Monday, July 26, 2010

The Kampung Ride

For the record, I haven't ride in my own kampung before, not even once.  Considering my parents live in Kuala Lumpur, I know less about my own kampung that sometimes I rather not claimed I'm genuinely from here.
On the day I sold my Spesh, I met Shaaban.  He happened to be my own orang kampung.  He told me that there was a ride will take place on the next day.  My initial plan to leisure ride by the beach side changed accordingly and with wife's approval.
The RV was somewhere 10km away from my kampung.  According to Shaaban, we will ride there from our Kampung via coastal road.  Some 15 minutes we reached the RV and I get acquaintance to some local cyclists.  A few came from nearby township Masjid Tanah and to my surprise, they already formed a cycling group and actively ride nearby trail.
After we had fully sponsored breakfast, we starts rolling at about 8:30am.  Few KMs of tarmac before we hit the offroad.  It was an open area where trail wasn't really obvious and number of times, I lost them.



Beware of cow's dungs! 
 From The Kampung Ride


"Badminton is not as tiring as this".  Behind is Powertek's powerline.
 From The Kampung Ride


Shaaban precaution me on my expectation of the trail over here.  I am very much prepared to expect less of single tracks and more of open space.  This is quite common for places in the coastal area.  After a few tarmacs and road crossing, we came into a section of gas pipeline.  Series of climbs up to the peak.



The climb to the peak..
 From The Kampung Ride



Shaaban on top of the climb.  Far behind him (that little dot on his left finger), 4WD supports with candy and bottled water awaiting us down there.  Less technical but exhilarating fast downhill.
 From The Kampung Ride

After that, the ride was rather as flat as pancake or roti canai that we had that morning.  Distance wise 40km, and I reached the RV by 11am.  I badly perform due to lack of training that even a school boy was way ahead of me.  My plus points were on those technical climb and bombing the downhill.  Riding with kampung folks have a lot of advantages in term of.. foods!  We are served with chicken curry, fried fish, salted fish, watermelon, sambal belacan, and sayur nangka.  Mind you, there was no riding fee chargeable to us. 

Thank you folks!


Saturday, July 24, 2010

Goodbye Spesh


After many months of contemplating either to sell or keep it, the frame has a new owner. I bought the frame from Big Mac in 2008. From a full fledge MTB, to commuter, then single speed, and finally 7-speed rigid MTB.