JURU FIRETRACK AND BATU KAWAN RIDE - April 8, 2001
This was supposed to be a Newbie ride. We met at the Juru rest area . I arrived first followed by Muhasan (so-called Newbie). By 8.13am, I decided to call Alan, who had only just woke-up due to alarm failure, an excuse so widely used by the KORTs members. After a short breakfast, we proceeded to Kuala Juru.
Reaching Kuala Juru, I saw a MTB rider on a yellow and green Giant. Later I found that this is Ah Fatt aka the Rubber Knight. We parked our cars near a jetty cum shop.
We set up our bikes and put on our safety attire. Muhasan is riding a Le Run Cyber LX with Suntour forks. This is a full-sus bike with LX components. He wore safety elbow pads (bought by his wife-lucky guy). Alan the Turbo Scramjet Snail was riding his faithful Diamond Back. Ah Fatt who I came to understand was Alan's college mate, rode Giant ATX 830 with RST 381 EL forks, a hardtail. Heh heh, more Giant in the group as I'm riding a Giant Yukon but SE only.
We left Kuala Juru in single file and rode towards the Juru Fire Track. It was 9.30am. The ride was on tarmac road until we hit a gravel road a few clicks away. After a few clicks, we came to a road with grass as high as the top of your front cogs. It was quite tough to ride there. We then came to a bund and rode through some more grass. It was then some dirt tracks, wet dirt tracks, I could see Sg. Juru on my left and the area is a vast mangrove area.We then reached tarmac road and made our way to Batu Kawan. After a short rest spell at a Hindu Kuil at the foot of Batu Kawan, we went up Batu Kawan Hill. The climb is what I would say, a jaw dropper climb!
The Newbie seems to be quite a tough and good rider. Alan led, followed by Muhasan , me and the Ah Fatt. The climb was getting tougher but the view on my left of the distant hills and the blue skies made the climb much easier. After about 1.2km of climbing, I felt some slight pull in my left thigh. I slowed down and after it became unbearable stopped and let Ah Fatt go pass me. I thought a brief breather would do me good. I was wrong!
After 2-3mins of rest, I decided to ride on. I climb on my saddle and a felt another pull. I tried to cycle for 100 to 150metres, it was a painful cramp that hit me. I let myself go down and tried to straighten my leg by pushing against a rock. After 10 minutes, the pain subsided. I tried to ride but I couldn't. I did the last 200 meters or so on foot. Lucky, Alan was looking for me. We rested for a spell and waited past noon after telling B/S stories. At this time, the wives were already calling.
We started the famous down hill. Unfortunately, after a few clicks, we found the trail blocked by fallen trees. There were at least five obstacles along the way down. At one time, Alan couldn't recognize the track. There was too much vegetation. I was glad though as this was not a normal ride it turned to be. The trail was covered with grasses and I remembered my Police Field Force days of wading through the sea of grasses. We had to remove the obstacles, stomp on dead braches, breaking them away, or carrying our bikes over tree trunks. A DH that would take 10 minutes, ended up with 1hr 10 minutes of slow painstaking DH.
The suffering is not over yet. We had to ride our way back to Kuala Juru for about 1 hour from 1.30pm to about 2.30pm under the hot scorching sun! If you don't believe me, take a look at my face tomorrow! I was tempted to take a dip in the Sg. Juru to cool myself down! But, the ride was fun...now , when can we clean up the trail.....................!!
Faz Harris