300 t-shirts but ended up with less than half to sell. We went on searching, many places said “yes it can be done” but after showing us a sample of the work it was a huge let down until we finally found a place who understood what we wanted.

We had talked to so many different places about the quality we wanted it was just unaccountable as to how many. We want really good quality we don’t just want to sell for the sake of selling. We had at one stage even thought of taking our brand “FLOW” to be produced abroad as it was really getting to us and it was just so frustrating.

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Luckily for us our now our production problems are all settled and we have a place to work with us. Still we are continuously on a look out for new areas of production, we don’t want to settle for just one for our entire range of apparels.

We constantly want to improve the quality for our customer and that is an important factor especially in getting return customers. During the last few years, customers both locally and from abroad knows about “FLOW”, our design style and quality. Now with online sales it has helped us to spread the sales more internationally.

We are in our third year now and there has not even been one complain so far. Besides cyclists our customers includes people who do not ride bikes. They say they like the design and materials we use, we have both men and women customers wearing our “FLOW” apparel.

Our concept is once we finish with a design we will not produce the same design again even if it is a popular item. We want all of our existing and future customers to feel what they have is special and limited.

At the moment we are working on new designs, we are quite strict with the quality controls, that is why the new designs will come out slower than expected.

For this year we will focus on many things for “FLOW” brand and we will be producing more collections. We will also have our own shop which is now under construction. Yes you will be able to see many new things with “FLOW” in 2019.

Consumers today always want to see more, the world has evolved so much they are more focused on quality in all aspects of a product. It is not so much just the brand name they are buying into but what the brand brings to their daily living quality and lifestyle.

We a re c ons ta ntly c ha n g i n g o u r m a t e r i a l s t o f i t i n t o t h e c onsumers lifestyles so they are comfortable and look good when they wear “FLOW” apparels. For our T-shirt line we intend to have about four collections per year. We don’t only produce T-shirts but also other clothing line. We have already produce shirts, caps including the musette style bag.

We want our line to grow and expand we are urban wear not just for cycling but also everyday wear. For sure there will be more items to come having our own shop to display our own brand and line of urban cycling apparels and accessories. Yes it will be a good start to 2019 for us here at “FLOW”.

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A Trip to Bueng Non Bon Sunrise or Sunset the choice is yours

Photo Credit: Happybike

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ueng Nong Bon is where the Nong Bon Lake & Water Sport Centre is located, within the Prawet District not far away from Rama IX Park. It provides not only a selection of watersports activities but also a 4 km long bicycle and jogging trail that runs around the lake. Watersport activities includes sailing, kayaking and windsurng you can also take classes with instructors in the afternoons. Besides watersports you can also take your pick of basketball, takraw or workout in the outdoor gym.

Bueng Nong Bon is a part of the Monkey Dam projects initiated by H.M. King Rama IX and is one of the 25 water reservoirs built to prevent flooding. This is why this is a special place for many people especially to Khun Thumb of Happybike who runs Happybike shop with her husband Khun Shine. She says “this is one of my favorite place because you can enjoy both the sunrise in the mornings and sunset in the evenings from opposite directions of the lake�.

Photo Credit: Bueng Nong Bong

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Photo Credit: Happybike

Managed by Bangkok Metropolitan Administration the facilities are open to the public and you can easily join as a member. Membership is available at a very reasonable price paid on an annual basis. All you have to do is bring your passport or Thai ID cards and two photos for registration. This is a great place to ride your bike with friends, love ones, family and the kids. And if you are a dog-lover this is the place for you too to enjoy the day as it is also a dog-friendly place.

If you plan to go to spend the day there check out weather conditions with Nong Bon Water Sports Center this way you can really enjoy your trip there. Sunrise or Sunset the choice is yours.

Bueng Nong Bon or Nong Bon Lake & Water Sport Centre Chaloem Phrakiat Rama 9 Soi 43, Khwaeng Nong Bon, Khet Prawet, Bangkok 10250 T: 02 328 0236 GPS: 13.691771,100.660442 13°41’43”N 100°39’30”E

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Happiness is Visiting HappyBike We sell bikes we like, with no passion we will not enjoy what we do and won’t be able to relay back to our customers the importance of the brand and what it can bring to their cycling.

- Pongpun Tareekes (Thumb) & Krisda Thantranon (Shine) : HappyBike

W

e met through cycling and in 2004 we got married. We both worked in the advertising field, I was a Creative and he was a Copywriter. At that time we did not engage in any bicycle business, we were just people who had a passion for cycling.

That was 18 years ago, Shine had been cycling before me and was a serious biker since 2000.

We both enjoy cycling and looking for locations to have bike trips. We usually ride with a group and we use ordinary bikes to ride. It was not until we discovered an American handmade bike brand called “Klein” did we learn to appreciate about handmadebikes.

Klein Bikes was founded by Gary Klein and pioneered the use of large diameter tubes for greater stiffness and lower weight. He sold his company to Trek and in 2009 ceased production of the bikes. Klein bicycles were famous for their paintwork, and offered a large number of custom colours and patterns.

We started to collect “Klein” bicycles and became avid collectors. Our friends who saw that we were riding Klein, noticed that we were really enjoying our rides they too wanted to buy Klein bicycles.

The local distributor then was Probike but as Klein no longer being produced we ordered directly with Klein. We managed to get some old stock bikes and made contact with Klein’s global dealers to try to find as many bikes as we could. We place orders for our own friends as well as to add to our own collection too.

We believed in the brand as we ride the bikes we know these are really good bikes, we did our homework on everything about Klein. We are really crazy collectors, we did presentations to our friends and those interested. We presented as though we were the owners of the brand.

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Getting orders and placing the orders directly for these bikes without a shop front taught us about importing bikes. We had a stock of the bikes including limited editions and special color bikes.

Whilst we were selling the bikes we were still with our ad agency job, between us we did some talking and decided to quit our full time jobs to do freelance work instead. With this we had more time to cycle and even participated in cycling races and events. Our life was all about cycling, we talked about cycling all time, we were more engaged with cycling then with our advertising careers.

Our customers understood our passion for cycling, we accepted freelance jobs enough to make a living and divided our time more towards cycling. Life changed for us, instead of focusing on making a living first and then enjoy, it became the other way for us. Cycling just became our life and we wanted to enjoy as much as we can. We never wanted to do anything big, we just want to have a nice simple life and be happy thus the name of our bike shop.

We started a small agency called “Creative Mini” to take on work that we can balance our time between working and cycling. We both are ad agency people invo lved in creat ive w or k , w e a re not b u s i ne ssm en but we still wanted to give it go in setting up the bike business and decided to go ahead and open a bike shop even though we knew will have to go through the right and wrong ways to learn the trade.

An indeed we did, we were not sure of calculations and other factors related to the bike business. We did not have the real bike shop experience even though we did learn with our experience in selling Klein bikes, about importing bikes and what cost factors are involved. We wanted to sell products that we liked, this was our policy. We feel we cannot sell something for the sake of selling, if we did not like a particular product we just cannot sell it especially if it is a bicycle.

We know what we like and enjoy. We love handmade bikes with excellent workmanship and rides well. After Klein it was time to move on to other brand choices but as we loved Klein so much we decided we will not sell another mountain bike brand.

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We started to look for other alternatives, touring, folding bikes and road bikes. We tried and tested many brands until we decided in getting the brands we currently have in our shop. As I mentioned we are really serious about the brands we sell and if any brand fails to meet our standards we will stop selling it.

We did have had a past experience where we brought in bikes but somehow certain standards did not live up to our expectations.

We have a German brand called Bernd, it was a handmade folding bike but they produce limited quantities annually so we had to look for an additional bicycle type to sell. The next brand we took on was “Abici” a handmade Italian bike this was a city bike brand. Unlike Italy Thailand has a very hot climate, in Italy or Europe it is easier to chill and enjoy a nice city ride.

For Thailand foldable bikes are more convenient to ride with and take around otherwise it is best to go for rides using road bikes or touring. Since we are getting more serious in our rides we aimed to go for a touring bike brand and that is how we got “Comotion”, a handmade touring bicycle from Oregon, U.S.A. The brand is well established and about 30 years old. We knew there were other Thais who contacted Comotion as well, still we sent our business profile. Happily we got to be Comotion’s Distributor not only for Thailand but also Asia. Comotion has several bike types in the touring category: Touring, Lite Touring as well as Tandem Bikes.

Before we promoted the bikes we did all our testing to ensure the product is as good as it states. This was essential for us if we did not believe in a product how can we sell to our customers. Once the bikes arrived we had good response from customers. We are very close and direct with our customers and when they asked about the pros and cons of the brand we tell them. It is because of this that makes our customers appreciate our honesty. The brand has been selling well, it is now almost three years and still continues to sell well.

Despite being a handmade bike HappyBike sells 100 bikes per year. The bikes being handmade are produced in limited quantities of about 2000 bikes annually, for Thailand to sell 100 bikes is very good and we are happy with this.

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We started to look for another bike, this time a folding bikes and found “Vello” a new brand from Kickstarter made in Austria. We took a trip to Austria to visit Vello and to test ride the bikes. On first impression it looked very good though the first version was not quite perfect we still wanted to try them out. We bought four to five bikes for testing purposes, the ride was really good but there were problems with the fold.

We invited the Vello people to come to our booth at the A Day Bike Fest. They flew in for the event and we had meetings where we informed them about a folding problem. They took our comments and went back to make adjustments. Now the bike is perfect in both fold and rides, we have imported the latest versions and they too are selling very well.

For Happybike we sell bikes we ride, we still don’t really consider ourselves as a full fledge bike business. Others may sell products where there is a demand but we started the business to sell based on our passion, we are just ordinary cyclists which is why we feel if we sell products we really use it is better. With no passion we will not enjoy what we do and won’t be able to relay back to our customers the importance of the brand and what it can bring to them to enjoy good cycling.

Every brand will bring out the best of their brands but it does not imply we feel it matches our needs unlike bikes that we really use. Happy Bike is both a distributor and bike shop, we do not sell other brands that we do not represent. We won’t sell competitor categories too, if we sell touring bikes then Comotion is the brand we sell. The brand appreciates this too, not only are we the distributor for Thailand but also for Asia including Japan.

We are a very small business which we run ourselves, we don’t have a team to do sales and contacts. We do want to do more with events in other Asian countries like Taiwan and still manage doing what we do. We have position ourselves to be able to manage our business well, we don’t aim to be a big business. It is good to be able to be fully dedicated to the business and do it with passion.

Besides bikes we also have a range of accessories we see is needed. In Happy Bike we based it on our BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

experience to not only to provide bikes, accessories and bike service, it is also essential to provide additional services such as free washroom facilities. We are cyclists, we know how it is after a ride, it is always good to be able to freshen up. It is difficult to find a place to do so, what we feel we need is what our customers needs too.

Sometimes after a ride we may not be going home directly, we may need to go to other places either for work or other matters. To be able to take a shower and freshen up really helps a lot. Naturally there are costs for us to pay however, we feel this is a service we should provide to our customers. It is not just about selling bikes, even for our bike service, we sometimes provide free service as not every bike service needs to be charge. is depends on what is required if it is a very small matter we just do it.

We are happy with our business, we meet many friends, we get to do what we love, meet people with the same cycling passion, it is all about building friendships. For the agency business we sell ideas based on customer’s brief but it is not only one idea, customers always request for more, sometimes up to ten ideas and we cannot sell those unwanted ideas to other customers. In the bicycle business it is different, if a customer does not like one choice of bicycles, they can choose others choices available in the shop.

We are lucky we have good customers but still there is a difference comparing both business sectors. No regrets, we love what we have been doing in the last 7 years. We discovered ourselves and we are happy.

Our first shop was located in the Railway Market on Srinakarin, we moved to Bueng Non Bon after. We are located right in front of the entrance from Chalerm Prakiat Road.

We opened our new shop at the time when Skylane just closed for renovations so everybody came to ride in Bueng Non Bon and noticed our shop. We are not sure whether they like our shop or not as most of the cyclists are performance cyclists and we are not into performance cycling. Still it was good, we have a following of customers who appreciates what we sell as well as our bike service, we service bikes of all types even the “mae ban” bike or “housewive bikes” as we say in Thai. Our mechanic like this even though 85

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he specializes in vintage bikes. He takes care of all bike types. Customers are surprise after taking in their scruffy bikes to find it all clean and sparkling.

We try to provide different services we know a cyclist would want, which is why we also have a café within our compound. We rented the space out to Khun Supakit whom I personally know very well. His café called “Bitter Better” have been praised by customers for his coffee and food. We have also rented additional space to include a small area for selling water and have a place for meals. Cyclists have to eat and refuel after their ride, now they have more choices, the café with light meals and or eat a hearty meal in the restaurant.

Our originally intention when we bought this land was to build our own home. We have been cycling here for over ten years, we loved it so much we wanted our home to be here as well but as we already have a home we decided to build our shop here instead.

We never thought of building a cycling community here, it just happened. We wanted a bike shop and want to meet the needs of cyclists who comes to Bueng Non Bon. If everyone is happy we too are happy.

Even though we never planned to build a community here it just happened and have continued to grow.

The location itself is good though still unknown to many not within the area. it is a good cycling destination plus there are other facilities for exercise and water-sports. In the future there will be a separate jogging lane too. You have to be a member to use these facilities, the membership fee is not costly, everyone can afford it.

We are here almost everyday, we close shop on Tuesdays. We constantly see things we want to improve on or add on. In Bangkok there are very few good cycling locations, here I find is very good as everything is mostly kept in its natural state. Every year on 31 December I will always be in Bueng Non Bon to see the last sunset and on the 1st January to see the first sunrise.

I cycle here all the time and love to take photos especially taking photos of the last sunrise and the first sunset on 31 December and 1 January. Bung Non Bon is the “Kam Ling” or “Monkey Cheek” projBICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

ect of the late H.M. King Rama 9. We have high respect for His Majesty and this place makes us feel close to him. We think of him all the time and proud of all the projects he had created for the sake of the Thai people.

When we think about the cycling industry, we look at it in a positive point of view. Many business types can make you rich but it may not have a positive effect, some let you get rich fast and the effect is more negative than positive. It depends on different people and their point of view. For us both we want to do something good where everybody can benefit from the positive results.

With cycling many have improved their health after suffering from different illness. Some have come to chat with us, we tell them to be patient and take on cycling which takes time to build up good health.

Some now ride more frequently not only at Bueng Non Bon but also going on local and overseas cycling trips.

Everybody can cycle man, woman and child and the best outcome from it is excellent health. This is why we have chosen this path. Sometimes some of us choose to work hard, make money fast then get stressed out. From this we become too tired to enjoy life.

Another thing we never thought about when we came into the cycling business was to be an event organizer.

After we opened our first shop at the Railway Market, we were contacted by Paradise Park to open a shop in Paradise Park. We considered the pros and cons of having a bike shop in a shopping mall against a standalone shop location.Being in the mall had more cons than pros as we could not close shop, being in the mall we had to open seven days a week. Besides with a standalone shop cyclists can ride up to our shop directly.

We didn’t reject their idea but we suggested hosting bike events at Paradise Park instead. They gave us a location that was a quiet zone but with quite reasonable prices. We decided to do it, I think both sides took the risk. I think actually both sides took the risk as we are not event organizers nor are we a big bicycle company. They too were not experts in the cycling sector. Because cycling at that time was becoming such 87

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a popular activity that when we launched the booth sales, it was all booked up within a day. At one time we sold cycling products in the TOT Bicycle Market and had some connections there so we contacted people we knew and they agreed to join our Bike Party event.

We did promotions and advertising to support the event. The outcome was very good and many people came, Paradise Park people were very surprised with the feedback and asked us to continue to do the events. We have hosted about twenty Bike Party events in the last five years.

Many of the booth owners do not have a shop thus this event became an alternative venue for them to sell their products. We have become known by many due to hosting Bike Party, other shopping malls have approached us to host cycling events including Season Square, MBK Shopping Mall.

For each mall the event name and concept theme is different. Only in Paradise Park it is called “Bike Party”.

Unexpectedly everything we did from bike shop to bike events, having the right shop location, p r o viding the b e s t se r v i c e c o n t r i bu t e d t o u n k n o wi n g l y building a cycling community here. As I have said when we first opened our shop we did not even know that Skylane was to be closed for renovation s and it contributed to people coming to Bueng Nong Bong for cycling and they came to our shop too.

Even though they may not all buy from our shop but they definitely got to know about our shop. It is really about the timing for everyday, Sky Lane has since had a name change, it new name is “Healthy and Happy Bike Lane”. The new and auspicious name is “Healthy and Happy Bike Lane” is given by H.M. King Rama 10.

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Sport Tech / VelogicFit Professional velogicfit Bike Fitter Pro Chatchawan Manakhantikul T: + 6686 354 2001 ID line:sporttech m.me/VelogicFitThailand

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Bitter Better Or Better Bitter What’s your choice?

I have a passion for bicycles especially vintage bikes and accessories.

I have no knowledge of coffee but I do enjoy drinking good coffee.

I have no idea what is actually required to open a café.

I only knew I want to open my own bike café.

- Sutipit Chamnanvanakij, Owner Bitter Better

I

first visited Bueng Non Bon about 10 years ago, it was very different then as compared to now. Even after ten years I still love the atmosphere with the natural environment found here. Here is a good community where people can ride their bicycles, run, exercise and enjoy the day with their pets too. It is a very good place to spend time alone or with family and friends.

It so happened Khun Thumb of Happy Bike asked me if I would be interested to open a café here where her shop Happy Bike is located. Of course I said yes. I was very much interested and said yes immediately to her offer.

When I first thought of opening the café I didn’t think about the business side, I only thought it was an added benefit for me since it provided me with the additional space to keep some of my bicycles. I have about four on display here including the one I ride often with.

Besides being here it also provides me with the space to ride my bicycle. It is the perfect combination of everything I love so why not do it.

I have a passion for bicycles especially vintage bikes and accessories. I have no knowledge of coffee at all but I do enjoy drinking coffee, I have no idea at all what is actually required to open a café. I only knew I want to do so and put the two together.

Concept wise I wanted a café that is simple and serves everyday coffee that we drink, nothing fancy. Off to BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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Photo Credits: Bitter Better & Customers

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school we went to learn about coffee. we studied with the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association). I already knew what kind of coffee type and taste I wanted our coffee to be but how do we incorporate the different techniques to make a cup of coffee we want and our customers can enjoy. Here we serve the basic coffee like Latté, Cappucino and Americano. We don’t add any syrup to our coffee, we don’t want the coffee to be sweet, we want the customers to enjoy the real taste of coffee with a taste of bitterness.

Our concept is actually based on this saying “not a daily dose of medicine”. I feel there is more than just drinking a cup of coffee, there is emotion. The SCA teaches about coffee but not about what is required in opening a café, we had to find out ourselves and so we did. For our coffee, we use a combination of Thailand international coffeebeans. The range of coffee beans is quite vast, we have to source the beans that matches our taste concepts.

We have both Thais and foreigners come to our café but surprisingly there are more foreigners as compared to Thais. Our most popular coffee is hot latté but in terms of food ours is more British style foods, we have several types of cakes, quiche as well as chicken and beef pies. Our pies are popular with our

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customers especially with the foreign customers. Being here in this location we have both cyclists and non-cyclists.

They find the ambience is pleasant enjoyable whilst enjoying their coffee.

The name Bitter Better was created with a satirical meaning based on the two words “ Bitter Better”. Actually if say the words Bitter Better Better Bitter it can be quite a tongue twister and that is quite fun. Thai people believe that coffee is better when it is not bitter or with a touch of sourness. In reality is is not so, it is much more enjoyable.

I am a bike collector of vintage road bicycles from the 70’ to 90’s era and also collect vintage accessories as well. Here you can see some of my vintage water bottles collection. With the cafe I spend less time cycling as I do all my work and projects here. It has kind of become my office too.

Bitter Better Café, 69 Chalermprakiet Rama 9 Soi 43, Nong Bon, Prawej, Bangkok 10250 T : +66 089 341 1790 Open : Monday-Sunday: 8:00 - 19:00 hours Closed : Wednesdays

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Asia’s First Trade Two Wheels Industry Platform People are travelling more and more on non-conventional transport mainly on two wheels. Today they want to enjoy their travels not just travelling by air or sea but by riding.

- Ladda Mongkolchaivivat, CEO, Founder of GECS Asia

I

have been in the expo business industry for 21 years working with Queen Sirikit Convention Center but prior to that I was working with another company as Manager for a consumer product. I stopped working for two years to look after my baby and that was when I got a job with Queen Sirikit Convention Center in Marketing. This was a turning point for me as I did not know anything about the expo business. It was all new to me.

With the expo business it is constantly moving non-stop, one event after another. And everyday there are changes, with this I learned to build up character and how to solve the daily problems that occurs with every event. It is a very hard job but it fulfills my sense of achievement constantly reminding myself “I am going to do it and I can do it”. This is what I always say to myself.

With this job I met all types of people, including government officials and royalty. Work wise one cannot just take one approach to use, we have to be flexible and able to communicate with all levels and work types. This taught me to me flexible, dynamic and it also taught me to learn about people. Each group have a different approach, I like this since it provides me with new knowledge and challenge.

With the expo business we started out with the consumer expo first, being new to the business there was so much for me to learn when taking on the first task.

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Fortunately or unfortunately for me depends on how you look at the situation, I came into the business in 1997, it was the start of the economy crisis or “Hamburger Crisis” which of course for most companies means having salary cuts and staff lay-offs. I had to learn how to manage the people within our department in the company in the most efficient manner.

I had to learn not only how to manage the people but also how to create new projects to keep us going otherwise my team will lose their jobs. We received notice from the company to reduce staff from all departments and we had to submit the paper with the name of those selected.

I could not sleep for several nights and had to find a way to solve this problem that will satisfy all sides. At that time I was the Assistant Director with a staff of 24 people.

In a meeting I told my people “4 out of 24 of you would be laid off, what can we do about this? If we are dedicated, do whatever we can to earn money, do you want still work together as a team? The room was quiet. I can still remember the scene. I asked if there are any comments or objections to what I had said, everyone still silent. We cannot or may not be able to keep everyone. Of course everyone was afraid that it can be anyone of them that maybe leaving. I was getting frustrated until the team finally talked and said “Okay we will do it, we will all work as a team doing what it takes to keep this department together.

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I went to my boss and requested him to return the paper I had submitted earlier. I told him for my department we promise we will do everything we can to keep things going to overcome this difficult time.This become a challenge of not laying off any staff from my department.

changed to joint venture events, from this I learned about doing trade fairs, learned about trade negotiations and how different countries do business. The most important is we have to do trade to protect the benefits of our country. I was never taught about the different, meeting, conferences, conventions and expositions and others when I first got into the My boss finally gave in and told me “ You made a business. I learned everything on my own. promise so now you must make it happen in order to keep your promise”. To me my department was Now with my new company Global Ehibition & Convention “untouchable”, we all survived the crisis. We worked Services we teach our team as much as possible so hard, so very hard. We created “Car Boot Sales, they are well-prepared for the work and most importantly “Auction Sales” for Cars, Land and everything that work with unity. It is very important to get a good and we can create an event to sell, we did it. Our job was dedicated team that works with passion and drive. It to create new opportunities to keep the business is with this that we can be successful. One of my thriving. These were very big challenges to ex-team member Artit Songjug joined my company accomplish b u t we did it. I have never done most after his resignation from his previous work in NCC. of these projects especially auctions. This experience He too is one team member that is a dedicated man taught both my team and I a lot. that works with passion and drive.

As time passed by I learned “whenever some things happen you got to have the courage to move on no matter it is a good or bad thing”. Teamwork is very important and the leader must know how to drive and manage the team. This taught me to drive myself to go on since we never know what tomorrow may bring.

Just do the best we can. The country is bleeding everybody is suffering, what can we do if not our best to keep our people together. If not people will lose their jobs and their families too will suffer. I tell myself we have to be able to make income to last for at least the year. We made it through with the full support of our 24 people team.

We did the car boot sales with 600 cars booked for the event, we did this event every weekend at the back of Queen Sirikit Convention Hall. The space was empty and not in use, we filled it up with events even the staff had to help oversee every aspect of the work including security work. So you see we really do everything, some of them are from well to do families but as a team, being on the job no one minded what to do. We had one message amongst ourselves “Go and drive for it, don’t complain, do what needs to be done”. We made an agreement as a team, it is a concensus already so we all work together.

I was only 32 year back then and I had already learned so much, each assignment was tougher than the other.

After surviving the crisis we created more new shows, the “Pet Expo”, “Thailand Best Buys” “AmazingThailand”, “Family Festival” and others. We just kept creating new events to keep the halls busy and profitable.

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I am now in my late 50’s if I had really wanted to set a company I could have set it up when I was in my 40’ s. I worked for QSCC for 15 years and assigned to worked in a joint event with Netherlands, then my boss brought me back in to QSCC as General Manager.

With my new company I travel a lot as we mainly focus on projects in CLMV countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam). CLMV are developing countries and the area that we are trying to fulfill is what they are lacking in. CLMV markets do not have sufficient platforms to trade and this is where we come it to support them.

We are doing for them what others do not want to do as it time consuming and needs dedication.

I take care of all the clients once a contract has been signed. We find buyers for our clients even though the event has not started. We do business matching before a show goes on. Clients are happy with the service we provide. We work with SME’s and different government sectors and they support us in doing this since it benefits everyone. We bring the good to all parties and countries involved.

I use the knowledge and network I have built during my twenty years to teach my people. I want people to do good as well For our show Two Wheels Asia, this is the first of its kind held in Bangkok, Thailand.

This is a trade show that involves not only bicycles but also e-bikes, scooters, e-scooters, motorcycles and e-motorcycles. consumer are travelling more and more on non-conventional transport mainly on two wheels.

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Today they want to enjoy their travels and not limiting to travelling by air or sea but riding. They want to ride longer distances, enjoy and discover tourism in its originality learning about the people and the communities.

For this show we have already fulfilled our objectives and will also bring buyers to not only this event but also to other events we have planned. For each show we do a lot of research and take our teams to travel to each of the countries we have our show in to, meet the people, visit shops and markets. My father taught me to understand the people you must visit

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the markets, talk to the people and listen to what they have to say. The markets says a lot about business since you are coming to the roots of it all. If a lot of people is there it means plenty of spending power but if it is quiet means not so good. This way we can plan carefully and efficiently. This is the way and wisdom of the Chinese people doing business back then.

For every event we do we want to go for it, drive with a good mindset and strategy so as to bring in good results for our clients, buyers and consumers. This way everybody is happy.

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A Man and His Missions Artit Songjungtug I

My passion and drive in being an organizer is we are the backbone of the industry.

Whether with trade or consumer shows we get the opportunity to create something.

It is like creating a dream but with a timeline where we challenge ourselves to make this dream come true - Artit Songjungtug, Project Director, GECS Asia

have know Artit since I first came into the cycling industry here in Thailand around six years ago. It was around the same time when I started Bicycles United and he was doing his first bicycle show in Bangkok.

Now Artit has changed to work in a new company and we got to talk.

A man and his missions, well he has quite a few roles and here is just a few, from work as Project Director in Global Exhibitions and Convention Services to teaching and most importantly being able to share precious time with his family. Let’s get to know him.

I studied Business and Finance Management and I landed my first job with a law firm then moved on after one year to the hospitality industry with Novotel Siam followed by working 16 years with Queen Sirikit Convention Center. I was working on many projects mainly involving tourism, expos on pets, wedding, family, architects and many others.

Whilst I was working on tourism events for Tourism Authority of Thailand, they wanted us to do some specific target group activities. We looked into this and found that from three life styles it could be included as a caravan road show with cars: off road, motorcycle and bicycles: touring bikes. Mainly for this you can find in only in motor shows and not as specific show or stand alone show.

It was also at the time when cycling was becoming popular. Starting off with touring bikes for one of our travel shows that I got to know Khun Tanin Rittavirun.

Later on it was the start of doing a bike show, getting into the cycling industry after getting to know and 98

talking to so many people I too personally became fond of cycling. As a kid to being a teenager we all our like to bike but it stops when we grow up and all go different ways.

Today there are many groups of cyclists with different categories of bikes, there are always invitations to ride as well as to explore different places. Surprising with a bicycle you can make and build new friendships.

Having joined GECS in June, it is definitely more challenging with projects like Two Wheels Asia as it covers a totally different dimension involving not only bicycles but also e-bicycles, scooters, e-scooters, motorcycles and e-motorcycles. There are new markets for me to venture into like Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. Now I am involved with the B2B trade industry. This is why it is so much more challenging, we want our customers/sellers to really meet with buyers, to sit down and talk serious business we don’t want people to just walk around in the show, exchange name cards then leave. We are very serious with both the sellers and buyers markets, we talk personally to them when we visit their country. Each country sells in a different way and we must learn all the ways to understand the needs and requirement of each country and each industry.

Khun Ladda Mongkolchaivivat, CEO and Founder of GECS is highly experienced in the B2B trade and has a proven success record which is why we at GECS aims to make our shows successful too. What differs with us here at GECS is we go to visit all our targeted markets, go meet the people, the association, the sellers and buyers and promote the show.

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We must go to surveying the markets, this way we are really committed to doing what we originally aimed to do and do it successfully.

After having visited these markets, they see our dedication in not only selling the show but also bringing in knowledge and benefits to them, providing them with data they are looking for. In the long term we see markets growth which is why we have to be dedicated in what we do and do it for long term benefits for all the countries we are working with as well as new future markets.

The two wheels industry has changed much in the last few years especially with e-bicycles, e-bikes, e-scooters and e-motorcycles. Many changes and trends in the coming future will surely change the way we look at the two wheels transports. Some countries in Asia has already changed and goes all E in specific cities but due to taxations and imports factors that are still unclear will happen slower in other Asian countries.

Working with the cycling industry I feel I have a part in making the industry grow. The directions of the cycling industry also guided us to move in the right directions at the right time. If the industry had better and proper planning I believe the industry will get stronger and stronger. With Two Wheels Asia, we can assist and work together with the industry in making the markets stronger. It is not only working towards the consumer end but mainly it is at the B2B end, market stability is required to make this happen.

To be an event man is not an easy job and I am lucky to have a great team working together. The challenge for me is tougher than in my previous job but I am very lucky to have a new and open minded team and also a boss like Khun Ladda who is very supportive of her team and is always there to lead and guide us.

There is a lot of travelling especially to new markets but all for the good of the projects and building relationships in all markets. I really enjoy what I am do now and look forward to challenges that comes our way.

Motorcycles especially big bikes are going more towards riding for tourism and exploring and not just city rides and races. Different modes for different riders be it motorcycles or bicycles.

My passion and drive in being an organizer is, we are the backbone of the industry. Whether with trade or consumer shows we get the opportunity to create something. It is like creating a dream with a timeline, we challenge ourselves to make this dream come true. We approach someone we don’t know to make them believe and invest in our dream. We approach customers and sell our project, they see and believe in what we do that will match with what they need as a marketing tool for their products. When the 4 day event comes, it is very satisfying to see people coming and enjoying the event, sellers at the booths are happy to see buyers and buyers are happy to see visitors. People know and remember the event, press talk about it, altogether this is what it takes to make a successful show. This is the life of organizers, we are like people who sell dreams and each dream becomes a reality. As we do each show our dream becomes bigger and more and more people participating and share our dream with us.

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KPN TAXI VIP SERVICE

Visiting Thailand here is good news for you.

“KPN Bangkok Group Co., Ltd.” launches KPN Taxi VIP Service in Thailand

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or all cyclists and travellers visiting Thailand here is good news for you. KPN Bangkok Group Co., Ltd. held a press conference on January 28, 2019 at Toyota Bangkok’s Showroom to officially launch “ KPN Taxi VIP Service”. This is part of KPN Bangkok Group’s expansion of their car and rental services aimed not only for the domestic market but also for international travellers coming to Thailand.

With Thailand’s tourism expected growth in in 2019, KPN Taxi VIP will surely meet the traveling lifestyle and demands of both the domestic and international travellers. Having ride KPN Taxi VIP on several occasions we want to recommend for you too if you are planning a trip to Bangkok or even if you are here at this moment with your bicycle for cycling trips or even for other sports and leisure activities. This is a service very suitable not only for you but your friends and family too. Why? the fleet of cars used for KPN Taxi VIP consists of Toyota Fortuner cars and also for the women travellers they have an exclusive “Toyota Fortuner Lady” fleet for you. Lady Drivers and all the drivers are well trained to drive you to your destination safe without worries.

Actually in terms of safety cameras are allocated both in and outside of the vehicle, another one feature you surely cannot find in other taxi or car transport services, the “S.O.S.” Emergency Button that is within easy reach of the passenger to be use only in case of emergency. Just press the red button and assistance will be on the way. In providing all these services, KPN Taxi VIP gives priority to passenger safety with all drivers carefully selected to provide the best service to make your trip a pleasant one. It is their aim to provide quality service and safety for all passengers when travelling in Thailand.

All the vehicles are new and well maintained, you never worry about fuel shortage too if your ride is a long one. With the GPS navigation system, free wi-fi and ample space for your bicycles and luggage, all you have to do is sit back and relax. On reaching your 102

destination, just take out your bicycles and enjoy your ride without the worries of how to get back to your hotel or other places planned on your trip.

For payment, customers are provided with a variety of choices either via major credit/debit cards or through various bank applications including Alipay, wechat and UnionPay. Receipts are issued for every ride as well.

KPN Bangkok Group Co., Ltd. is a joint venture between KPN Management Company Limited and KPN Motor Group Co., Ltd. Together they have experience in managing the taxi business for more than 11 years in conjunction with Toyota Bangkok Company Limited. With Toyota’s network and branches throughout Thailand, the latest business expansion under the brand KPN Car Rent and KPN Taxi VIP is to meet the lifestyle of the customers who want exclusive and reliable transport services. To support the business and tourism growth in Thailand, altogether fleet of 100 cars consisting Toyota Fortuner and Toyota Camry will be added to the service by the end of 2019.

Beside the service being available with counters inside both Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang Airports, it is also available in selected shopping malls and areas within the city center. For those interested to use KPN Bangkok Group Co., Ltd. variety of transport services especially the KPN Taxi VIP can contact +66 63 206 4455, +66 63 204 5656 or checkout their website www.kpncarrent.com.

We at Bicycles United have in the past heard complaints of cyclists traveling not only abroard but also here in Thailand when traveling with their bicycles. Some have encountered difficulty in getting taxi transports well now you don’t have to worry when you are visiting Thailand, try KPN Taxi VIP, no hassles no worry.

BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

Participating in the press conference of KPN Taxi VIP, (from L toR) Mr Keattisak Keeratiyakornsak, Chaiman, Mr. Nithi Boonyaratglin, Mr Pachara Panyayong, Vice President, Mr. Masakazu Maruyama, President & CEO of Maruyama Company Ltd., Mr Monthep Panyayong, Mr.Peerapol Panyayong.

(from L to R) Mr. Nithi Boonyaratglin, Mr. Suthat Suwannasai, Deputy Director of Suvarnabhumi Airport - Commercial Line President, Mr. Masakazu Maruyama, President & CEO of Maruyama Company Ltd., Mr Pachara Panyayong, Vice President.

(from L toR ) Ms Yata Kanjanapakkapong - President of Creative Travel Bike Group, Bike Finder and Organizer Bike Travel Bike Event, Ms Aiyananyan Ayara Thirasak - Managing Director, Vacaylista, Mr. Masakazu Maruyama Mr Monthep Panyayong, Mrs. Sirinapa Vasukun - Executive Editor,

Tourism Unbound, Mr Keattisak Keeratiyakornsak, Chaiman,

Mr Pachara Panyayong, Vice President, Mr. Nithi Boonyarat

glin, Ms. Kris H.M. Gomeze - Editor Bicycles United ASIA &

Editor - There Will Always Be A Story, Mr. Zeudthavee

Kanchanapakapong– Editor, Ride Explorer, BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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BANGKOK BED & BIKE HOSTEL

Bangkok Bed and Bike A Hostel with a Story Hostels have been increasing the world over especially here in Thailand, many too caters to the ever growing cyclists who wants to discover more with bikes and on bikes. I have recently come across one called Bangkok Bed and Bike located within the historical part of Bangkok.

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ocated on Charoen Krung Road which is the very first paved road in Bangkok built in 1861 during the reign of King Mongkut. At the time, roads were not officially named, and thus the road became known Thanon Mai ( New Road).

King Mongkut later gave it the name Charoen Krung, which means “prosperous city” or “prosperity of the city”.

“Charoenkrung Road” or New Road, has then been the center of commerce and trading from the past to present day. day. The main heritage building of Bangkok Bed and Bike was founded in 1955 combines the elements of Thai and Western architecture. Where the hostel is situated used to be the home of Prince Phrayasi Sahathep from the era of King Rama III. In days of old, rickshaws was operated by Chinese immigrants who called this intersection Si Yak in Chinese, hence the name of the intersection where the hostel is situated is called Si Yak Phrayasi.

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The hostel is within the conservation of Bangkok’s historical town and urban area being looked after by the Crown Property Bureau. And therefore the hostel’s exterior still has the same charm and look as it used to be in the past. During the period of King Rama III, this building used to be Si Yak Dispensary and Drug Store, where the Royal family and foreigners got their prescriptions.

Later ownership changed hands and it became the Sri Ayutthaya theatre.

This old town area called Wang Buraphaphirom, is where The Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun are all located. From the hostel, it will take about 5 -10 minutes walk to and also go to many other historical places of interest including Khao Sarn Road. Even more convenient to reach if you want to discover the zone riding a bike.

China Town and Little India too are within walking distances. During the day, you can easily take a walk to the Old Siam Plaza where you can taste all local Thai traditional food and clothes. And across the street is the biggest textile market call “Phahurat” also known as Little India which is a long walk that leads to Sampeng Market and China Town.

Born and lived here for three generations the owners wants to share with guests and visitors their history, the happiness, the lifestyles, and the many friendships through the many cycling experiences you can find during your stay with Bangkok Bed and Bike. They can show you the best cycling routes in the old Bangkok Town.

where everyone can socialize and exchange travel information with other travelers.

Facilities includes: Air-Conditioned Rooms/24 Hrs. Key Card Access /Fresh Towel & Clean Linen/Slippers/Free Wi-Fi in all areas/Shared Bathroom & Restroom for Females /Shared Bathroom & Restroom for Males Bathroom & Laundry Facilities: Bathroom Amenities / 24 Hrs. Hot Shower / Hair Dryer Coined Operated Washing Machine & Dryer Cafe’ and Restaurant: Free Continental Breakfast (Croissant, Toast, Cereal, Muesli, Coee, Tea, Salad, etc.) /Pantry with Dining Utensils / Fridge / Toaster / Rice cooker / Microwave Drinking Water Cooler (Hot / Cold) Other Facilities 24 Hrs. Operated CCTV / TV at the Lobby / Luggage Storage Room / Lockers / Pool Table Contact and Enquiries: Bangkok Bed and Bike Hostel 19/6-7 Sikak Phrayasi, Wangburaphaphirom, Phra Nakorn, Bangkok, Thailand 10200 T: +66(0)944878058 E: booking@bangkokbedandbike.com.

Photo Credits: Bangkok Bed and Bike Hostel

Provided by the hostel is an array of very comfy rooms and beds. In the morning one can enjoy a hearty continental breakfast then after you can continue on your day with a cycling tour by the local leader. He will ride and to show you around so you don’t have to waste your time in case you get lost riding on your own.

On site too they have more than 10 well-equipped bicycles for rent but if you love to wander around by yourself you can also do so.

For rooms and beds there are various types to choose from. No matter travelling solo or with other, the hostel provides a lively common area BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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2019

GEPIN PRO

911TE (Time Trial)

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The heart of our high performance road bike production: a complete range of products, from race-ready bikes developed by the R&D department working closely with Olmo athletes and teams and specifically prepared with highquality setups for the most demanding customers, to competition inspired entry-level models that are perfect for all conditions.

BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

GEPIN PRO

911TT (Tri)

OLMO THAILAND DISTRIBUTOR: Cyclolic Ltd. 231,233 Chamniansuk 3, Petchkasem Rd., Bangkokyai, Bangkok Yai Tel: +66 89 810 4939 FB Page: OLMO Thailand BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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If you want to run, run. but wait why not “Run Like A Local”

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es I do mean “Run Like a Local” and there is no better place to run than Phu Sang in Phayao Province.

The run is limited to only 300 runners to ensure everyone will enjoy the run as well as protecting the environment too.

Thailands first tourism run event from 16-18 February, 2019. “Run Like A Local” Project was initiated by Vacaylista and Thai Run and collaborated with the Tourism Authority of Thailand. At a recent press conference, Mr Wisarut Inthayom, who is the Regional Director, Northern Region, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) says, “this running activity concept differs from the many generic running events andit ties in very well with TAT’s Amazing Thailand Go Local Initiative. Not only can you participate in a running race but at the same time be able to watch and experience the local community way life of Phayao Province. The government’s policy is not only to enhance tourism alone but also to generate additional income for the local communities of the provinces”.

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Ms. Thananya Aiyarathirasak, Managing Director of Vacaylista Co., Ltd. says “we designed the running route after seeing the beauty of secondary cities in each of the regions combining the arts, culture, traditions and the spirit of the local people in the different communities”.

In joining with Thai Run to arrange and organize this activity “Run Like A Local” is a chance to get people to go out, run and be a part of the local “Sustainable Tourism” utilizing the local resources with focus on maximizing benefits for the community. Taking into account of environmental values, the capacity and limits of the resources of the community thus this run is limited to only 300 people.

The event to be held in Phu Sang, Phayao is from the 16-18 February 2019 and will be the first province to participating in this activity. The actual running event takes place on February 17, 2019.

There are two different packages for this run, first is booking the 3 days 2 nights “Travel & Run” Package. covering Chiang Kham district and Phu Sang district.

Price is 6,850 Baht per person. This price covers the accommodation, meals, transportation, joining in the activities, travel insurance, running fees, running shirt and a specially hand-woven cotton scarf.

The second package is a Day Package priced at Baht 900 per person covers, 3 meals, participating in the activities, accident insurance, running fees, running shirt and a specially hand-woven cotton scarf.

In promoting the new tourism in the secondary cities of each region in Thailand by ways of running and walking at the same time will bring in many new experiences and gaining new knowledge of the local communities along the 11 kilometer route. As this is a city run the route will comprise of houses and forest fields which villagers use in making their living. We will also pass through different areas of historical archeology importance within the communities.

This activity is aimed with the purpose to help in the development of local communities by generating additional income as well as help to stimulate the country’s economy making it a stronger nation. And besides this, all of the income after deduction of expenses will be donated to Phu Sang Hospital in Phayo Province.

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Participating in the press conference were: Mr. Phithik Jarukosol, Marketing Manager of Thai Dot Run Co., Ltd., said, for this project Run Like A Local combines travel and running and is a great way to get runners and travellers alike to participate.

Mr. Viron Sithiwong, District Sheriff of Phu Sang District, Phayao Province, said the community of Phu Sang District is well prepared to support tourists and runners to meet with the villagers and we have on standby Medical and Police teams to ensure safety and medical issues.The villagers of the local community eagerly awaits to welcome everyone and the final highlight of the event is a special dinner filled with local delicacies and there will be local ceremonial activities and cultural performances.

Mr. Phithik Jarukosol, Marketing Manager of Thai Dot Run Co., Ltd., said “for this project Run Like A Local combines travel and running and is a great way to get runners and travellers alike to participate.

Applications are made: https://race.thai.run/like-a-local”.

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Senior Director of Krungsri Ayudhya Card Company Limited Mr. Chaipol Krittayavanich added that “This project has warmly received cooperation from all sectors, Krungsri offered the convenience of online booking benefit to 100 customers who apply to join the 6,850 Baht Travel and Run Tour Package through: https://race.thai.run/like-a-local.

Mr Decha Rintaphon, Manager of Channel’s 3 Family New Channel very much supports this event and want its program’s fans to participate too. Running not only improves your health but running through scenic views, experience the local lifestyle and food is a different new enjoyment.

Finally Mr. Zeudthavee Kanchanapakapong, Editor of Ride Explorer tells that Ride Explorer is a Content Promoter and a media for travel lifestyles.

With creative travel inspirations in various formats we believe that “Run Like A Local” is a new experience for runners. For people who loves to run and travel, Ride Explorer will be the medium for connecting this group together as a community.

We are ready to be a part of this inspiring activity and encourage people to learn more about their local culture and ways.

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Mounts & Accessories that adds more function to all your rides Light Mounts Camera Mounts: Digital & GoPro Mobile Phone Race No. Clip Bag Mounts Selfie Mount Trigo Mounts are suitable for use with all bicycle types including: Road bike, Mountain, Urban, Folding, Touring and cars

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INTERNATIONAL DEALERS: China / Macau / HongK RETAIL SHOPS: Australia: PD & PM Keast Pty Ltd. / Ph B-SPOKES / Malaysia: Van’s Urban Bicycle Co. / JAP Thailand: British Cycling Square (Brompton BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

Kong / TaiWan: BeeSports Co. Ltd. / Korea: Efronbiz / Thailand: Trigo Thailand hilippines: Buzzwheel / Spain: Valeria bclopes / Singapore: Mighty Velo Pte. Ltd./ PAN: Kuwahara International Co., Ltd. / Russia: BRO’bike Shop / Italy: Bike id / n Accessories) / One Fine Day / Canada: Mr. T Jerry Lu / Italy: Bike id 117 BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

Style

UVEX FINALE VISOR UVEX Finale Visor offers even more protection, with deeper sides and more coverage over the back of the head. Its built-in visor lens, with cat. One filter category, protects against the wind and sun. Via IAS, the helmet’s is width and height adjustable and optimally ventilated. A option visor lens, with darker cat.

3 lter category is also available.

Features : PROTECTION: double inmould technology standards: EN 1078 FIT: 2 shell sizes (52 – 57 cm and 56 – 61 cm) //anatomic IAS//monomatic//FAS strap

strato steel black mat strato cool blue

COMFORT: 20 ventilation channels// bug net//plug-in LED included//reflective straps. and logos//vent pads//weight from 330 g Credit: UVEX Helmets

Cactus Tongue SSL Wall Mount Bike Hanger

Made from curved stainless

steel and finished with elegant

handmade leather pads in

various colors, the Cactus

Tongue SSL wall mounted bike bike hanger solves all of your indoor bicycle storage problems, without ruining your decor.

Credit: Amazon

Rapha x Frank Green - Reusable Cups

MOSKITO WATCH

Rapha collaborated with Frank Green to create smart and stylish reusable cups.

MOSKITO is handmade in the south of Switzerland. Use with the MOSIKITO APP you can ride your bike with ease.

Available exclusively only in Rapha’s Clubhouses. Double walled to keep hot or cold drinks insulated. BPA free.

You will be lucky if you can get your hands on one.

Credit: Rapha

Precision quartz movement, 6 bi-directional motors monitors Speed, Average Speed Distance, Date, Bluetooth 4.0, Rechargeable, Chronograph, Water Resistance to 2m.

Notications, Stravel & Garmin Integration.

(Option) THE MOUNT: The Roadbar mount, a stainless steel mount which ts on every bicycle stem.

Credit: MOSKITO Watch

Proviz REFLECT360 Performance Cycling Jacket The REFLECT360 performance cycling jacket for men and women is designed for when you are out in the dark on the roads and for safety reasons you want to be seen. Design is simple and minimalist/ rear side and underarm moisture wicking polyester mesh/lightweight 170 gm/windproof/zip guard and lock zip/ fitted waist.

Credit: PROVIZ

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COMBAT WIPES

Touring

Extra Thick, 100% Biodegradable, 100% alcohol-free, viscose wipes.

Infused with aloe and vitamin use on the face as well as body cleansing. Refreshing. Excellent use for the outdoors, travel, gym, backpacking and camping with aloe and vitamin E, Safely use on the face, as body bath wipes, or as camping toilet wipes when nature calls. Essential for ANYONE who does not have access to a shower or fresh water.

COLAPZ 2-in-1 WATER CARRIER & DISPENSER

www.combatwipes.com Credit: COMBAT WIPES

www.colzps.com Credit : COLAPZ

Made from food grade recyclable plastic. Electronically welded joints for extra strength. It is a water carrier,dispenser and bucket.

Capacity 8 litres, safe for liquids and food. Full Size: 25 x 22 x 22cm.

Collapsed Size: 6 x 22 x 22xm Two colors: Green or Blue

MATADOR FLATPAK™ PACKABLE ADVENTURE TRAVEL GEAR Toiletry Bottle FlatPak™ Toiletry Bottles are the only travel bottles designed for minimalist travel and ultralight adventure.

Built from welded Cordura® with a proprietary coating.

Can ll with anything from liquids, gels, and tooth pastes.

Not for food/drink, do not use with ethyl alcohol (ethanol).

Dimensions: 11.5 grams 3oz (90ml) volume. Available in 1-pack or a 3-pack. Features: TSA approved, 5X lighter*, 3.5X more compact**, Large ll opening, Waterproof fabric, Snap loop with write-in contents indication. www.matadorup.com Credit : MATADOR

Fjällräven KEB DOME 3 Four-season dome tent with optimised strength and security.

Use in exposed conditions and harsh terrain. High ceiling in entire inner tent and steep inner tent walls give a comfortable and social area. Three extra strong yet light DAC Presst poles.

Foxfeet with quick and glove-friendly pole release.

Weight: 4790 g, Persons: 3, Seasons: 4 Seasons /Outer material: 40D TripleRip Sil/Sil 3000 mm/ 100% polyamide. Packed size: Lenght: 42 cm/Diam: 23 cm, Material inner tent: 30D Ripstop DWR 100% Polyamide, Mosquito net: 20D No-see-um mesh 100% polyester. Floor material: 70D PU 10000mm 100% polyamide. Pole material: DAC Presst, Scope of supply: DAC V-Pegs Medium Gender: Unisex, Features: windproof and waterproof durable.

Family: Keb, Environmental info: Fluorocarbon-free impregnation. www.Fjällräven.com Credit : Fjällräven BICYCLES UNITED ASIA I Volume 3 No.1

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MAI PUAK, DENCHAI, PHRAE

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A Visit to the Local Community of Mai Phuak Railway Station Den Chai, Prae Province

n a recent trip hosted by Tourism Authority of Thailand Prae Office, we were invited to visit places of interest covering culture, religion, preservation, food and lifestyles.

For many people when talking about the north of Thailand will often think of Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai however these are main cities or provinces, Prae is a secondary city in the Northern Province. Here I would like to share about the teak forest in Mai Puak, Den Chai district. It was a morning of activities shared by the local community in welcoming our group starting with the beat of drums by a young boy followed by his peers. After we were invited to be part of their community talks and they shared with us their stories.

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Professor Parinya Chukaew from the Faculty of Architecture, King Mongkut’s Institute of of Technology Ladkrabang played a major role here in Mai Puak in the preservation of the local train station building which consisted of twin buildings made entirely of teak.

This is a one of its kind here in Thailand and thanks to the efforts of Professor Parinya working with the local community managed to save and preserve the building. And here Professor Parinya tell us the story of how it happened. “In the year 2000 before I went to the U.S. and I had a chance to work with my Professor Dr. Yongtanit Pimonsathean. Back then he was my advisor in my Masters Degree thesis on Urban Planning at the

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King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang.

We went to Phuket together with a group of my friends to document the shophouses on Thalang Road. It was my first time working on history and preservation, later on for my thesis I studied the welfare housing for the railway workers in Bangkok. My thesis talks about architecture, history and the way of life of the people over there. I had to figure out how to balance between conservation and development for the welfare housing community in Bangkok for the State Railway of Thailand workers. After I completed my thesis I went to the US and worked there for six years, in my seventh and eighth year I received a scholarship from Georgia State University and I got to study about the real history conservation as well as the system to make it work.

When I finished my degree I returned to Thailand and worked with Dr Yongtanit Pimonsathean again at Thammasart University. Today besides working on preservation projects, I teach Architecture at King Monkut’s Institue of Technology Ladkrabang and also a full time lecturer on the history of preservation.

It really started about 8 years ago I got a project with Dr Yongtanit Pimonsathean from the National Housing Authority of Thailand to survey the old communities throughout Thailand. Because of this project I spent an entire year travelling around Thailand to document, photograph and to talk to the people including the Gard Kong Kau Community in Phrae.

I got to know several people throughout Thailand including a group of people who are interested in the preservation of old buildings but some of them don’t know how to start, they just know that they have the building with architecture value and history.

They don’t know exactly how to work with what they have. Whilst travelling all around Thailand I got all the information on the communities of Thailand.

Now I have two big projects on my hand to work with, we have to work out what is the real problem of historic preservation in Thailand. After one year of researching we concluded that the problem is from the government. In Thailand there is no financial support or system from the government to support the local people who has old buildings and want to preserve it. Unlike other countries like Japan, U.S. and Britain where the government supports with civil programs and funding to support the projects, the 122

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education and the people who have these properties.

I have a network of people consisting of professors at universities who work in the Fine Arts Department in Bangkok. We had several seminars talking and finding ways to solve these problems, for historical preservation in Thailand we have to move forward.

For the conservation of the railway station buildings it became a big issue in Thailand last year as the State Railway of Thailand wanted to build a double track from Nakhon Ratchasima Province to Khon Khaen Province.

The issue came up because of the plan to demolish all the railway station buildings, altogether 15 buildings.

I have the information as well as the information of the valuable buildings alongside of the tracks. With this I sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Thailand about the problem and asked him to help do something about it. I have the information the facts and I have the solution to solving this problem and how to balance both the conservation and development of these buildings. It is not just about conservation nor is it about just development, it has to go together.

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Later on I sent a letter to the Association of Siam Architects under the Royal Patronage and I also wrote a letter to the Governors of both Nakhon Ratchasima Province and Khon Khaen Province requesting them to do something since it will be a huge lost to the very valuable statures in their provinces. The two governors received the letter and called on the people involved to set up a meeting to find a way to save all the buildings. The State Railway of Thailand said the plans have already been made and it is not possible to change the plan. Otherwise they have to take it from the station and move it to another place. The decision was up to them, after several months of discussions between conservation and development 13 buildings out of 15 building were saved, only two were demolished.

In the case of Mae Puak Railway Station, it happened six years ago when I was travelling throughout Thailand, I got information from the college that I had to travel to Mae Puak Village to see this building. I had never heard about Mae Puak before and did not know where it is located. From the google map

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I found it was in Den Chai, Prae Province, it was there I got to know Pu Yai Noi, Khun Noi Tianmanee, Headman of Mae Phuak.

We talked about the preservation of Mae Phuak Railway Station which they very much want to do but don’t have the know how and ability to do it.

They have no knowledge where and how to start, we talked and discussed about their situation and I promised in the next few months I will return with my students to document and photograph everything about the buildings history, architecture including analyzing the significance of the building.

I wrote a report and got some funding from the faculty of my school, it was not much but it was enough to get tickets for me and my students to travel back to Mae Puak Village . We rode a train from Denchai Province and Pu Yai Noi went to pick us up at the station.

We spent an entire week in Mae Puak just to document the building. After we finished the project I wrote a report and sent the information to the media.

Four to five reporters from TPBS responded and came with me to Mae Puak Village to film the story and broadcasted the story nationwide. One year later I sent Mae Puak Railway Station building to the Association of Siam Architects under the Royal Patronage. We received noticed that Mae Puak Railway building received an award, Pu Yai Noi went to the Royal Palace to receive a plague and certificate from Princess Sirindhorn of Thailand.

My role in historical preservation as a Professor is to find the facts, document it, write a report and find a way to tell the story and bring people to the places I have seen. With the information I have it is up to the people to make the choice, I have to show them the way with all the facts provided so they can make the right decision to save the place.

For Mae Puak Railway Station, the building belongs to the State Railway of Thailand but Pu Yi Noi and his community wants to use the area as a public space for the community children and family to spend quality time here. They want to put the story of the buildings and let visitors and future generation be educated about its history. The State Railway of Thailand does not have the budget to support this so Pu Yi Noi and the villagers manages it.�

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MAI PUAK, DENCHAI, PHRAE

Behind the Mae Phuak Railway Station is the first Teak Forest Plantation planted by the Royal Forest Department in 1910. We were lucky to be invited along with several local press for this exclusive trip and would like to share it with you.

Though most of us on this trip lives in Bangkok many have never seen or experienced the culture and ceremonies done for the teak trees. The ordination ceremony for these teak trees is to help protect them based on local traditions. Even for the Mae Puak Railway Station neither did we know about its story until we met up with Professor Parinya. So much to see and learn, Thailand is filled with never ending stories which is why the Tourism Authority of Thailand is promoting the Secondary Cities.

Many thanks to Khun Sirinard Chatsupakul, Director, Tourism Authority of Thailand’s Prae Office and Team for organizing this media trip. Thank you to Village Head Pu Ya Noi in giving us such a wonderful reception and telling us about their way of life, not to mention the delicious local meals prepared by the community ladies. A special thanks to Professor Parinya Chukaew from the Faculty of Architecture, King Mongkut’s Institute of of Technology Ladkrabang for travelling all the way to join with us on this trip too. I am sure we will be hearing more about Professor’s preservations projects soon.

Participating on this trip:Ms Yata Kanjanapakkapong: Post A Trip, Good Taste Great Culture, Creative Bike Group, Bike Finder and Organizer Bike Travel Event, Ms Aiyananyan Ayara Thirasak, Ms Kandtharat Chermchitphon: Vacaylista, Mr Zeudthavee Kanchanapakapong: Ride Explorer, Mr Pongpet Mekloy: Bangkok Post, Mr. Atipat Sunoppakhunsri: Travel Around the World, Mr Naris Wuthisakont: Creative Traveller, Save The Wild, Mr Pongphan Assawinwanhnahem, Thai Post. and Bicycles United / There Will Always Be A Story: Kris H.M. Gomeze.

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The bicycle has a soul. If you succeed to love it, it will give you emotions that you will never forget - Mario Cipollini-