Nobody agrees on the number
In Mae Hong Son you can buy a sticker, a T-shirt, and even a certificate saying you have survived the loop's 1,864 curves. What you will struggle to find is anyone who agrees on what that number refers to.
The figure most people repeat with confidence is 762: the bends on Route 1095 between Chiang Mai and Pai. The 1,864 is attributed variously to the whole loop, to the stretch between Mae Hong Son and Pai, and to the southern half via Route 108. One rider who drove it noted that the sticker sellers along the road seem to compete over whose count is highest. A long-running thread on a Thai motorcycling forum has never settled it.
It does not matter much. What matters is that the number is large, and that on a bicycle every one of them is either uphill or downhill.
What the loop is
The Mae Hong Son Loop is a ring of roughly 600 km through the mountains of northern Thailand's far north-west, made up of Routes 108, 107 and 1095, starting and finishing in Chiang Mai. It runs through Mae Hong Son province, close to the Myanmar border, through country that is remote even by northern Thai standards.
It is famous as a motorbike route, and most of what is written about it is written for people with an engine. On a bicycle it is a different proposition entirely.
The loop on a bicycle
Our version runs 693 km over eleven days, with seven days of riding and 15,279 metres of climbing. That works out at an average riding day of 99 km and 2,183 metres. It is, by some distance, the hardest thing we run.
We ride it clockwise. That means heading south-west out of Chiang Mai first, with the option on Day 3 of summiting Doi Inthanon, Thailand's highest mountain, then turning north up Route 108 through Mae Sariang and Khun Yuam to Mae Hong Son, and finally east along Route 1095 to Pai and back to Chiang Mai. Ridden this way, the famous 762 bends of the 1095 come at the very end, on legs that have already done most of the work.
The shape of the week, day by day:
Day 2. The Samoeng loop from Chiang Mai, 79 km and 1,527 m, as an opener.
Day 3. Chiang Mai to Mae Chaem, 86 km and 2,500 m, through Doi Inthanon National Park.
Day 4. Mae Chaem to Mae Sariang, 129 km and 3,206 m, the biggest day of the tour.
Day 5. Rest in Mae Sariang.
Day 6. Mae Sariang to Khun Yuam, 96 km and 2,055 m.
Day 7. Khun Yuam to Mae Hong Son, 67 km and 861 m, the closest thing to an easy day.
Day 8. Mae Hong Son to Pai, 107 km and 3,085 m.
Day 9. Rest in Pai.
Day 10. Pai to Chiang Mai, 129 km and 2,045 m, along the 1095.
The two rest days are not decoration. Each one sits directly after a day of more than 3,000 metres, which is where they are needed.
What the riding is like
The roads are the reason this works at all. The tarmac on the loop is smooth and traffic is sparse, which matters a great deal when you are spending hours on climbs and committing to descents. One of our riders from the 2022 edition described the week as switchbacks, climbs, waterfalls and coconuts, and wrote of riding over gradients of 20 per cent. Expect the steep pitches to be short and the climbs themselves to be long.
Off the bike, Mae Hong Son is where Thai and Burmese cooking meet, and the town's food reflects its position near the border. And the khao soi along the way is reason enough to stop.
When to go
Northern Thailand's cool, dry season runs from roughly November to February, and it is the only sensible time to ride the loop on a bicycle. We usually run it in December and January. Outside those months you are trading cool mornings for heat or rain, and on a route with this much climbing that trade is not worth making.
Who should ride it
Riders who already climb well and want the hardest week they can find in Southeast Asia. This is not a tour to use to get fitter. It is a tour to arrive fit for.
If the numbers above look like a stretch, our Tour of Northern Thailand covers some of the same region at 538 metres of climbing a day. If they look about right, the full itinerary for the loop is on our Mae Hong Son Loop page. Dates are not yet on sale. Leave your name there and you will hear first.
Written by Barnowl Adventures.
