Q's on Cycling Laos in June/July

It's my impression that the roads will be rough, mostly unpaved, could be some washouts, etc… Anyone have any input on this?

If you take the big roads they are all paved.
I have cycled that stretch three times, once South and twice North. Once I took the wrong road heading out from Vientiane and ended up on an unpaved road for the first day. It was a very wide and flat road though and I really think it had been prepared to be paved.

There is a couple of big hills between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang. You should get hold of a profile of those so that you know what you are in for. Don't be put off by me saying so. It is perfectly doable, and a very beautiful ride. But good to be prepared.

I have cycled here in the European winter, no monsoon. I arrived by bike from Thailand and thus did not need to buy any. But I bought some small bike things at a good bike shop quite near the Thai consulate.

Btw, there is a guest house in Hin Heup, 96 km out from Vientiane on Rd 13, and from there 67 km to Vang Vieng.

I've ridden all of it once and bits of it lots of times. As said the road is all paved. It will be hot and wet but you should be able to do it OK.

My main warning is that there are long steep hills so you need good brakes. The sort of brakes you get on a cheap clunkers are not usually any good in fact can be next to useless in the wet. This would be one of the first things I would look out for on a bike for your trip. Obviously go for the best bike you can get, as ever bringing your own with you is often the best way of getting this.

Hopefully someone can help on availability of decent bikes in Vientiane. I do know good bikes are available in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.

There are 2 roads that you can take out of Vientiane, H13 and another road that goes to the big lake which starts as H13 southbound, then H10. The roads meet near the lake.

I am a bit confused about your slow boat to Chiang Mai, presumably you mean Huay Xai on the Thai border.

Thanks for the tips! We will check out the profile of the route and be sure we're prepared for the hills. :)

Simonhill, we were under the impression that the slow boat that goes to Huay Xai also goes through to Chiang Mai, but yeah it looks like it stops at Huay Xai, so we'll probably be bussing from there to Chiang Mai. (we still have some research to do!) Do you happen to know if it's pretty easy to get the bikes on a bus in Thailand? From what I've read, it sounds like this shouldn't be a big deal.

This is good news about the paved roads. Do you think a touring bike would be suitable, or should we think mountain bikes?

Thanks again for the input. It's good to be able to talk to someone with firsthand experience.

A touring bike is what most people use and would be ideal as long as it has low gears.You will need to carry luggage.

Generally no problem with bikes on buses in Thailand although they will go in the hold underneath so there needs to be enough space. I have taken a bus from Chiang Khong (over river from Huay Xa)i to Chiang Mai with my bike. I think it was called the Green bus. The bike cost 50 baht.

Great, thanks again for the really helpful info! :-)

Generally no problem with bikes on buses in Thailand although they will go in the hold underneath so there needs to be enough space.

Agree with that. I have mostly had to take off my pedals when bringing my bike on a bus. Be prepared for doing that, i e have a spanner available that lets you remove the pedals, and figure out beforehand which way the bolt turns. Also have a plastic bag to take your pedals in, and an Allen key to open up your handlebar so that you can swing it lengthwise. You need to make your bike as narrow as possible.
Be aware that while it mostly is easy to have your bike loaded at the station of a tours origin it may be considerably more difficult to load your bike half way down a route. I had to wait several hours in Lampang before any bus crew would even consider loading my bike. All buses came from Chiang Mai and where quite loaded already. Destination Bangkok.

Once I got to take my bike inside the passenger compartment on a Thai bus, and the dirty chain smudged people. But since a friend gave me her old sewing machine I have made a protective cover for my chain from some cheap cotton and bungees.

I rode that way over the Christmas break, there are certainly some good hills but the road is mostly good except for a few sections. I went along highway ten and they were doing roadworks twenty kilometres into the ride, and from Thalat to highway thirteen, otherwise a nice ride to Luang Probang. I took the profiles so have a look the site below, you'll have to scroll through a few pages to find the start because I dump a lot of gps related stuff on there. From Vang Vieng, I rode to Phu Kuon but stay in Kasi. The hill before Phu Kuon gets a bit rough around the corners where it's unpaved due to excessive wear so a MTB with lots of gears makes climbing over the rock parts easy.

http://www.everytrail.com/profile.php?user_id=393837

Thanks for the breakdown tips, albin. We'll be sure to be prepared for that.

And dandry, your trip profiles are fantastic!! Thanks so much for sharing them! We'll be planning our route in detail in the next few days, so this will really come in handy. :-)

Hello logandear,

You got plenty of good advice here, I cycled Laos last month, the piece you plan to cycle is the major one but let me advice you to consder going more north to Nong Khiaw or even by boat 6 hours to Muong Khua or something like that - I had most spectacular and pretty easy rides there. Somebody edvised me to do so as well. Nong Khiaw is a paradise, can see pics here http://www.ewcyna.com/maxing-my-relaxing/.
You can eventually come back t Luang Prabang by bus.
Vientiane-Luang Prabang you will have just hills and it is only 5 days ride. Are you sure you want buy bikes, maybe it is better to rent them? But if you want to buy I have read plenty of times there a decent bike shop in Vientiane, just do some research.
Happy riding.