Sungai Ara, Three Hills, Newbies, 02 Dec 2001

50 riders, 50% of them are newbies. What will you expect? I expected the ride to be lasting more than 5 hours. It turned out a surprise! But at the expense of half of the riders. Kulim Lee called me on Wednesday nite that he would like me to be the ride leader on Sunday, and he was thinking of riding the Three Hills in Sungai Ara, and there would be a bunch of newbies. I was kind of skeptic if they would be able to stand up the torture. You know, the Three Hills in Sungai Ara is totally different from the Five Hills in Parit Buntar. Five Hills is basically an undulating trail but Three Hills? Climb, climb, climb! I myself sometimes don't even have confident that I would be able to clear all three! At his insistence that they would be okay. I finally accepted the request.

I met them at 0745 at the bus stop after the Penang Toll plaza. What a sight. 10 vehicles with bikes on top. Most of them could easily put my race machine in shame. But it doesn't matter. It's engine that counts right? After a brief introduction and the late comers had been accounted for, we proceeded to Sungai Ara. Oh by the way, it was surprise for me to see my future brother in law was in the group as well! I know something was fishy when my love called me up at her brother's house asking me about the price of MTB. Maybe because of pride lah, he told her not to tell me he would be the one who wanted to buy. Big mistake. If he tells me he wants to get a bike, I would try to get him the best deal in town. Anyhow, he decided to listen to his friends, who is half cooked about mountain biking and get a machine that has a sign everywhere that the owner is a newbie...:) And paid big bucks for that also!

The ride started after I gave the briefing about the ride. The roll call revealed that there were 50 of them, almost half of them newbies. Easy task to take care of newbies on the trail even old boys were not sure if they could make it? You tell me! But I am already on the boat, no choice lah. Luckily, thanks to Michael, ST, Ah Hwa and Ah Lai. It wasn't that bad!

I did not expect rider dropout that soon. When we reached the first regroup point, 3 riders decided that they had enough and wanted to go home. Lucky them, we had not reached the pointy of no return yet! We continued the ride after a brief rest. The trail was quite dry considered that there was raining a night before. I had no problem to tackle the twisty singletrack of the first hill. As I rode to the next regroup point, I saw more riders dropped out of ride. When I finally reached the second regroup point, nine riders had decided to turn back!

We continued the ride after a 10 minutes break at the second regroup point. The descent on the first hill is always scary. Before we started to go down, I alerted the riders, who most of them were first timers to the trail, that the descent would be steep and brace for the slippery moss. I went down after ST and the his gang. The trail was again surprising dry. Still, I decided to take careful approach since the flashback of my terrible falls in Kulim High Tech and Singapore Bt Timah MTB track popped up again. I later learnt that there were riders slipped and fell on the way down even after my warning! And guess what, 6 more riders decided to call it a day!

So, we started at 50, 9 were gone on the half way to the peak of the first hill. Later there were 6 decided to cut it short. By the time we hit the third regroup point, we only had 35 riders left. Was it a survival camp or what? Sometimes people just don't want to listen to advise. Maybe the pride thingy. When you tell them the ride would be tough for them to deal with, wow. You can see all the hostage response you could imagine. But at least give them a lesson lah. Mountain biking is no child play. I believe most experienced riders learn it somewhere before they proudly announce that they are experienced riders...:) I still remember my first mountain biking trip in Penang, Penang Hill! A ride that I will never forget. Too bad, the ride has left me a bad memory of that trail. Up until now, I never go back to that jeep track again!

The reduction of riders did not stop as we were about to leave for the third hill. Another 6 decided to call it a quit and headed back to Sungai Ara via Jalan Tun Sardun. Actually, it was just another half an hour ride since the third hill was the shortest and the most fun one! But I am simple guy with a simple philosophy, "Never force your friends to do things that they don't want to do." So I bade goodbye to them and hope that they would one day call me up and say they want to do the three hills again.

I did not bother to spend time resting at the third regroup point since the time was already running late. I was planning to finish the ride at noon and headed home for my routine noon zzz. The dry trail did help a lot as there were mostly cement pavement. Riding on wet and slippery cemented trail is no fun. A slight hesitation or mistake will cost the rider a jersey or even injure him/herself! I was worried that I would not remember this trail again. But magically I remembered! As usual, I had to lead the group with the help of ST, Michael and the rest. We managed to clear the third hill at a very short time. The downhill at the third hill was easier to deal with now since the trail has been widened(I think it was done by the building contractor, and I have a bad feeling that this awesome trail will no longer be accessible very soon!).

It was a good ride, for me at least. Although some of the riders were complaining that the pit stops were too short, I think it was just right for me. In fact, I was thinking of doing it non-stop. That what I call a hardcore ride!

Any ride next week? How about Gunung Jerai's 14km tarmac climb?

Stay tuned!