Skip to content
Mae Hong Son Loop EN ไทย

LegsThe 1263 cut

ทางลัด 1263

Sixty-four kilometres that halve the loop, and the hardest riding on it.

Parts of this record are marked as needing verification.
Countryside in the mountains of Mae Chaem District, Chiang Mai Province, seen from road 1263.
 This  image was created with Hugin.Takeaway · CC BY-SA 3.0
38.1km
230curves
25hairpins
2.5–3hours
64km fuel gap

The route

↻ Clockwise

Leaves Route 108 heading east; climbs, then drops a long way into Mae Chaem.

↺ Counter-clockwise

From Mae Chaem westward; the climb comes first and Mae Hong Son is still ahead.

The circuitBan Rak ThaiDoi InthanonHuai Nam DangThe Japanese memorial at Khun YuamMae Sam Laep and the SalweenMae Surin WaterfallOp LuangPa Bong Piang rice terracesPai CanyonThe evening in PaiPang UngSu Tong Pae bridgeTham LotTham Pla, the fish caveWat Chong Kham and Wat Chong KlangWat Phra That Doi Kong MuWat Hua WiangWat Jong SoongWat Phra That Mae YenPha Bong hot springsTha Pai hot springsChiang MaiChiang MaiHotHotKhun YuamKhun YuamMae ChaemMae ChaemMae Hong SonMae Hong SonMae SariangMae SariangPaiPaiSoppongSoppong10810810810810951095109510881263109610750 km
Highlighted: Route 1263 · The circuit is drawn from OpenStreetMap ways tagged Route 107, 1095 and 108: 598.0 km, of which 6.5% is bridged in a straight line where the route number is not tagged. © OpenStreetMap contributors · relief Open-Meteo / Copernicus DEM
Route 1263

7.3curves per kilometre — its hardest two kilometres

153.3° — hairpin19.8°6.9°35.6°25.7°12°7.4°20.4°41.6°81.8°60°14.1°22.3°40.2°23.7°1263500 m
2.06 km of Route 1263, drawn to its own bounding box. Every mark is a direction reversal the counter scored; the big one is the hairpin. · © OpenStreetMap contributors

What it is

Khun Yuam east to Mae Chaem. Optional. A three-day loop instead of a four-day one, bought with the steepest and most curve-dense road here.

The long version

Inference — over the 38.1 kilometres OpenStreetMap has mapped of it: 159 curves at a 25-degree threshold, 25 hairpins, 4.25 a kilometre — denser than Route 1095, with a fraction of the traffic and none of the infrastructure. The road runs roughly 64 km; the rest is not traced, so the totals here are a floor.

What it actually costs. There is no town between the two ends. There are long stretches with no fuel. There are stretches with no phone signal. The gradients are steeper than anything on 1095 and some of the seal has broken up. If something goes wrong here, it goes wrong somewhere that nobody is passing.

Inference — the recommendation this project would make, and it is a recommendation rather than a fact: take it on a trail bike or a midweight, in the dry, with a full tank, before noon, and not alone if that can be arranged. Take it on a 110 automatic only if you have already ridden Route 1095 and found it comfortable. In the rains, do not take it at all.

Countryside in the mountains of Mae Chaem District, Chiang Mai Province, seen from road 1263.
 This  image was created with Hugin.
Takeaway · CC BY-SA 3.0
Rice paddies and recently cleared forest land in Amphoe Mae Chaem, along road 1263 between the town of Khun Yuam (Mae Hong Son province) and the town of Mae Chaem (Chiang Mai province), on the west fl
Takeaway · CC BY 3.0

What it asks of you

Smallest sensible bikeSmall manual, 150–300cc
DifficultyYou are comfortable with a loaded bike on a steep descent
PillionThink about it

The one leg on this circuit where the bike and the rider both matter.

Loaded, on a heavy bike, on a wet descent, this is the hardest thing here by a distance.

By season

The rains, June to October

Off the plan. Steep, broken seal, and nobody passing.

Runs with

Named here by

Where each claim comes from
FieldTierSourceNote
defaultharvestedCurve and distance measurements off the OSM polyline — This project
text.storyinferencecurve figures measured; fuel, signal and surface descriptions are general and are not sourced to a survey — treat them as a floor, not a report
text_thinferencewritten in Thai by this project, not machine-translated

Sources

cited Cited — a named source, linked · harvested Harvested — fetched from an open dataset, with its licence · tradition Tradition — general knowledge of the tradition, hedged · inference Inference — this project's own reasoning from the above · field Field — someone stood there