An "easy" ride in Sungai Ara waterfall trail? 17 March 2001

It was supposed to be a tentative ride. Because I have never got up at early morning on Saturday before, ever since I came back from New York and got myself into this rat race thing. Saturday is supposed to be my rest day. Washing my "wife"(My Daihatsu lah), check the juice, top up the lube, listen to my favorite radio station, WLIR/WDRE via internet, having a cup of the freshly ground and brew coffee are my Saturday routine. But not cycling in the morning. Not in the million years! So, what was so special about this Saturday that I had to sacrifice my Saturday ritual and my first cup of French roast? It was because Francis decided to climb back to saddle! So, we decided to do an "easy", which turned out to be not so easy in the end!

Five riders showed up at Julian's apartment at Bukit Jambul at 0900 hours. Oh yeah, we were supposed to have more than five. But the last one decided not to come! It was bad. Especially, I had to sacrifice so many thing to make this ride happen! But anyway, after calling that rider up(mobile did not turn on) to no avail, we decided to go on. Francis decided to drive to the trailhead instead of riding all the way from Bukit Jambul to Sungai Ara. I decided to follow suit since I did not feel like doing that stupid climb along Jalan Bukit Jambul. Pity Julian, he would have to accompany Annuar and his son since they cycled all the way from their home at Batu Maung! I tip my hat to them! After a quick breakfast(two half broil eggs and two slices of bread with Planta margarine. I wonder when are they going to use real butter???) at the coffee, Sungai Ara, we began our journey to this Sungai Ara waterfall trail!

We had no problem to reach the trailhead after a short climb on road. The "trail" was actually a cemented pavement. I should have fixed my VooDoo instead of fat knobby. But anyway, we had no problem to ride with easy pace. Since my wrists are still not fully recovered, I decided to take it easy. Francis was at his easy pace too. We chatted along the way, and we shared our concern to the future of KOTRT. Well, KOTRT has become something that beyond my expectation. Like I cannot write whatever I like anymore! Anyhow, I decided to take it as it comes. Worst comes to the worst, I will give it to someone else to manage, and I will go back to solo again. No big deal! Oh yeah come back to the trail again. The whole trail was shady! It was cooling and refreshing to ride on this trail! Without putting much effort, we came to the junction, which we would have to decide where were we going to head to!

When we reached the junction, I saw Julian, Annuar and his son Zel were chatting with another riders. It turned out that they were coming from another side of the trail. It turned out that we could do one loop. He also pointed out that there was a folk off along the way, which would lead to a "secret" garden. We decided to check it out after discussing with the rest. It seemed like that easy climb from the trailhead was not enough for all of us! Everybody was screaming for more inside their mind. So, we decided to visit the "secret' garden and then proceeded to complete the loop. Still concern with my wrists, I double checked with the biker to make sure that there would be no serious downhill or something extreme. He repeatedly assured me that I was going to enjoy the ride, especially the trail to the "secret" garden!

I did not expect that the trail to the "secret" garden was that steep! It started okay at the beginning. Then the trail all the sudden turned all the way up! I had to move my head upward in order to see what was the slope like! I was already at the middle of the climb. If I climbed down, there would be a hard push. No good to my wrists. If I continued, I would bust my lungs sooner or later. But it felt okay to the wrists! Maybe it was because of the low handle bar of my VooDoo, she did not lift and I felt no pressure to the wrists at all. So I decided to continue climbing! Since this was a new trail to me, I decided to go easy. I fitted the VooDoo with my Valiant wheels, which had the XTR 8 speed cassette. When I changed to the largest cog, the chain was rubbing each other. I did not realize that Alivio RD could not take 32 tooth cog! Downshift risk busting the 300 bucks cassette. I decided to stay at the largest cog since it was a steep climb! Hmm, time for a new derailuer? As I continued the climb, I saw the riders in front of me dropped down and pushed their bike. But there was no sign of Julian. He must be way ahead. Not feeling like leaving behind, I continued to push myself to the limit though my inner self had already sent me a signal that I should go slow!

After I finished the climb and finally had my time to rest my panting heart and re-lever my breathing, Julian came down to me and told me that there was yet another climb that was steeper than the one we did! Man, was it a killer or what? I already threw out what I had for breakfast after that god forsaken climb, a sign that I had pushed myself over the limit! And scary thing is we did not know how long would the climb last. Seeing that we had slow riders with us, we decided to visit the trail next time. It was a blessing for me also, as I was one of the slower riders! On the way down, we met the rest and we told them that it was not worth checking now since the slope after would be much steeper than the one they were climbing at the moment!

We continued to ride the loop after we had our taste at that trail to the "secret" garden. It was much easier to ride. Shortly after the brunch off from the junction, we were greeted by another junction again. One went up and another went down. We were undecided which way to go. My instinct told me we should go down. Francis agreed with me. But Julian decided that we should go up since it was more "interesting". He must have taken a pill before the ride! I decided to ask him to go up to check out the trail first, and we would be resting at the junction enjoying the view! Lucky him, he was saved by an incoming motorist. Apparently, he was a rubber tapper who just finished his tapping. Oh by the way, there were rubber trees along the way! It was new to me as I thought rubber estate already disappeared. It seems that there are still some hiding in the secluded area like Sungai Ara! It turned out that both would lead to back to Sungai Ara. The one that went up would go through fruit orchard and vegetable garden. The one that went down would go through the remaining rubber estate. I did not who suggested it but we ended up going up instead of going down! I took a mental note that next time I should get my voice heard. It was supposed to be easy and recovery ride for both me and Francis okay????

Lucky that bugger, the climb was manageable! If I had tried, I could stay on saddle and climb the slope. But the riders in front of me were pushing their bikes. I had no choice but to follow suit(did I hear someone say, "excuse lah"???). It was not a long climb, we just had to push a little while and the trail became flatter again. Wee decided to take a breather so that some of us could catch a breath or two. The place we were resting was a fruit orchard. Someone suggested to make this trail as our night ride trail. I do not know if it was a good idea. But it's worth a thought. Riding the same route for every Wednesday can be very boring!

We continued the ride after a short break. The trail eventually led to the junction, which connected to the trail I am very much familiar with, the Sungai Ara farmer trail! It turned out that the junction at our usual pit stop whenever we have newbies on our Sungai Ara farmer trail connects to this waterfall trail. Speed demon will love the last stretch before the junction. It was steep and wide. But if we started our ride in reverse, that slope is going to be a killer! I did not really go down in full speed. In fact, I was squishing both levers to the fullest while going down. The Alivio brakes were protesting like hell! Maybe the fall still haunted me, and I was riding a rigid bike, I did not have the gut to go at full speed!

We ended the ride after two hours of riding, including the pit stops and little exploration. It can be easily done in an hour if we did not spend time to explore the other trails and pit stops. I am planning to come back again. Oh yeah, the trail before hitting the first junction was very idea for newbies. If you would like to introduce mountain biking to your friends/girl friends/new victims, this is the place!

No rides next week, at least for me! Cheng Meng lah. Oh yeah, for some of you who don't know what Cheng Meng is, Cheng Meng is the day that Chinese will pay their visit to their ancestor's grave doing house cleaning thinggy and say the prayer, well, with contribution(yeah, roast chicken, soy source duck, dumpling, hmm...yummy yummy!) and joss stick, or incense for those who knows only American English! Speaking of incense, I remember one of my Jewish friends calls it insane! Man, somemore he told his father lived in Scotland before he moved to Israel!!

Was it an easy ride? Well, to be honest, the first stretch was easy. It was so easy that I fell asleep on my VooDoo! But after the junction it was no child play! The climb to the "secret" garden was no joke! I think I am going to try again after my wrists are fully recovered!

Stay tuned!