At long last, with all the motorbike riding in the Golden Triangle area of north Thailand, souvenir “motorbike specific” T-shirts hit the market. From Meo Designs, these motorbike T-shirts show that the rider has managed the famed 1864 Mae Hong Son Curves, The Golden Triangle and even bagged the famous “Nan Road 1148.”



For years travellers have been seeking motorbike specific T-shirts from these areas, only to go away with less satisfying souvenir T-shirts from promoting towns, areas, motorbike clubs, meetings or groups, nothing specific to motorbike travel in geographic areas.



Passing through Chiang Mai recently while researching an Asian motorbike documentary for a foreign production company I stopped at the Rider’s Corner Bar and Restaurant for a meeting with a large group of Malaysian motorbike travellers and noticed the complete line of T-shirts for sale displayed on a wall. The Rider’s Corner Bar and Restaurant has become a “Motorbike Mecca” for travellers in Asia, so it made sense the restaurant would carry the new line of Golden Triangle Rider T-shirts as well as the best and newest GPS and paper maps of North Thailand, Nan, Cambodia and Laos.



The T-shirts can be ordered off the web at www.gt-rider.net and maps off the Rider’s Corner site at www.riderscorner.net Better yet, stop in, enjoy a meal and the motorbike environment. Tell them you saw this on the HUBB. The Rider’s Corner also serves as the Thailand Horizons Unlimited Mini-Meeting point in January, 2013. To see what fun was had at the 2012 meeting, a report is here www.horizonsunlimited.com/meetings/Thailand2012

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Sun Chaser, or 'Dr.G', Professor of Motorcycle Adventure at SOUND RIDER magazine. Professional Motorcycle Adventurer/Indian Motorcycle Racer/journalist/author/global economist/World's # 1 Motorcycle Adventure Sleeper & Wastrel
Soul Sensual Survivor: www.greataroundtheworldmotorcycleadventurerally.co m

Damn!
I did them all last month and left Thailand last week... couldn't you have said this a week earlier...?

Would def. have bought one!
;-)

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Seeing as how this is 'The Bar', I don't feel too bad for making a negative post...

This must some kind of joke, surely? Whilst admittedly I've never ridden in the 'Golden Triangle' of Thailand, (and am therefore not a 'Golden Triangle Rider'?), but I've never ridden a motorcycle in a specific place and afterwards found my overwhelming feeling to be one of regret that I couldn't buy a t-shirt attesting to having ridden my motorcycle in that place...

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UK to Mongolia 2009, on a DR350

Negative post?



I think not, merely wonderment, as shared often times, positively.


I was reminded, with the wonderment, of a conversation with the legal representative of a large motorcycle dealership, who shared some insider information regarding motorcycle sales, service charges and accessory sales. The dealership sold 75,000 T-shirts in one year!



Business morning customers would be lined up when the dealer doors opened, some with taxi cabs waiting. The customers rushed in, selected T-shirts, paid, and then dashed to catch their taxis to the airport or drive their motorcycles to the next souvenir point. The T-shirts named the dealership and city. Many of the customers had not driven a motorcycle to the city/dealership, merely wanted souvenir proof they had been/walked (?) upon the hallowed ground.


The legal representative laughed when asked the profit center ratio of motorcycle sales to T-shirt sales. He said, “I’ll not share those numbers, but will say we’re not really in the motorcycle sales business, we’re in the T-shirt business when equated to gross and net profits, mark-ups and inventory costs.”


Another pair of motorcycle travelers I met in Alaska had left their home base in Florida, pulling empty trailers, filling them along the way with T-shirts from motorcycle dealerships along the route, as well as T-shirts from roads they had ridden (“I survived the ******!” with a graphic image of a generic motorcycle).



The Golden Triangle Rider T-shirts seem to be a simple supply-and-demand product: there had long been a demand (motorbike souvenir void), some business/designers/marketing people stepped up, invested, and offered a supply. Time will tell if their financial venture will succeed, or not.


When I ride through the Bermuda Triangle or across Lake Baikal, I might want to purchase a T-shirt that I was there, on a motorcycle….but possibly not. A T-shirt is weight. Maybe a sticker? I'll wonder.



Here’s a taste of how travellers from around the world drop in while riding in the Golden Triangle, many recently taking home a souvenir T-shirt. There were 70 motorbikes parked outside last night, riders mostly from Indonesia, a few of us from other countries.


Around the world riders stopping by a bar in Chiang Mai - Page 11

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Sun Chaser, or 'Dr.G', Professor of Motorcycle Adventure at SOUND RIDER magazine. Professional Motorcycle Adventurer/Indian Motorcycle Racer/journalist/author/global economist/World's # 1 Motorcycle Adventure Sleeper & Wastrel
Soul Sensual Survivor: www.greataroundtheworldmotorcycleadventurerally.co m

Sometimes Tshirts are a pain, because of the bulk, so when I collected Tshirts from foreign places, like Macchu Picchu, Nazcar etc, I would send them home every month with that months photo backup.

Now stickers are the thing, a lot of RTW riders like to stick crap on their bikes as each one can tell a story and I know I get a lot of looks because of the stickers, especially the remote area ones

Cheers
TS

Oh, BTW, I bought both the Mae Hong Son and the 1148 Nan Tshirts and then did not wear them until I actually did the rides




I am sure they will become a collectors item over time
Cheers from Vientiane, Laos
TravellingStrom

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Get the news out around Chiang Mai, Sun chaser. There are plenty of cheap tee shirts around, but something fallang size, that doesn't go out of shape after three washes, is a little harder to find, especially at the right price. Good ones sell like hotcakes in Chiang Mai. A bar down Moon Muang had its name printed on a good quality teeshirt, and couldn't print them fast enough. The buyers didn't care about the print on it, they just wanted a good tee shirt.

I'll drop in for a next time I'm there.
Best luck.

For me it's not about taking home a sh#tload of tees of places that I've been, but the fact to buy a decent tee at a good price in another country so I have something "tasty" from a place/trip/country/... Did the sticker thing, which gives you a lot of stares but just sold the bike, so no more stickers from far and away...

I mean, I wear everyday a tee, so in the morning, when I get up and look yet again at a day at work instead of driving somewhere on my bike, at least I have this look at a tee that I bought in X when I take it out to put on, so some memories pop up right away and makes my drive to work a bit more bearable... counting how many days I need to do this before setting off again!

And I'm sure I won't be the only one thinking this...

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