Sabak Bernam - Part 4

Completing the journey...

Our alarm clocks were set for 06:00am.
From the previous night, it was roughly about five hour's snooze.
Over the months of inactivity, overeating and boozing, I've put on a lot of weight.
This is apparent when my legs hurt like hell after six hours of cycling on the trail..
When we woke up, the first thing that came into mind, was to pack up and fill up our water bottles so that we can hydrate along the way.
Lucky for us, we don't need to purchase bottled water as the guest house offers drinking water at no cost.
The plan was to meet at the entrance at 07:00am and head out for breakfast at a coffeeshop near the guest house.
We did just that and also packed our lunch for the journey.

The early morning breakfast...

Raman helping out Walter with the flat tire

Our packs were left behind at the guest house so that we could pick them up and leave.
Just as we were about to do that, Walter had a flat tire.
To make things worse, he punctured a new spare tube with a screwdriver he had used to pry open the tire.
So, that said, the ride back to Sabak Bernam experienced a slight delay.
After the tire was fixed, we were well on our way.
Traditionally-speaking, the journey back is always faster in many sense.
With the early morning advantage, we made our way to Kg Banja and towards the Mah Estate to connect with Sabak Bernam.

Oh, the heat! Walter and Patric riding on the trail

No pain, no glory!

Greeting us ahead, was the long and dreadful gravel road.
This is roughly about 15 - 20km in distance.
Our bikes were equipped to whack through the rough and rugged terrain.
The front and rear suspension did took away the hard knocks and bumps.
By the time we cleared the first log bridge, we were doing really good time. And on the average, our moving speed was 15km/h.
This meant that most of us were cycling like bats out of hell! 

Taking a break along the trail..

Crossing a sandbag dam over a peat water canal

Our target destination was a small village at the end of the vast oil palm estate.
On Sundays, the plantation is literally deserted.
Not a single soul on sight.
We covered as much ground as we could and found the last stretch that came in sight: a boom gate at the end of the miniature locomotive rail.
Beyond this was a paved road and the last few kilometres to Sabak Bernam.
After clearing the estate and village, we found a small stall by the roadside and feasted on a bottle of chilled air nira (palm nectar).
I never had these before and it tasted rather interesting.
The nira is said to have cooling qualities for the body.

Moving closer to Sabak Bernam

Riding along Federal Road 5 - Teluk Intan - Klang

Palm nectar

A welcoming sight...

We rode closer to Sabak Bernam and reached the carpark in front of Hotel Sri Bernam at 12:30pm.
Compared to the day earlier, we did good time.
Michelle wasted no time in packing the bikes and I went on to the hotel to get a room for day use.
We cleaned up nicely and went to Sabak Bernam town for lunch.
Wey, Ming, Roger and Jacky joined us while the rest headed back to the Klang Valley.
After a good lunch, Michelle and I headed home.

Packing the bikes for transport..

Summary

We had a great time and the company was excellent! 
Siang, as usual, did a good job with the route planning.
With the ride, we've joined the dots between Rawang and Teluk Intan.

Sabak Bernam - Part 3

Some time to unwind..

We set our time for late tea with a ride into town.
It didn't occur to me that it was a short stroll as our guest house is just minutes away from the town square.
The first course of action was to search for a bicycle shop to fix Raman's busted rear wheel.
We found one and had his problem looked at.
While the guy was at it, some of the cyclist were getting restless.
I guess when you have a bunch of hungry people, leaving them in that state would end up in a revolt.
Just as I was to order a drink from the Malay restaurant next to the bike shop, Raman came up to us and said he was good to go.

Ecstasy: Raman enjoying a plate of mee rebus

The gang

I was tasked with leading the group to the town's makan place.
Teluk Intan is a town that I knew pretty well, so, our destination was Mastan Ghani Mee Rebus.
This is a well-known eatery in town and their Mee Rebus and Air Batu Campur are a treat especially when you come all the way from the Klang Valley.
We ate the noodles and chilled out at the shop before heading out to the town's leaning tower for a group shot.

One for the album: the gang in Teluk Intan

Side attractions

While we were taking some photos, I had my camera on the ground with its self-timer.
Out of nowhere, a cyclist came up and grabbed my Canon Powershot G1x and started snapping away.
I knew he meant well and it turned out that the lone cyclist was our newfound friend Jacky Yow from Cameron Highlands.
He cycled all the way from Tanah Rata to Teluk Intan and also stated interest to join our ride back to Sabak Bernam the following day.

Siang and Jacky

After we were done with the photo-taking, Siang had suggested a ride to the old Tapah Road railway line.
The tracks were long gone, but remnants of the old railway bridge which was built in the Colonial days are still there.
We rode about 3km towards this area and decided that it was best to head back to the guest house to rest.

Riding across the old railway bridge

Back at the guest house, I caught up with Raman and learned more about this newfound friend of mine.
He told me that he was aware of our previous expeditions and that Siang is a dedicated organizer and ride leader.
I concurred with what he has to say about how meticulous Siang can be when it comes to safety and planning a long journey.
Our conversation stretched from the first offroad ride from Sungkai - Teluk Intan two years ago to the "Civil War" that took place in Ko Lanta, Thailand.
To me, sacrificing one or two guys for the good of others was a necessity at the time.
What we have now, are a group of mature people who make great company on the trail.
I am just glad that the primadonnas and Rock stars were out of the picture especially in trips that tests our patience and perseverance.
While chatting with Raman, I made my way down to the lower floor and found Roger while I filled up my water bottle.
He told me that the gang was going out for supper and asked if I wanted to join in.
I was okay with that and informed Michelle about it.

Supper-time!

Before we arrived in Teluk Intan, Radzi did made mention about a grilled Udang Galah stall by the riverside.
We found this place and feasted like Kings before moving on to another stall, and another.

 

Siang and Walter Wuertz from Germany

The grilled Udang Galah

We later proceeded to the town square to take more photos at the leaning tower.
After rounding up some groceries from the 24-hour convenience store, we rode back to the guest house.

Michelle at the leaning tower

Late night chatter

There's a long day ahead, we lounged outside our rooms and continued with some conversation.
This time, Chris Wong came back from his obligatory duties with his friends and indulged in a conversation with the rest of the gang.
We chat until 01:00am and decided to call it a day..

Sabak Bernam - Part 2

Sun, flu and muscle pull...

We did pretty well on the first 10km.
Our team covered quite a distance in the oil palm estate.
From my view, it was miles and miles of barren soil, loose gravel and oil palm trees.
There were no shade from the blazing heat and we had to move as fast as we could to get out of the estate.
What made things even worse was the fact that there were no coffee shops and stalls along the way.
So, to sum it up, we were in the middle of nowhere and the nearest civilization is 22km away.
I was nursing a cold from the days before and the bad air quality that hit the Klang Valley didn't actually help.
While cycling on the loose gravel and sandy soil, I felt the great strain on my body.
It was really difficult to breath with a congested nasal passage and phelgm building up on my chest.
I watched as my Garmin Fenix and EDGE800 GPS began to flash: "heart rate too high!".
We pushed on as far as we could and reached a shaded area where Chris had gestured for a quick lunch.
It was 11:30am in the morning and the Sun was at its full glory.
We had clear blue skies over our heads and the air quality was also good.
The only thing that really bothered me was the blazing heat.

Wey and Ming on their 16" bikes 

Down time!

After lunch, we decided to push on.
It felt as if we were in an abyss.
There were no end to the length of the gravel path and loose sand made it really hard to pedal our bikes.
On the average, we were doing about 10km/h on the bikes.
About three hours into the ride, the group decided to pull over at a shaded area.
I got off my bike and my left thigh began to experience spasms.
Earlier in the day, I downed two time-release electrolyte capsules.
It didn't help as I struggled to stand up.
Michelle saw the colour on my face and told me to take off my backpack.
I removed my helmet and sat on the ground.
My immediate reaction was to pull out my muscle relaxant spray.
Raman, who saw me seated on the ground had helped by showing me on how to recover from a muscle pull.
I rested a bit, regained my composure, got onto my bike and pushed on. 

Riding on the rough

Raman, showing me how its done on recovering from a hamstring pull

Push! Push! Push!

We were still far away from our objective.
While we were blazing a path through the estate, it dawned on me that our team were tight in every aspect.
After about four hours on the trail, we reached the border demarkation of Selangor and Perak.
It was two long ditch linked by a wooden plank.

Going strong: Michelle and her Jetstream P8

The long stretch

Riding past the oil palm estate's locomotive

Siang had earlier instructed us to carry at least 3-litres of water.
We packed plenty and with the intense heat, most of us were feeling the severe effects of dehydration.
Almost every few kilometres were a brief halt for drinking water.
At about 01:45pm, we reached the wooden plank and crossed over to Teluk Intan.

Making our own road: Chris pushing his bike across a fern patch

Log bridge crossing

All of us made it through the obstacles and proceeded to the oil palm estate's administrative centre.
There was a site office and the people there were observing our movement.
We linked up again with Raman who rode ahead because he wanted to escape the heat.
At this point, we were about 5km away from Kampung Banja, a village on the outskirts of Teluk Intan town.
While we were riding, a middle aged man, whom we believed was a supervisor at the estate rode past us on his motorcycle.
"Who is the leader?," he asked.
I responded my acknowledging his question.
"Do you have permission to enter?," he continued.
I told him that we didn't and apologized to him.
The man then turned away.
Later, he came back and asked where we were from and how we found the estate.
Rather than being aggressive, I took the soft approach by being polite.
After all, we were on a private property and he had every right to question our presence.
The man was kind enough to allow us a passage through his oil palm estate.
We continued our journey to Kg Banja and it was a huge relief to see some paved road.
By the time we made our way to Teluk Intan, most of us were really tired.

Roger, cleaning his bike after running over some cow dung..

 The correct estimation..

From Kg Banja, we rode through a series of housing estates on the outskirts of Teluk Intan.
Just barely a kilometre away, Siang suffered cramps on his legs.
I passed on my muscle spray to him to remedy the aches and as soon as he was up and going, we began the final push to TnT guest house.
"Ah, your ETA is correct, we arrive here at 3pm..," said Siang.
Seems that on the weekend we were there, a cub prix race was taking place.
TnT guest house was Angela's choice after Hoover hotel.
This is a cosy place with clean rooms priced at RM50 a night.
There were some hoo-haas with the lady owner of this place, but we got the issues resolved and checked-into the rooms. A cold shower was in order.
The plan later in the day was a ride into town..

Sabak Bernam - Part 1

Putting a plan into action..

It's been nearly half a year since we've had a good offroad ride.
I contacted TT Siang, one of the country's renowned bikepacker and offroad folding bike cycling guru and told him about "connecting" the dots between our previous ride from Rawang - Sekinchan.
The plan was to ride to Teluk Intan from Sabak Bernam.
Siang had suggested an offroad track -- cutting through an oil palm plantation and covering a distance of 32km one-way.
We've corresponded to email and had informed a small group to carry out the recce ride.
So, basically, we were headed into the unknown.

A wiser group

Through the years, we've managed to stream the members of our offroad folding bike group into a small team of cyclists.
We've parted ways with the primadonnas and troublemakers.
Once burned by a few so-called friends, Siang had decided that it was best to keep the group small as it is manageable in many aspects.
I have offered my services to organize the group while Siang had spent some sleepless nights planning the route.

Re-connecting with an old friend

It's been more than a year since I rode with Chris Wong, one of the original members of our Rawang - Sekinchan offroad expedition.
He said he was good to go this time and we're just glad he came along because he's a livewire.
My usual gang: Roger Teoh, Patric Yee and Mohd Radzi Mohd Noor were among those who also joined in the ride.
We had Wey and Ming, our old cycling kakis from the 10.10.10 ride, Siang's other half Angela, Raman, their trekking buddy whom I met for the first time and Walter, a German dude residing here in Malaysia.
The head count was 12 riders and I'm just happy with the number.

The gang at Sabak Bernam

The ride plan

We drove to Sabak Bernam after work to spend a night there so that we won't have to rush off early in the morning.
The instructions was to pack lunch in town and bring it along.
Since we were riding mostly offroad, I brought our Dahon Jetstream which was fitted with a set of Maxxis DTH dirt tires.
As soon as we were gathered, we rode out towards a village some 3km outside Sabak Bernam to begin the journey into the oil palm estate.

Siang fixing Angela's bike in the background

Making our way on the trail 

Crossing the Bernam river

We proceeded into a village and experienced our first flat tire.
This time, it was Raman who had a puncture on his mountain bike's rear tire.
All of us took turns to fix the bike and it wasn't until Chris Wong had intervened to remedy the problem so that Raman could continue with his journey..

Chris, fixing Raman's flat tire

We had a slight downtime and the day was getting really hot.
From the village, we went on cycling into an oil palm estate and that's where the fun begins!

FRIM

A brainstorm...

So, there I was, day dreaming again.
While warming up my brains, the thought of cycling in the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia came to mind.
"Ummmm.. This place is in Kepong, I've been there a few times, the trails are not bad and its pretty foldie-friendly..," I thought out loud.
Then, I did a search on Google and came up with some interesting blogs about cycling in this area.
Basically, there are two sections to ride around the FRIM. On-road and offroad.
Cyclists are charged RM5 per entry for each bike and since there are ample parking in the area, it should be interesting to give it a try.

An early session in FRIM

We're gonna do it sooner or later...

Some folding bike cyclists have ridden in the area and gave this trail a really good mention.
Our plan was to explore the place and see as much as we could.
So, Michelle and I had set out on a Saturday morning to Kepong from our home in Subang Jaya.
We arrived at Taman Ehsan Kepong and had breakfast in a coffee shop.
The curry pan mee there was not bad.
After a good fill, we drove to the FRIM entrance where the free carparks were already packed to the brim.
It was the Yang DiPertuan Agong's birthday, so, it was a public holiday.
There were a lot of hikers and people who went there to do their walk on the trail.
We saw many mountain bikers who parked their vehicles and rode out to the area.
After scouting for a carpark, we found a nice place to set up our bikes at the entrance of the FRIM Botanical Garden.
Right beside us, was a Toyota Hi-Lux pick up with its engine running.
Its really an irony to see some dude "going green" with his car engine chugging away.
Anyway, the guy was a prick as he behaved like the whole world had owed him a living, so fuck him!
We rigged up the bikes and rode to the FRIM's main building.

One of the easy trails

Michelle riding her Dahon Jetstream P8

The light trail

We found a dirt track near some worker's quarters in FRIM.

It was an easy loop and the trail was really beautiful.

But it was short.

Michelle and I ended up at the entrance of the trail after a 10-minute ride.

We felt that this would be suitable to conduct an outdoor workshop for the members of the Malaysian Foldies to do offroad cycling.

Rover trail and Steroid hill

Well, after some snooping around, we found the trail head leading up to "Steroid Hill".

This is where the fun begins!

Queuing up for cyclist on the Rover trail

A nice view of the city 

Rolling away on the dirt track

"You don't belong here.."

We rode past some mounties along the way.

Some gave us a dirty look, as if we were snatching away their fun on the trail.

Way I see it, the dirt track is for all to share and its courtesy to give way to those rolling downhill like a bat out of hell.

I yelled at Michelle to move aside so that those maniacal showoffs would get through.

Then, a group of middle aged Malay men said: "Wah, folding bike pun boleh!"

The Rover trail seemed short and it leads to the Steroid Hill, which is basically a steep climb on gravel road.

When we exited the trail, I asked one of the Mounties about the trails in FRIM and where it leads to.

"Ah, you end up in Hospital Sungai Buluh la..," said one of them.

That wasn't on my agenda, so the sane thing to do, was to turn back to the trail head.

Michelle and I felt that we've achieved something by completing the ride on the trail.

We did tried to cycle up the Steroid Hill, but our tires weren't meant for gravel and dirt tracks. 

At one point, the hill was so steep, my front wheel was doing a wheelie!

A stream found along the trail

Our Jetstreams

Getting there and back...

We spent about three hours on the trail and covered quite a bit.

Michelle and I were quite satisfied with the ride and how our bikes handled along the way.

The full-suspension really helped in taking the knocks and bumps.

Later, I cracked a joke about getting killed and eaten by cyclists riding their little pink folding bikes, where some folks actually took it seriously.

I guess with such a safe area to ride, we might go back to FRIM to follow-up on other trails...