A CNY ride, 27 January 2001
It has been a boring CNY for me. Except collecting Ang Pow, I virtually had nothing to do for the whole week. Yup, I have been doing rides myself. Two consecutive days on road, and this one, the ride in Sungai Sedim in conjunction with the guests from KL Bike Hash and Singapore! My road rides during the first and the second days of the Chinese New Year has convinced me that I really need to get myself a road bike. A ride on the second that encountered a fellow ride, Corey proved that MTB has no match with the roadie. I could catch up with him in ascending. But when it comes to descending and flat road, I was virtually left behind, no matter how hard I spun the 42 tooth crank on my Diamondback! Someone suggested me to change my crank to XTR so that I would have bigger larger chainring. Will it solve the problem? I doubt it. Currently I am eyeing at a KHS F800. But the steep price tag of the road bike makes me hesitate to invest my hard earned cash on this baby!
More than 15 riders showed up the ride, including the KL Bike Hash guys and Datuk Kenny, our lone visitor from the city of lion. We were supposed to leave for Sungai Sedim at 0845 hours. But due to the large crowd, we dragged until 9 o'clock. I felt sorry for Fatt, who was waiting for us at after the second toll plaza of BKE. I wonder what happen to our punctuality. Maybe this bad habit of not being on time has spread to every KOTRTs! We proceeded to our breakfast joint at Karangan, which served good roti canai.
By the time we reached Sungai Sedim camp site, time was already 10am. I did not know what is the actual plan. Due to the late start, the ride leader decided to do the secret singletrack first. Sorry Fatt, I did not know you brought your sister with you. We had to follow the majority. Fatt decided to bring his sister to the racetrack, which was easy compared to our singletrack!
The track was quite wet. I think I have over inflated the tires. The bike felt bouncy and very difficult to handle. I thought it was because of the setting of the forks. I changed the setting of the forks a day before to make it softer. I ignored the bouncing and continued leading the group until at one section. I was cruising at slower than my usual speed. Annuar's brother in law was behind me. All the sudden, my front tire hit the track shoulder, skidded and I landed at the side with my bike falling on top of me. He did not realize it and whacked my bike rear end. I was already in pain trying to get up. His impact to my bike made it worst. The bicycle was pressing on my left thigh. I couldn't move because the shoe was still clipped to the SPD pedal. Luckily, I managed to disengage and climb back to the saddle to continue. But every stroke I made to get the bike moving afterwards was a painful job for me. I later found out that there were bruises at the inner thigh. Was it the one that caused the pain?
As usual, we stopped at the kilometer 5 of the trail. It seems we had a hard time to go beyond. The reason given at that time was we had newbies. I wonder who were the newbies. The KL Bike Hash folks? Come on! Anyway, we took a rest at our usual resting at the river side of the rapid. Oh yeah, the insecticide really works! I sprayed some on my shoes before we made the trip. There were no leeches! A mental note for me, bring insecticide next time when ride in Sungai Sedim again! It only took us half an hour this time to reach the resting place. Maybe it is because we were so familiar with the trail that we rode at much faster pace!
My bad luck did not spare me from another accident again. I finally took some time to check the tires of my bike. To my surprise, they were rock hard! Apparently, the gas station I went few days ago had a faulty air pump! No wonder the ride was so bouncy. I let go some gas from the tires and the ride turned to normal again. I managed to sweep the technical downhill with no problem after the deflation. Of course, I could not go faster since I use the IRC Mythos XC, which is thinner than my favorite WTB Velociraptor. Oh yeah what happen to the bad luck I am talking about? We continued the ride after we went down to the junction of the trail, which would lead us to the camp site if we turned left. We decided to go right to go to second camp base. The lighter wheelset gave me the confidence to go faster and faster. The trail that led to the second campsite though not as energy demanding as the 14km singletrack, it had more booby traps, I mean pot holes! I was racing with Anuuar's son. The distance was getting more and more further between me and him. Everything went smoothly. I took the sweepbacks and slippery downhill like a pro. And then, just before crossing the bridge, there was this god forsaken pothole waiting to swallow my front wheel. I did not see it. The only thing I knew all the sudden was I got thrown off from my bike, with my legs still engaged to the SPD. Man was it spectacular. Everybody saw me went endo with a summersault! The first thought came out from my mind was, RM300 gone for my front wheel, another RM400 gone for my XTR lever and RM280 for my Jett T2! With my head still spinning like a merry go round, I quickly checked the "damage" of my machine. The handle was spun 180 degrees and the right lever was stuck at the top tube. Visually, besides scratches on the top tube, there was nothing visibly damage. I twisted the handle(with some efforts of course) and continue the journey. There was no wobbling either. But it doesn't mean that nothing has konked. I think I would have send it to the bike doctor for a full blown medical check up before our Pos Mensun ride in Feb just to make sure!
It was a good ride. The weather was okay though it was a little bit wet for some of us. Muddy ride, wet and slippery trail adds more fun to the ride. This is what I called mountain biking. Sometimes I wonder if those people who ride at 84 were never getting bored? Different people have different preference lah. You can't expect everybody to share the same affection to a real off road biking right?
There will be no ride for me tomorrow though ST and Azmi are thinking of riding in Penang! My fiancée is going to kill me if I tell her I will be riding tomorrow! I am still thinking what am I going to do next week. K6 anyone?
Stay tuned!