KOTRT's end of year ride - Gopeng Fellowship, 30 December 2001
Time really flies. It is just in a blink of eyes, we are already reaching the end of Y2K1 and moving towards Y2K2. I still don't know what the hell have I been doing in the year of Y2K1. Still trying to figure up how to get my life organized and the time is already up for me to plan for next year!
Fatt and I decided to go together to save money. Time is bad lah. We have to watch out pocket carefully. We started our journey at really early hours. By the time Azmi called me to make sure I would meeting them at the Juru Rest Area at 0700 hours, I was already approaching Jelapang Toll Booth! It took us one hour to reach the Jelapang Toll Booth, which really surprised me and my high school buddy. There must be something wrong with my car's speedometer. 140km in one hour? Wow.... We decided to stopped at Ipoh's famous dim sum place, Fu Sang to enjoy our breakfast before we drove to the Gopeng toll booth.
It was an excellent breakfast. Fatt and I walloped god knows how many "Seow Mai"(a kind of shrimp dumpling), "Har Kow"(a kind of shrimp dumpling), "Yi Tang"(Ball of fish, hehe. Who said fish don't have balls???), "Pai Kuak"(steamed pork ribs with pepper and bean sauce) and "Kai Keok"(we call them phoenix legs. Hafta try it. Nizie - err it means Nice in Taiwanese English) . He even still had a space in his stomach to swallow a big bowl of "Lo Mai Kai"(Chicken and sweetened rice, very filling!). I was too full to get myself a bowl of Lo Mai Kai. Lo Mai Kai in Fung Sang is very very famous. Maybe next time! Man, just mention the names of the stuffs we were eating that morning, my stomach starts growling again! Wah, Seow Mai with mustard sauce. Yummy!!!
The KL folks were already at the Gopeng toll booth rest area by the time we reached there. There were still no sign of Azmi and the rest of Penang folks. As usual lah, Chinaman time! I saw few familiar faces, whom I met last time we did the same ride. Dato Kenny was at the meeting point also, which was really a big surprise! We have not met each other for some time after the Pos Mensun ride. He told me that he would be in Penang during the New Year and planning to join my pseudo century ride! I decided to give Azmi a call to see if he and the gang were on their way to the meeting point. Minutes after I called him, I started to see cars with Penang number plates coming to the meeting point. We waited for another 5 minutes or so for the late comers before we made a move to Gopeng.
Gopeng was still the town I remembered. My last visit to this quiet town was two years ago. There has not been any change at all. It looks like the time had stood still in Gopeng. The grocery store that I baught my puffs to years ago was still there. Cake house was still at the corner. Nothing had changed! I wish time would also stay still on me so that I would stay young forever! We must awaken the town when we started moving in and getting our bikes ready. It was quite a head turner when we moved in with bikes on the car roofs. We quickly set our bikes up and got ourselves ready for the ride since the time was running kind of late. After a group picture, which took almost 10 minutes to get it done(there were so many cameras to take the group pix!). We were finally off to go!
The wet market was still at the place I remembered. The time really stood still in this town. That big roundabout was still there too. I forgot to ask if anyone had made a roll call. Apparently all of us were too eager to visit the place we last visited two years ago. So no one bothered to find out how many riders were there! The pace was fast as most of us were trying to outdo each other! I sprinted away since I wanted to take some photos of this historic moment. This time, nobody followed me as what happened two years ago. Two years ago at the same place, when I was trying to break away, the riders would never let me go! When I was fast, they were fast. When I slowed down, they followed suit. It was so difficult for me to get a nice picture of them until I told them I was actually wanting to find a nice spot to snap few pictures of them! But this time was different. They let me break free and I managed to get some of them in action!
The resemblance of the old trail stopped after we rode pass the Malay village. The trail was tarmaced by the authority! I was kind of dissappointed to see that but what can I say? It was for the convenience of the village people to travel to and from their village. The slope was as I remembered last time, gradual but long. I was used to use granny gear to attack the climb. This time, I was riding my red devil and using much lower gear. A sign of improvement, I talked to myself! Few riders decided to push the bike after a few attempts to tackle the steepest slope. They reminded me that two years ago I did the same thing again. Fatt was no where to be seen. He was with the first group, which was led by ST. Moments later, I met up Azmi and his brother. I easily overtook them and continued my journey to the next meeting point! And as usual lah, Sany gave me a good chase before let me go to claim my truimph at the first meeting point!
I decided not to take a long rest and continued. The trail change from tarmac to dirt track once I crossed the bridge. ST and the rest were waiting for us no far away from the bridge. I decided not to stop since I had a feeling that I was going to be slow. Two riders decided to follow me since I told them I would be slow. We chatted along the way. Both of them were from KL. As we were slowly approaching the orang asli village, the trail became more and more sloppy. Though it was still manageable for me, I could see that both of the riders were struggling to keep up with me. Just as we rode out of the oil palm plantation, one of the riders was missing! I asked the other rider, who was a cute little lady rider about whereabout the other one. She replied that that rider decided to take a breather before he wanted to continue. I decided not to wait for him. As the orang asli village was getting nearer, another rider also showed sign of difficulty to catch up. So I decided to take a break so that she would be able to take a breather.
My timing was somewhat out of sync! As soon as both us stopped. Rin appeared from the trail. Then ST zoomed by. What a spoil-sport! But come to think about it. They actually save me from babysitting the slow riders. So I decided to leave that cute lady rider to the big group and chase after the fast pack! The first pack was quite fast. I was going all out to chase after them! By the time I caught up with them, I was almost out of breath! The group was still moving on after we reached the orang asli village. The village people were staring out from their houses curiously, wondering why all the sudden there were these bunch of crazy city folks wearing colorful but weird dresses and bicycles that they have never seen before. I decided to slow down as my knees told me that I had gone beyond my limit. The cool papa was behind me. I asked him to move on, and I decided to shift to low gear to let my knees have a rest!
I reached the mini hydro station minutes after the first group arrival. I could see the expressions from them that they were really having their fun. Lets wait until they took the 15km downhill, and you would see a big smile from each of them! I took a short breather and few puffs before I dipped myself into the icy cold mountain stream. Dato Kenny passed me a can of icy beer when I was dipping myself into the cold stream. It was the nicest beer I had ever had!
It was a great ride. Thanks to Azmi's publicity, we managed to pull in more than 50 riders to join the KOTRT Y2K1 year end ride! Oh yeah, what happen to my downhill thing? Well, after a can of booze, I felt dizzy. Judgement no good lah. Tried to "fly" down for few hundred meters and decided to stop when I realized that my response was too slow at the speed I was going down! Further more, I twisted my bike's chain link! How did it happen? I am still trying to figure it out!
Stay tuned!