Holidays are here

It's now school holidays. I should be planning something for the family but Justin has extra school for the 1st week and Michelle has her girl guide camp. 5 of my mtb biker friends are cycling all the way from Malacca to Betong. Not an easy feat as the journey will take them through 5 states and they cover over 600 km of pedal power. Most of the other bikers are preparing to go by bus on Thursday night and will rendezvous with the cyclist at the border at Pengkalan Hulu on Friday morning and they will all go in together to Betong and spend the next 3 days there. 2 more days to go and I am still thinking of whether to go or not.

Anyway, my entry today is about Michelle's camping trip.
It is her first camping trip and as parents, we are naturally worried for her. We had planned to replace her drinking water and bring back any dirty clothes today but Michelle phoned this morning at 8am telling us not to go as some parents had gone there yesterday and there was some problems.

I guess some parents must have gone berserk when they found out the tents are not air conditioned.

The Wheels of Life

Life is a cycle. You wear diapers when you are a baby, you grow up and when you grow old, you wear diapers again. Another illustration that tells the same story:

Which wheel are you?

Note of thanks to Heng Lai Huat for the picture

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A few months ago we had a guest from Germany riding with us at one of the Friday night ride. He is travelling around the world on a bicycle and happens to be in Malacca. Nice guy and has a facebook account which is convenient for him to share his ride experience with his friends.

Saw this photo from his photo album and found the wisdom in the words.

To see Max Jaques Talmon-Gros's photos, click on this link http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30257153&id=1417189183&ref=nf#/album.php?aid=2013564&id=1417189183

Game

This game is pretty addictive. Just try to trap the cat.
Don't give up if you don't succeed. You'll get the hang of it and will soon discover the way to trap it.
Just click on this link http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/chatnoir/chatnoir.swf
Have fun trying it!

KLMBH Epic Ride2

This year's Epic Ride can be considered as all round MTB ride. You have uphills, downhills, river crossing, mud, fast fireroads, singletracks,etc. HYH told me that the members of KLMBH cleared some ares to create trails specifically for this ride. Such dedication! We are honored to have taken part in this year's ride.

1st traffic jam. Waiting for turns to go down the river stream

Lee CH

With clear cool water running, I wished we had time to enjoy nature's delight.

Lee CH with the Titiwangsa Range as background

Abundance of single track like this. Willy pushing his bike.

After Check Point 3, we came the a downhill. It was steep with about 45degree angle and distance of about 50 meters. I should have got down and push but for some reason, decided to go for it. Just down 10 feet and I fell off the saddle. I must have put too much weight at the back and lost control. I quickly got up (out of embarrassment) and although was feeling some ache around the inner thigh, told LeeCH and Willy that I was ok. Then I looked down at my right leg, there was a 3" cut and the blood was flowing down to the ankle. A quick look and I knew the ride is over. The crank had cut it deep. There is no way I can continue as paddling will only make the cut bigger and make me loss more blood.

I made my way up and luckily one of the organiser's people was there to summons help. I must take this opportunity to thank a Chinese rider who sprayed Opsite on my wound and got it dried up faster and another Malay rider who had bandages with him and that help to close up the wound while waiting for help to come. Sorry I didn't get your names and I appreciate the help Guys!

The hare of the ride, Ajis came by motorbike and brought me to a Government clinic to get the wound clean. He later sent me to my car and I drove to a clinic in Batang Kali town for stitches. I have had a good share of falls during all these years of cycling but this one takes the cake for the deepest and longest cut. 5 stitches as remembrance of 2009 KLMBH Epic Ride.

After the ride, we had our food and drinks at Al-Salma's restaurant. While we were eating, Fendy's eagle eyes caught attention of a pretty young thing walking by. She was with her family and I guess are part of the the organiser's group as they were seen helping at the registration counter. I take my hat off to Fendy who was man enough to go up to the mum and asked for permission to borrow her daughter for a group photo. All the best in your quest Fendy!

We took the Genting Highland way back to Malacca and stopped at the cable car station one last time for this photo shoot.

Something to remember this year's ride. Managed to ride 30 out of 54 km. Never fear for I will be back next year.

KLMBH Epic Ride1

Sleeping beside the rainforest is not exactly quiet. Unless you are the type that knock off the moment your head hits the pillow, you hear lots of things coming from nature. Even with the constant sound of water flowing beside our chalet, the sounds of insects and other creatures is still loud enough to keep you awake.

I thought I was the only one having trouble sleeping but when I woke up to take a walk after getting tired of rolling around in bed, Willy spoke to me. I managed to catch some sleep until nature call that I had to attend to and it's tossing in bed again until the alarm rang at 6am. I guess I had about 1 hour of actual sleep. The rest of the time was just pretending to sleep.

It was nice and cool 7 km ride from our chalet to the starting point. Good warm up. Along the way we saw a few cars with bikes mounted on them but no one gave us a hoot of acknowledgement. Aiyah, why so cold? One car took the wrong junction going towards Genting and turn back after seeing us cycling straight. Hey, you're welcome!

I have seen new riders who struggled to keep up after the first initial kilometers and with determination, improve their stamina and ride technique. Willy is one those who join the cycling fraternity last year and I am proud to see him taking part and able to finish 54 km of hard core riding.

Trying to locate our names amongst the long list of names at the registration counter. Luckily we were early and took our time. After that the crowd started to grow.

With long rides that this, we need to keep power gels and protein bars to replenish the energy along the way. Before ride it is best to store energy with the power drink (teh tarik) and power canai first. Restoran Al-Salma owners must be smiling cheek to cheek as business boomed for the day.
Getting ready for ride briefing

HYH giving ride briefing

Beautiful scenery with the Titiwangsa mountain range

No problem riding up. Just keeping Lee company

KLMBH Epic '09 Pre Ride

The Kuala Lumpur Mountain Bike Hash (KLMBH) has always been consistent on organising enjoyable monthly hash rides and once a year, the mother of all hash ride, KLMBH Epic Ride on 10th May delivered what it promise.

A big round of applause to HYH and his team for a good all round mountain bike ride.

Today's photo entry will be on the pre ride. The preparation and the night before.

Managed to borrow the Thule cross bar and 2 bicycle racks from Keong and added 2 more bike rack to fit all 4 bikes on the roof. I figured it should not be a problem because we carried the same amount of bike when we went to Taiping. What I forgot was first, it was Ah Yang's car which had better suspension and springs and secondly, there were only 3 guys in the car.

From left (me, Willy, Lee CH and Fendy)

So with 4 bikes (1 darn heavy Kona bike) and the 4 of us in my trusty Proton Wira, we managed to drive all the way to Batang Kali even though the car scrapped its wheel liner whenever we hit a bump.

I didn't realised how small Batang Kali town was until I tried to find a hotel. Googled for it, no luck. Tried Virtual tourist, no luck. Finally used the GPS Map source and searched of hotel POI around the area and a few names came up and they were mainly camp sites. Finally decided on Amberstone Eco Resort as they had a website and the photos of the chalet looked decent. See the screen shot below. Noticed the nice A frame huts on their header.I should have realised it's like going to a food court. You order the chicken chop because the photo display shows a large juicy chunk of chicken thigh with large amounts of potato fries and coleslaw. When the food finally comes, you still get a chicken thigh but a chicken that was on a diet and you can literally count the number of potato fries.


As you can see from the actual photo of the A frame huts, it is so small that a hobbit should feel real comfortable in it.

Opps, not good for a 1st impression. Luckily we booked the chalet instead of the A frame huts ...or that was what I thought. I somewhat pictured in my mind the word chalet would mean individual structure which had a small hall with 2 rooms since it stated quad sharing in their website. What we got was a tiny room with 2 double decker beds. With our stuffs and bikes in the room, the room was so small that we had to go outside just to change our minds.

The bright side of the lodging was the stream that is constantly flowing with cool clean mountain water.
Putting aside these small inconveniences, we decided to drive up to Genting Highlands since it was only 28 km away.

Using the cable car to go up. We were surprised that it was Fendy's 1st time going to Genting Highlands.

Dinner at the Highlands. This Taiwanese beef noodle that came bundled with a small bowl of desert and a drink cost a whopping RM19.00.


For RM12.00, we get to be Superheroes for less than a minute.

Superman ride

Up Up and Away. Also hoping the dinner we just had doesn't come up

A much milder experience at the 3D ride

Cable car ride to heaven

You're welcome

I have been cycling for about 10 years now. I have seen cyclist come and go. One thing that I have noticed is that when a person decides to take up cycling or any sport seriously, that person will often be at the bicycle shop. Be it in the morning, you see the person hanging there, other days you see them during lunch break, tea break and sometimes until the shop closes.

So much so that their circle of friends are now people of the same hobby. It becomes so obvious that when it comes to a celebration of a birthday or any anniversary, the invitees are usually the same group of people who cycle with you. It makes you wonder, what about their other friends? What was their life before cycling?

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I am appreciative of many things that have come by. A good family, a large circle of friends, our 16 year old Proton Wira that is still running (almost) smoothly, my bike technician who without being told, replaces the missing screw and lubes the squicky parts while servicing, etc.

I used to be in a youth club called the Rotaract Club. My life before being a Rotaractor was pretty dull with the family business taking up most of the time. Being in the Rotaract Club open my views on so many things and I have learnt a lot from the training, mingling amongst other Rotaractors and best of all rubbing shoulders with the members of the parent club, the Rotary Club where you get to meet so many interesting people with open hearts willing to share their vocational experience and expertise. For this, I am appreciative to my friend, Edmond Koo who introduced the world of Rotaract and invited me in.

The same goes to hobbies like cycling. There are some who walk into the bicycle shop and after buying, joins a cycling group. But majority are usually influenced by friends. Like they say, poison the person into cycling. If you are one of the latter and now enjoys cycling like it is the best thing that ever happen to you, do remember to thank the person who introduced you to it. I was one of those walk in customer but I am appreciative to Lim HT for the encouragement during the early days of mountain biking in the Malacca Mountain Bike Hash club (M2BH).

As for the many people I have "poison", I say to you, "You're welcome".

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19.6.09 - I am now listening to one of my favourite group band, Journey. Suddenly I remembered this article about Appreciation and I realised I need to record my appreciation to another friend, Leu Kok Keong who was instrumental in introducing so many bands and songs to me during schooling days. My daughter Michelle has now taken to liking the song "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey and I will slowly open her world to more Steve Perry's wailing voice when he sings most of Journey's hit songs.