Venue: Dragon Hills, Ratchaburi or Enter the Toobless Dragon – Pt 1Hares: Julian B, Matin 'Passing Gas' R. and foody Brian A.Dates: 25/26 Aug 2012Scribe: Ken.Hash 393 found us 2 hrs from Bangkok in the land of the headless privet dragon at Dragon Hills Golf Course, Ratchaburi…………. well the club house at least. A quick phone call rectified a minor navigational error, and we were just in time for hash cash, check in and a quick fill of water before ride off.The pre-ride meet saw an absence of sherry and the usual dodgy instructions from the hares as they warned of checks a plenty, three loops and one water stop, intermittent mobile signal and 42 km of fun filled trails. With the phone numbers of the hares firmly glanced at and forgotten, everyone was off and running. The pack appeared to be in holiday bimble mode, with much banter of summer vacations from the returning teacher contingent and admiration of No Meat and Weed-Eater's new Santa Fe’s by others, that the FRBs promptly took a wrong turn. A prompt about turn of the entire pack found paper cunningly hidden by the pesky hares on the other side of a wall. In true Bangkok style an instant queue longer than Monday morning rush hour at the Asoke intersection developed whilst the pack backed up at this early obstacle. A few adventurous souls found the “green route” rat run and it was off again through some fun trail through everyone’s favorite low thorny scrub building up to some nice fast paced flow which was firmly stamped out by the first mud and check of the day, which had the pack milling in general with uncertainty. Agony Aunt took firm control of proceedings and the outriders we sent to search for the on-on. Confusion reigned in the back check area as the pack duly milled hither and tither in response to false calls of the trail being found and promptly lost again. A quick stern word from Agony Aunt (in French of course) bought the pack back in line and the on-on was promptly found by a whistleless FRB (fortunately nameless) and the pack was off again through more fun trail in the thorny scrub. The FRBs kept the pace fast and furious around some fields, and the “mother of all thorn mines”, on to a road under the watchful eye of the local Constabulary (afternoon officer), a few photo’s and back into the fields on the way to a novel rear entry water stop. Unfortunately it was my front tyre that hit the “mother of all thorn mines”, cunningly and maliciously laid by those crafty hares I like to think and had me watching as the front tyre rapidly deflated. A quick bit of faffing around with the tyre found the said “mother of all thorns” and what little sealant left after 6 months of neglect, failing to fill the gap. Seems like I was not the only victim of the hares malicious thorn bomb and two of us were frantically trying to fix punctures with the pack gliding by offering words of condolence, concern, smart arse remarks and general abuse, as required. A gracious lend of a spare tube by Cranky Bitch, had me quickly pulling the tyre off the rim, spilling what little sealant left everywhere……… only to find it was the wrong valve size. Bugger. My company was faring better under the assistance of the gracious Mr Lime Green Yeti. So with some frantic pumping of air and blind hope we were off through more fun trail and into the water stop, a nice cooling shower for the half (well 1/3) time refreshments and the pack long gone. A quick helpful hand from the (now) lovely and helpful hares ended in being covered in more latex than a Friday night in Soy Cowboy and a tyre refusing to inflate. A kind change of front wheel from those fabulous and delightful hares had me back on the road with the instructions to “go a couple of km and turn right”.This apparently skipped a, depending on who you talk to, gnarly, fun or generally ok piece of single track (I will leave it to others to decide) and the return of paper about where the dastardly hares (well, I had his wheel now) said it would be. This turned out to be a short climb up a delightful piece of track that once crested, turned into a long gentle down hill that begged for a big ring flogging; who was I to refuse such an offer. Some small puddles kept things intersting and some back-sliders soon came into sight on the other side of a puddle………. that turned out to be a lake (I think you know the one). A quick unscheduled bath and rinse of the muddy water from the eyes (thanks whoever you were) and it was back on the road/trail. The fun downhill led to a few back-sliders and Wet Spot heading back in the opposite direction. What the? Seems as though those pesky hares were up to their dirty tricks again and we had been off paper for a while. A quick bit of milling around (we were getting good at this milling thing), frantic referencing of Shitty Shitty Bang Bangs GPS by Dike Diver and a back check found those pesky hares had put a right turn in at the middle of a nice fast downhill.Anyway, with the back-sliding pack back on paper, more fun and fast trail took us through undulating fast trail with a quick hop over a couple of logs across the trail to keep things lively. A bit too lively as we encountered the gallant Weed Eater and "friend" escorting a victim of the aforementioned log back in the direction of the water stop. The return leg of the loop found us on some fast undulating and open dirt road through scenic pineapple fields, another sharp right turn at the base of a hill led to fun undulating open track and a few more casualties of thorns and broken brakes. Back at the water stop the hares gave the option of the obligatory short cut or the final loop before zooming off for ambulance duties. So it was a case of safety in numbers with puncture prone Agony Aunt and a few others and we set out on the run on home. Paper soon led us off the road onto a track that suddenly disappeared again after zooming down a short hill and cruising up the other side. Hmmm maybe there was a sharp right turn at the base of the hill; the hares were getting very predictable. Though in this case it was worth it. The paper leading to some more delightful undulating, fun trail……….. and another puncture. I knew I should have topped up the damn sealant. A quick patch on the tyre saw us off past some more back sliders fixing more punctures and stopping again to fix another puncture; dammit Agony Aunt, I told you not to get those dodgy Bontragers. Go with the Geax!Some new rubber saw Agony Aunt back in the saddle and moving again through more fun trail and another sharp right at the bottom of a hill; really hares, enough already, and on to the long run home through open fields. Another soft and wobbly back end heralded the final puncture of the day, which the smidgen of sealant left in the tyre and a quick pump of air solved. Hooray! Finaly some flat open track took us home to a welcome late cold beer, sandwich, and religion in progress with Sack-o-shit once again defying the laws of physics by proving that he does have the power of magnetism over aluminium.All in all a damn good ride over some great track that will have us coming back for “Enter the Toobless Dragon – pt 2”. Well done Hares.