A recce at Sungai Lembu, Part II, 22 October 2000
Shit happens! As what New Yorker always says. The ride in the morning was cancelled due to raining. Well, I was thinking of doing dim sum afterwards. Apparently, ST and the other rider didn't think so. Majority vote always win. So we went to makan after watching the Penang MTB race afterwards. I told ST and Julian, a kajang folk who recently moved to Penang that I was gonna do something this afternoon. I called up Julian and SMSed Fatt after a three hour siesta. Julian decided to continue his dreamland adventure, but Fatt was all set to thrash the trail. So the ride on island was off since Julian wasn't in the mood to ride. Since I had unfinished business with the trail me and Dr. Francis recce-ed last week, I decided to continue the recce this afternoon to find out where would the trail lead to. It turned out that we hit the jackpot and the trail did lead to somewhere!
I went to fetch Fatt at 1615hours. He was watching the Sepang F1 race on TV. His bike was readied to be picked up in front of his house. Without wasting much time, we stuff his yellow Lerun into my car, and we were off to go. It only took us half an hour to reach the trailhead. I parked my car at the spot I parked before. It is very important to set a time limit when ride in a trail that we had never been before. I made it clear that we only went in for one hour. We would turn back if the one hour limit was up, and we were going nowhere. I also decided not to wear my SPD shoes. My previous expereince told me that SPD shoes are no good for the unfamiliar trail. Luckily I had a pair of Oddysey platform SPD padels. So I could still use my old shoes.
We set off to the trail and turned to the left when we hit the junction. The first impression immediately I turned into the left trail was the slope was not as steep as the right ones. It was still as slippery as the right trail, but it was rideable. I had no problem to padel myself up the slope. Of course, there were few moments that I would have to push my bike up either I was running out of breath or I was overspinning. Overall, it was much better than the other one! Judging from the condition of the cement pavement and overgrown bush that sometimes covered the trail, it had not been used for some time!
It only took us less than half an hour to reach the top, a rather short one but it was one hell of the climb. I don't think I could mantain on my saddle if the distance was longer. It was a durian orchard. The trail ended at a stream. If we wanted to continue, we would have to cross the stream. After crossing the stream, it was another durian estate again. We were not so confident that we would be able to find anything there. I was even about to tell Fatt that we'd better turned back before we went too deep inside. It seemed like someone up there read my mind. When I turned to the right to find spot a pee, I saw a trail running down to somewhere. Seeing that we still had time, we decided to continue.
Apparently we were on the right way. The descending trail did lead us to somewhere! I was the one at front and Fatt was behind me. There were fences along the trail. They looked new! Which means someone set them up quite recently. Fatt was behind panting like hell. I wasn't any better than him. The descending trail sudden went all the way up at a steep angle. I used the momentum I built up during my descent and push myself up the slope. Still, I had padel few meters before I reached the peak of the slope! It didn't take me long to guess what were they trying to do with a fenced land. I was greeted by a man, who looked friendly enough to have a chat. He told me the trail would come out to another slope and we could continue to climb if we wanted to. I think my face expression made him laugh! Shit man, after all the killing climbs, and he wanted me to continue? No way bro. Fatt and I decided to take a pit stop rest once we came out to the junction.
We were so surprised to see a familiar trail after we came out of the junction! We were back to the K2 slope! The exit was at the first killer slope at the K2. We took a short break and tried to make up our mind whether we should continue the climb or we went down back to my car and called it a day. I think if I said lets continue the climb to the midhill and enjoyed the downhill fun, Fatt is going to kill me!
Compare to the last recce I made with Dr. Francis, this one had finally come out something for us. We are planning something for the knights, probably a big loop starting from where we started, came out at K2, climb up to the observation tower enjoying the view, came down to mid-hill, have some downhill fun at the chilli farm and ride back to the trailhead on tarmac. A nice 2 hours of workout for the knights! I am definitely going to do it pretty soon!
Stay tuned!