Some 180 kilometres later I'm back at home, discovering parts of my leg aching that have never ached before! Thinking back...
I slept at around 2 am, after tinkering with my bike; adding a WOHO classic roll bag, changing my tires to Scwalbe Big Apples inflated to 70 PSI, platform pedals to SPDs, brand new brake pads (after discovering mine were pretty worn out while I was changing the tires which I went down to my local bike shop Chapter 2 Cycle to get), woke up at 3.20am there abouts and made my way to Marsiling MRT cutting through Mandai rd via the new unlighted park connector to woodlands ave 12.
Brake pads: Becareful! Once the indicators are gone(left one has no more grooves right one still has some) would mean serious wear on your rims and much less braking effect!
At those hours, the roads before Kota Tinggi were pitch black and was quite an experience to ride in. We had a brief breakfast and pushed on to try to get to Sungai Rengit before 12.30pm and push onto to the ferry terminal before 2.30pm to secure a ferry back to Sg.
Can you spot the low lying hazard?
I was clearly struggling to keep up with the roadies and a inhuman guy on a full suspension bike with knobbies, at the junction of Route 92 & 90 a choice was given to opt for a more scenic but longer yet flat route of 35km filled with hard headwinds or a hilly but shorter less scenic 28km route absent of headwind. Every cell in my body wanted to take the easy way out, but dang scenery is everything to me! And that the route was flat had to be a major draw!
The only two MTBs on the journey
In the end, it had to be the toughest ride and had embarked on! The pressure to make it in time, my slow bike, my weak legs, the strong headwind, the scorching sun, everything was out to slow me down. And persevered and thankfully my buddies decided to let me draft them to make up for lost time. We had to the 35km strech in 1.5 hours that would mean a 20km/h average speed. Sounds easy? But thats after I did a 90km ride here!
We made it to Sungai Rengit just before 1pm for a quick lunch, "The Shig" suggested we pass him our passports so he can leave early so as to have a better chance at securing a boat back to Sg. A really wise decision on his part as, as it would turn out we got the last available ferry back to Sg! Phew!
The Boat ride back: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150237952626283&comments
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The Storm had made the waters really chopy...
The longest ride of my life, so far. Shiok!
Man always wanted to go to Malaysia to ride! Nice trip, how do you like the Big Apples? Found it freaking slow when I was in Taiwan, but ymmv since I was on 20" and you were on 26".
ReplyDeleteYou can always join Smbf's ride you join the NTU cycling facebook page :)
ReplyDeleteThe Big apples were definitely faster than my Kenda Nevegals, only halfway did I realise that these tires are really not meant to be fast rolling slicks. They are really comfort ballon tires.
So i released the tire pressures and the difference it made was incredible, all the roadies were aching in their butts while I was rolling along in comfort except that my legs were more of less out.
Err SMBF or NTU Cycling FB page?
ReplyDeleteInterested for sure!
Both! I can't say which has more regular rides up to M'sia.
ReplyDeleteAh yes and one more source, the infamous cycling group. Joyriders.