Bikes from South East Asia Vacation Spring 2012

[kingfish254]

Last year we went to South East Asia just as Build Off 7 was starting.
Here are some bike related photos that I took on our trip to Myanmar (Yangon, Bagan, Mandalay) , Indonesia (Bali, Yogyakarta), and Malaysia (Melaka, Kuala Lumpur).

I know that my guide in Bali thought I was crazy today, when I asked him to turn around to go back to a little roadside shop that had a bunch of bike frames stacked out front.

Here is the local bike repair dude in a small village in central Bali.

He let me jump into his junky workshop.

I was hoping to find some old Brooks like seats or big bike bells. Most of the parts where newer parts. There were some cool full cover chainguards, but I knew I couldn't pack those well. It was fun rumaging through his pile. I really felt like Frank on American Pickers.

Here is what I ended up with. A cool old 56T "TROPICAL" cottered chainring. What a perfect souvenir from Bali. This is going to hang in my shop.
Sorry, I couldn't come up with a nicer backdrop. :wink: This is the rice field view we have from our bedroom patio.

He also let me have this beat up motrbike tag

Turns out that they worship me as a god in Bali.

 

[kingfish254]

Re: Bikes from Sout East Asia Vacation Spring 2012

Check out the "MADE IN BALI" bike I brought back with me.

 

[kingfish254]

Re: Bikes from Sout East Asia Vacation Spring 2012

May 12, 2012
I found one even better stash the other night in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. When we arrived in I asked one of the Becak (front ride pedicab) drivers where to find old bike parts. He told me about the night market for secondhand items. Took a taxi for a grand total of $10 including tip and him waiting there for me for 30 minutes. The shop was awesome with a bunch of old wide Brooks like springer saddles and bunches of unusual headbadges and tail reflectors and ......

The only problem was I couldn't get the old guy to bargain with a even $10 and he was asking over ebay prices. I had four seats picked out and about 15 badges and a big bell and some front fender doo dads and rear fender reflectors. I was will to spend about $150 US (which is a LOT of money here) but he was in the $300+ range the whole time.

Here is one of the guys stalls.

No luck on bike parts in Yogyakarta, but I did buy two more bike frames.
The first one was a replica Becak that I bought outside the Borobudur temple complex.

Then I bought a penny farthing replica

Followed by...
JACKPOT!

Great bike parts day in Malacca, Malaysia today. I went down to Chinatown and while talking to one of the antique merchants I asked about bike parts. I was only 1 block away from a bike repair shop. I thought that I had smelled bike grease in the air!!!

No old parts, but check out what I got for less than $30. All brand new parts. I would have bought more, but this was all they had of the seats and bells.
The seats are leather and the bells are really cool. When you push the thumb lever, the entire double sided bell spins and rings.

 

[kingfish254]

Re: Bikes from Sout East Asia Vacation Spring 2012

We didn't get to see this, but in Northern Bali there is this 1904 stone carving

 

[NicksGarage]

Re: Bikes from Sout East Asia Vacation Spring 2012

Looks like some nice spinning bee bells. I've got an old one on my stretch that I bought many years ago. Nice and loud.

 

[kingfish254]

Check out a couple of the Malacca, Malaysia trishaw bikes. These guys rock out their bikes with all sorts of cool rat and non-rat like ornamentation. Most are loaded up with mega amp sound systems and lights too. I meant to post more photos of these bikes in a separate thread once I got back from vacation, but never did. I will have to locate my other photos later.

 

[NicksGarage]

There is one of those, without the decorations, on the San Diego CL. It's got the sidecar on the right though.

 

[kingfish254]

Not a bike photo, but a cool one of me in a rice terrace in Bali.

 

[kingfish254]

Here are some more from Bali

This one reminded me of Jake's RetroRato

Cool sequence as we pass a guy on a nicely painted scooter. The smile on the last photo is the best.

Cool old VW Thing. This is the exact color of my old 73 Pumpkin Orange Thing

We were always seeing old guys on Raleigh-esque bikes. Our driver even called then "old man bikes". Most had beat up springer saddles and homemade wooden racks.

 

[expjawa]

That's cool, Kingfish. Thanks for sharing!

 

[kingfish254]

Glad you like them. More to come since I found the folder I had the photos stored under.

Here are some from Yangon (Rangoon) , Myanmar (Burma). April 2012

Lots of tri-shaws.

This guy was cool enough to let me take photos of him painting his tri-shaw.

 

[kingfish254]

Here are some bikes from Bagan, Myanmar (Burma). This area has over 3000 Buddhist temples. April 2012

These basic bike repair stands where all over the place.

The bike repair guy at the resort we stayed at gave me one of the scrap springer saddles.

You can see one of the temples in the background of this fried pork rind guy.

 

[kingfish254]

More from Bagan, Myanmar.

We went to this little village compound and found these guys making the metal hoops for wagon wheels.

They also had these funky trucks all over that are basically diesel engines from generators that are loaded up on a front axle and then connected to a trailer.

Bike hauling long bamboo.

 

[CRASH]

Very cool! I wasn't into customizing bikes when I was with my operational squadron, so I didn't have "find a bike shop" on the brain. Now I'm wondering if they have bike shops in the middle east. It's so dang hot and sandy. But Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Chennai India, even Perth Australia would have been intereting places to try to find unusual parts.
Well, in 2015 if I go back to sea again (and not retire) I will put 'bike parts places' on my list of things to find while in port.

 

[kingfish254]

Here are some vehicles and bikes from Mandalay, Myanmar - May 2012

Hauling ceremonial wagons

Hauling lumber

Hauling gasolene bottles

Here is one of those "generator" trucks.

Hauling logs

Hauling furniture by bike

Repair biz

 

[kingfish254]

Very cool! I wasn't into customizing bikes when I was with my operational squadron, so I didn't have "find a bike shop" on the brain. Now I'm wondering if they have bike shops in the middle east. It's so dang hot and sandy. But Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Chennai India, even Perth Australia would have been intereting places to try to find unusual parts.
Well, in 2015 if I go back to sea again (and not retire) I will put 'bike parts places' on my list of things to find while in port.

It's kind of fun hunting them down and it gives you something else to enjoy about your trip.

 

[Carbon]

Great pics man, really cool. Cool to see how much stuff some of those guys can load up on a bike. Some of those bikes have truss rods on em, neat places to.

 

[kingfish254]

Thanks, I am still not finished posting all of the bike pics from that vacation yet.

 

[kingfish254]

These photos aren't from SE Asia, but they are from that trip.

First here are some photos from Lori's Diner in San Francisco

Followed by a very cool Italian Motorcylce dispaly at SFO airport.

 

[kingfish254]

Two more from Bali