Or, Yangon Traffic is Bad, Part 512.
As part of my continuing mission to find places to ride my bike in/around Yangon, I’ve been researching where other people ride, planning routes, and then not trying them out because it’s been raining, I’ve been sick, I’ve been lazy, or some combination of all three.
The general fashion seems to be to head out of the city, often out past the airport and then some measure of distance towards Hlegu (40km), Bago (100km), and for the more adventurous, Hpa An (300km).
Because I have not been diligent in maintaining my bike fitness (or indeed any other kind), I picked Hlegu. In fact not even all the way to Hlegu, but a nice almost 70km round trip, with the idea that I could start off with a 40km-ish version and still leave room to extend on the same route as I got used to it and found my legs.
I’ve ridden this sort of distance in Yangon before, although it involved some mild getting lost, discovering one of Yangon’s industrial zones in the middle of truck-loading time, and a major case of bad timing which left me stuck in the middle of early morning traffic and getting home an hour later than intended.
So I had learned my lesson and this time decided to do a reconnaissance drive of the route at about the same time of day I was intending to ride.
Now Strava is quite clever and when you plan a route it gives you an estimate of how long it will take, based on your recent rides. Mine clocked in at just under three hours. Riding.
So as I left in the car just after 6am, I was expecting to be back somewhere around 7:30/7:45. But that’s mainly because 6am Jono is a bit of an idiot, and had forgotten that my planned route had me returning on one of the main arterial roads in Yangon, at exactly the same time as everyone else in Yangon is heading into the city.
I eventually arrived home at 9am. In the same period of time I could have driven Canberra to Sydney, listened to 1/5 of the Ring Cycle, watched the latest Captain America movie (and half an hour of outtakes), or apparently cycled the same distance.
But actually it wasn’t too bad, I got to see lots of Yangon that I don’t normally, and even though the last 10kms took me 90 minutes, my extensive backlog of Radiolab podcasts** kept me entertained.
And that’s it for today. Next time I promise there will be less cycling. Probably. Although I could tell you the exciting story of how I installed new pedals on my bike…
*Strava is an activity-tracking website that allows cyclists (and to a lesser extent, runners and swimmers) to record their rides and compete against themselves and each other. For a more in-depth explanation, ask that annoying colleague who always comes in to work still wearing their lycra.
**If you’re not listening to Radiolab I’d really recommend it, as well as their recent spin-off More Perfect, which tells you more than you ever thought you wanted to know about the US Supreme Court.
While we’re on it, here’s a list of other podcasts you may enjoy:
- This American Life
- G’day Patriots
- Lexicon Valley
- Planet Money
- The Telegraph Cycling Podcast (in keeping with today’s theme)