Recent ride at Bukit Seraya, 14 April 2001

When was the last time I visited Bukit Seraya? It was some time last year I visited the trail, which I found was one of the best one-hour rides that I have tried so far. I decided to ride in Bukit Seraya again on Saturday to see if the trail remains open or not. But it was a disappointing ride, it ends up!

I met Julian at the BKE toll plaza at 1600 hours. Since it was a Saturday ride. Normally if I do it in the evening, I will be lucky if I could get more than three riders. We wasted no time to wait for others and proceed to the trailhead instead.

It took us about 20 minutes to reach the trailhead. I was not feeling good to ride. Worst of all, I forgot to bring my helmet. I did not realize until me and Julian arrived at the trailhead!! Since I did not bring my helmet with me, I was quite reluctant to continue the ride. With Julian's insistence, I finally agreed to go with the plan. But I warned him that I would go very very slow. I did not want to risk myself on a slippery trail.

The ride went smoothly at the cement singletrack. It was exactly the same as when I last visited the trail. I wanted to try using my "new" 8 speed on this trail to see if I could climb that super deep section. Knowing that the trail was slippery and that mother cow slope would be with minutes away, I switched gnarly gear, which was already 22-34 and spun as fast as I could.

I did not realize that I was actually over spinning. When I was at the mid section of the climb, I was already breathless and gasping like a fish came out from water! My stomach was still full 3 hours after my late brunch at two. Man you should see the way I threw out the whole Double Blazing. It was awesome! Julian was still far away when I managed to catch my breath and felt better. He was smart. Every time he goes to a new tail, he would take it easy.

We finally reached the top of the hill after pushing up the last section. The larger cog did not help on mossy trail. Either I over spun or the rear wheel gave way. I tried to use smaller cog to tackle the climb. It did not help that much. True, I managed to go few more meters but that was it! We did not waste any time at the peak since there were tons of mosquitoes trying to pierce through our Jersey and Lycra shorts. We decided to continue the ride just to avoid from becoming the victim of the flying bloodsuckers!

We probed into the K2 region after we went across the stream. Everything was nice and okay. The trail became bushier as we were reaching to the another trail that would take us to the junction at K2. But when we finally reached the "trail head", there no trail visible! I could see the junction far away but the connecting trail just disappeared. There was no sign of trail had existed before. After a few attempts and discussed with Julian, we decided to turn back. It was no point to continue since time was approaching six in the evening!

I was very disappointed to see another trail giving way to the mother of nature. I think it is time to plan a trail maintenance program to save the trail now! I have not thought of where am I going to ride next Saturday. Probably something hardcore in Penang.

Stay tuned!