BikesThe underbone with gears

A Honda Wave, a Dream, a Sonic: a small four-stroke in a step-through frame with a four-speed gearbox and usually a centrifugal clutch, so there are gears but no clutch lever. The machine most of northern Thailand actually rides.

What it is like. The most satisfying cheap thing on two wheels. The clutchless gearbox means you change with your left foot and nothing else, so climbing becomes a rhythm — heel down, hold, heel down — and a long ascent stops being work. It is the bike the whole region actually rides, and riding one is the closest you get to travelling as a local rather than through a place.

The gearbox is the whole argument. Second gear holds a loaded 125 down a hairpin descent on the engine, and the brakes are then there for corners rather than for the entire hill. Inference — for a rider who has never come down ten kilometres of switchbacks before, this one change matters more than any amount of extra engine.

It is slower than a scooter off the line and faster everywhere that matters here, because 'faster' on this road means 'able to hold a steady speed up a long climb without the transmission hunting'.

The Super Cub layout it descends from has been in production since 1958 and is the most-produced motor vehicle in history, which is a way of saying that every mechanic between Chiang Mai and the Salween has seen one before.