Day 3 By Affendi

Bro Sham, superb account of Day 3..allow me to add some bit parts..& photos uploaded

I like the part where we meandered through the back roads of Johor and got into the outskirts of Melaka. Lovely kampong side views and the aromatic smell of home cooking really stirred up the palate, pretty sure that an enjoyable meal of gastronomic delights await those families. And the distinctive aroma of daun pandan being used brought back vivid memories of mum’s nyonya dishes. She used to cook up a storm during weekends. Sigh, how I missed them good old days.

It was pleasing to note that Amir had over the 2 days, gathered his own band of ‘tourers’ and for this day 3, they were tightly bunch together and resembled a closely knitted group. When we passed them, I caught sight of a father and his young son in his child seat fasten at the front of his bike (not sure if this conforms to safety standards) and a couple on a tandem bike. The mee rebus of Gino located in Ujong Pasir where I used to live sadly wasn’t as good as it used to be. I guess commercialism has caught up with him, his son is now doing most of the work which makes this a 3rd generation business. Gino’s father started it about 6o/70 years ago and the same 3-wheeler is being used up to now, at least that hasn’t changed. Like Sham said, Baba House is a hip place, nice traditional setting and very cool inside. We didn’t stick around for the group dinner as it was crowded so we ate elsewhere, gorged ourselves with masak assam pedas kembong and ikan pari with sambal belacan.

Made the day as I would described it as poetic justice to be able to finally savor a home cook meal which was tasty and delicious. To top it off, we settled into lazy chair while we got ourselves a foot massage, that really top the day. Ode to Day 3! Overall, I had thoroughly enjoyed myself and though quite a number of us had stomach upsets when we got back which was the only downside, IS09 was a roaring success by my reckoning. It was well run and organised, the route was well charted and meeting other fellow cyclists sharing the same interests was the major highlight. Can’t wait for IS10!

Regards,Affendi

Interstate Day 3

I guess the third installment of IS09 for day 3 is due and should conclude this annual event for us.

The night at Gunung Ledang Resort saw us in high spirits as we anticipate our last ride in the morning.

With nothing much within the vicinity to venture to except the jungle, most of us saw fit then to congregate in the hall where our bikes are stored.

It turned out to be a mini bike exhibition when everyone started to peek into those bikes which we each took to our fancy. You tend to admire those expensive ones, much to the delight of it's proud owners, who happily demonstrated the reason why they cost what they cost
If they have made an impact on you, you will find yourself going to bed pondering on the prospects of acquiring what is now the object of your desire, no matter the price. For me, I'll just stick to my old faithful for the time being.

This resort where we were is by no means temperature cool. Vegetation cool was more what it was. There's a waterfall here which seems to have drawn the whole of these Southerners there. Zaba recalled how as a teenager, he came here on a camping trip and witnessed an accident where a boy got swept during heavy downpour and smashed his head against some rocks. So no waterfall trip for us just now.

The promising morning came. Today we started out a little later than the previous day as we were told that this was to be a rather easy 100km ride. The third day IS moved out as one big clump of a group till as usual, after 20km started to disintegrate into many tiny groups. What began as a fairly flat route, transformed into rolling hills till km 80 where the Malacca coast begins. No, today was not to be as tough as yesterday.

Point to note is, not for lack of capacity that we fell back on completing the route in no time. To some it may be about competing to finish first. But to most of us, for the usual suspects at least( four of us minus Amir), it is an oppurtunity to venture and palate the peculiar taste that these countryside can offer. I doubt if we will ever again pass thru some of these places.
Apart from food and country air, day 3 somehow offered a slight twist to our ecotourism agenda. This was to be our lucky day as we managed to have literally snared Amanda (the yogi) to ride along with us....yes, the entire length of the remaining 80km. We baited her with food and drinks at a stall on km20.(pray she don't bump into this mailing group, for that matter...my wife too!)
As you would know by now, she has been the talk of PCC, all 200 of them, inclusive of women on women.(and PCC has plenty). Our ride turned to being mostly about accompanying the toast of the party. I'll leave the worthwhile imagination, if any, to the rest of the gang to fill in. ( Razak can furnish the intrigues that ensued during the ride)

To some of us,with this sweetener, the day should last as long as possible. It wasn't until we began to feel the sea breeze in our faces that we realised we had a route to complete.
We have then hit the coastal road to Malacca and the sun was already beaming on top of us. Coastal routes, by nature are always pleasant. This was the day when the Straits of Malacca was at it's bluest......but on the contrary, it is only so coz the sky is cloudless! So the intensity of the baking sun on your head along with the heat from the tarmac, dispells all sense of 'feel good' factors you might have.....no amount of Amanda can help keep a straight head.

We are now passing thru Serkam, Umbai then Alai and into scenic Padang Temu, a kampong sprawled with swaying coconut trees. One should get a heightened poetic sense whenever the sea breeze brushes thru your face. I make no pretenses here. It wasn't just the face, it was more of the whole bike and body that the wind was trying to blow off the road!
It was big time drag all the way till we reached our reserved lunch in the Portugese Quarters. Fendi, ever the resourceful guy, had apparently called in earlier to book us at his favorite Mee Rebus stall. With Fendi, you can book any roadside cendol mamak. We are now in Malacca and exhausted.

Next time check with Fendi if you plan to visit M'ka, he knows his M'ka like the back of his palm. Not sure if Amanda was impressed with the mee rebus but later on she did mentioned how much she enjoyed being with, as she puts it........ hanging with the 'Chill Out Bkt Jelutong' boys!
We had one last snapshot together in front of the giant Ferries Wheel before heading on to our hotel destination. The Baba Hotel turned out to be a really hip and cool hotel right smack in the middle of Jonkers. Again with the ever illustrious Fendi chaperoning us around, we had one heck of a memorable time here. I will no doubt come again to the very places that I've been shown to. ( but Zaba beat me to it by being back there just last weekend, secret training and all!)
There couldn't be any better place than Malacca to bring the tour to a closure. I will end this posting with the anxiety of expecting what IS10 would then be compared to the one we've just concluded. One thing I bet, we can double the fun if we can double the group.... and with our jerseys too...Cheerio!

regards,
Sham A Wahab

Interstate 2009 Day 1

For us, this was how IS2009 started on day1As planned,we made our way to BJ Pankin for the 4am bus.Most arrived by 3 and had their cars parked at Razak's house while some got their father in-law or wives to drive them there, for want of proof more than anything that we are really going cycling....in that crazy hour.

Nahar got himself a nasty knife cut while unpacking his stuff. It was so deep that the local clinic told him to get to a hospital for some stitches. He didn't want to have any of that as he might miss out on the ride. So the story goes that he rode those 3 days with an open wound.The bus only started to move out at around 5am,still we had to go pick the Towkay bus up. Zaba only manage to be up at 4, so we took the bus right up to his front door.

We arrived at Allson Klana S'ban a little past 6am and the place was already swelling with bikes in all kinds of shapes and colors. With techno music blaring away, you can imagine an atmosphere charged with excitement there that morning. This PCCInterstate is such an organized event that you see many tour cameraman and bike journals covering the event. BJ was even approached by one bike journalist who has heard so much about our cycling community. She will do a write up on us and asked us to mail her some material. ( more on this later)This is the 13th Interstate. Every Interstate route is thoroughly scrutinized and they recce 3/4 times before firming them up. They also recce again the day before each ride route in the event there was to be any roadworks or last minute closure. Signs are placed at critical junctions and in previous years there were police manning traffic in town areas too. There are always ride Marshalls everywhere in support vehicles even in the most remote and lonely corners of the route. Not to mention together with other private support vehicles, you feel reassured of help if ever you need it.I believe there is a formula that PCC applies when orchestrating these Interstate routes. Most obvious is the mixture of one 14% degree climb( 3km of it) on day1,endless rolling hills on day2 and a pleasant relatively flat but heavy on headwind on day3.

So you can almost see 3 different character days and remember each one differently.Almost 200cyclists participated from all over the country. Some came in organized groups with one particular MatSalleh group that stands out. That made us from BJ feel that we were missing our jerseys now that we have the bus.DAY1Our BJ boys were: Affendi, Zaba, Razak, Azmi, Zainuddin, Nahar, Razali, Azhar, Amir Faezal( most experienced rider after ARZ), Jeff Lew and myself-Sham. Nazli came on his own and rode along on day1 on his way back to his kampong.The Interstate was flagged off at S'ban by 7 am. You can hear the 'rain sound' of the 200 gyrating pedals as we began to move out of town. This was when my own misadventure began as soon as it all started. Within 5 minutes of cycling my shoelaces got entangled in the pedal. It jammed my legs and I had to stop to undo it. No big deal as Azhar was waiting on me. As soon as I was on my bike again the knee accidentally jerked the bike bag off the top tube, there goes my gas canisters and stuff sprawled in the middle of the road. By now no one was in sight and I was the last man!Without glasses I can't read properly so I followed an arrow that showed a right turn to K.Pilah when the rest have actually gone straight on to Rembau. Another of the same arrow urged me on to keep following this road. It wasn't till after reaching Bukit Putus and having rushed thru 20km that I started wondering about the rest.It would be impossible I thought, that I would be the slowest bugger of the lot. Hoping to at least catch the back of the slower MTB boys, I took on the B.Putus climb which wasn't any tougher than the Gap at Fraser's. Still no one's backside was in sight. It wasn't till Zaba called that I realised that I have detoured and those arrows must have been for some Kenduri Kahwin! I should have paid attention to PCC's yellow arrows. The gang waited on me near Rembau while I was already in K.Pilah all by myself.

After some nasi lemak we decided to catch up a little further up as I knew I will be able to cross back into the route if I head towards Tampin.True enough we regrouped again at the junction to Gemenceh. By then they told me that I have missed the greatest torture of all which was a Cat1 15% climb near Johol where almost all had to crawl up on foot. Those few who made it thru on bikes are just not human!After some refreshments(like the Cokeman says Coke works wonders) and topping up, the five of us, Zaba, Fendi, Razak, Amir and myself once again moved on. By now the sun was already truly out but the scenery along these Kampong routes are just as you expected them to be...pleasant. After several rolling hills at km 85, my front tyre gave a nasty pop before it deflated.The gang was way ahead of me to have noticed this except for Amir, cruising at 25km/h, he eventually caught up to give a hand. It was already 2pm and the sun was ontop of us when this happened.After 2hrs having gone thru 3 tubes, 2 gas canisters and several hand pumps later, I still couldn't get the tyre roadworthy. Problem was with the miday heat, these lightweight tubes just kept bursting away the moment I set it to roll again. The nearby kampong folk even obliged us with a pail of water when we needed to test some patch up tubes. Still all those patching was futile to say the least. However, frustrations aside, somehow this was one way of getting connected to rural folks and accept some hospitality from total strangers.

After weighing in the options, it was agreed that Amir should leave me as it was almost 4pm. I think it was Amir who felt more defeated instead of me since in all his experiences, he never has to give in. I was then to wait out for a rescue car who only got hold of me by about 6pm. This gave me a chance to chat with the Felda folks who by now had gathered around this coffeeshop I found and was hanging around in.They were so taken by what this PCC event was all about and that we were going thru some gruelling distance.It won't surprise me if I were to pass thru here again to find a new Felda Bukit Rokan cycling group........in exchange, I've learned something about the prices of Rubber and Palm oil or how to manage acres of them.That Felda if anything, would be my share in spreading the cycling gospel. Thus my cycling came to a closure for day1 at km 85.

Meanwhile our 3 upfront warriors were soldiering on with another 40km till the end while Amir was busy checking out for spare tubes for me at Gemenceh town. Accordingly he called to say he found the one and only cycle shop there with the only Polygon road bike which this chinaman has been trying to sell for donkeys of years. There was only 2 spare 70cm tubes which I told Amir to snatch but it was all too late for me then.So the story goes that Razak, Zaba, Fendi, probably due to blurred vision missed a turning to Gemas and headed instead back to Tampin. They added an extra 30km by the time they reached home.We found each other again back at the hotel and set out for some food and drinks in town. We didn't hang around long to chat as exhuastion was beginning to set in and we had to set up again for another morning. Who would have guessed that you would ever spend a night in Gemas.....well this time it's not about the place but more of the designated target, which we've reached!Day2 was a lot more exciting...let's here it from the others.



Posted by Sham Wahab

THE VERY FIRST POST

Welcome to the BJ Cyclist group. We are a group of very enthusiastic cyclist that travels along the Guthrie Corridor every Saturday. We T-off from Mydin in Bukit Jelutong at 7.30am. Everyone who has an interest in cycling and a smile as big as Zaba is most welcomed to cycle together in our group