2013 World Car Free Day - Part 2

It should be better organized.. 

We waited a while until the announcer mentioned the last remaining roadies who crossed the finish line.
By the time the Mayor arrived, the ground crew were seen dismantling a mobile arch with the Shimano logo on the road.
As the mad scramble began, leisure cyclists were getting ready to try out the 4km route which was closed to motorists.
I had the opportunity to catch up with some friends who waited for the leisure ride to flag off at Jalan Ampang.
One of them remarked: "What the hell is this la! Racing on a Car Free Day? All the event organizer see is money, money, money.."
Some even condemned the MNCF for the farce.
I saw the race as a means for some roadies to mutually stroke themselves in public. Nothing more than that.. 
Way I see it, City Hall should plan the Car Free Day thoroughly before they implement an open day for cyclists, skaters, and those who intend to walk around the city.
Even the 4km route was poorly managed. Some cars managed to "squeeze" their way onto the bike path.
Nevertheless, we cycled on and actually made two loops before deciding to call it a day.
The turn out was so-so, mediocre compared to the mass cycling events in Penang or recently in Ipoh.
I guess the last-minute planning by City Hall didn't help as the public was unaware of the World Car Free Day.

Man of the hour: KL's Mayor arriving at the scene

Enthusiasm..

The Mayor made his entrance with style, he was swarmed by reporters from the Electronic and print media.
There, he gave a sweeping statement: Car Free Day to be organised on every Sundays and bicycle lanes will be created in the city.
Some cyclists are doubtful of this and a few actually said that if such events are organized on a weekly-basis on the same route, it will be boring and eventually, the cause will run out of steam.

Factual inaccuracy

While the Mayor had laid out his plans, the MNCF was quick to claim credit for the World Car Free Day. They were quoted by the New Straits Times for "initiating" the World Car Free Day event.. The NST's report on the event
For the record: "World Car Free Day" was an effort by the World Car Free Network (WCN) initiated in 2009 with member countries like the UK, Germany, The Russian Federation, France, Spain, Italy and Brazil.
The NST's boo-boo aside, I give credit to the MNCF for organising the Kuala Lumpur Car Free Day which was factually correct as reported in the NST's Street Central Edition earlier.

Cycling down Jalan Ampang with the iconic KLCC in the background

Samo, watching the race from the roadside

The brotherhood of cyclists..

It was reported in the Press that some 600 people attended the ride.
From what I saw, it may be less than projected.
To my surprise, Folding Bike owners made a large turnout at the event.
Some took the train to the city, others drove and parked at the fringe and rode into Jalan Ampang and a handful actually rode from their homes to the event. Kudos!
We rode off towards Jalan Brickfields to enter the Federal Highway motorcycle lane.
But, before that, I led Michelle and Anita into the "Ninja Turtle Route".
This is a simple ride along a 1.8km stretch along the Klang River bank.
I was introduced to this route by Master Urban Cyclist Sin Tai Lim sometime back.

Riding along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman

The Ninja Turtle Route

A mural depicting Malaysia's Founding Fathers

The Gang

Cycling below the city's road level

We saw, we rode, and it's a wrap!

Coming straight out of the sewer, we rode towards the connecting bikeway and made good progress on the Federal Highway's motorbike lane.
At the Jalan 222 interchange, we bade Anita farewell and continued with our journey to Subang Jaya.
It was a smooth ride as we clocked-in more than three hours on the road with a total distance of 61km. This was much shorter than what we did back in January when we rode to the city to join the OCBC Cycle Malaysia 2013 Community Ride.
Michelle and I were satisfied with the ride.
On the whole, Malaysian motorists have a long way to go in lowering the number of vehicles on the road on such a day. 
I guess that with so few bikeways connecting the sub-urban areas to the city, cyclists are put off with the idea of riding from their home to the city centre.
The LRT may provide a good avenue for a multi-modal commute, but restrictions in terms of carrying your bike into the train during peak hours is a damper to the Car Free effort.
What made it worse was the fact that the LRT station staff had refused to allow bikes with their larger auto gates in such times.
All that said and done, let's just hope that the KL City Hall would take some cue in organizing a better Car Free Day event.
And like the few cyclist friends that I met at Jalan Ampang, I don't support organizations that is out to make a quick buck by taking advantage of a Car Free Day with their fancy road race...

2013 World Car Free Day - Part 1

Off to an early start...

We've had a good rest and woke up at 05:30am.
I set up the bikes the night before and this is actually the first time we were riding our 24" folding bikes into the city centre.
The plan was to cycle from our home in USJ 26, ride up to USJ 20 and take persiaran Tujuan towards the Federal Highway motorcycle lane.
Michelle had earlier set up a meeting point with her friend Anita who is cycling with us into the city for the first time.

Last-minute announcement

The guy who runs the Malaysian National Federation of Cyclists (MNCF) was quoted in the newspapers for organizing a Car Free Day event in the city.
At the same time, he also mentioned about a criterium road race where sections of the city's main roads are closed to traffic.
The Kuala Lumpur City Hall was involved in this and Leisure cyclists were encouraged to join the ride with the Mayor.
We took this as a cue to ride into the city. There were just the three of us.

Getting ready to hit the road

Riding along the edge of the LDP

On the Federal Highway motorcycle lane

There were no issues at all getting to the Federal Highway bike lane that connects Klang to Kuala Lumpur's City Centre.

Last year, I organized a ride from KL - Klang on the same route.

It took as about an hour to get to Jalan 223 where we met Anita. From there, we made our way into the city centre via Jalan Bangsar.

By the time we got to Jalan Travers, traffic began to pick up in terms of the number of vehicles on the road.

Posing for a shot at the refurbished Majestic Hotel

The Army had their open day in Dataran Merdeka

Michelle, checking out a howitzer

We found that certain sections along this route was really dangerous - especially from Jalan Travers to the Museum. The road splits and we had to cross two lanes to get to the city centre.

The hoarding in front of the Museum didn't really help either as the road becomes really narrow.

Lucky for us, it was just a short distance to cover before reaching the old KL Railway station.

I called for some photo opportunity at the refurbished Majestic Hotel before we rode off to Jalan Raja Laut.

At Dataran Merdeka, the Army had their field day where some of their hardware were shown to the public.

We reached the Sultan Abdul Samad building and noticed a group of cyclists wearing lime-green tee shirts.

Jalan Raja Laut was closed and when we entered the road, a traffic cop directed us to move aside as a peloton of cyclists approached.

Breakfast in Jalan Doraisamy

The KL skyline

The road race in Jalan Ampang

We wait..

I led the gang to Jalan Doraisamy for breakfast.

While our day was about to begin, the night owls were having their last meal of the day before heading back to their barn for hibernation.

I noticed a group of sexy chicks in their night dressing having breakfast at a stall opposite the spot where we had our nasi lemak. These people must have been partying late till the early hours of the morning.

We made our way to Jalan Ampang near the Dang Wangi LRT station where the road race took place.

Chilling out by the roadside

In terms of organization, the DBKL World Car Free Day event was haphazardly done. 

There were no indication as to where cyclists were supposed to gather.

On the race part, there were only a handful of roadies racing each other.

Last I checked there were three groups..

No one even bothered to cheer the peloton as they made their way to the timing sensor along the race route.

I don't think there's any appeal for racing on a Car Free Day.

The irritating announcer..

Some dude who had the mike on his hand was commentating. 

The less-enthusiastic crowd were more interested in socialising than to listen to him.

And while he was at it, a couple rode past on their road bike. They were riding on the side of the road.

Out of the blue, the announcer yelled: "Hey you, father and son team, please get out of the road, there is a race going on!".

The guys shouted back: "This is a car free Sunday!!!"

Later, I found out that the duo was actually a couple - a caucasian dude and an asian lady.

Way I see it, the traffic management and crowd control was pretty bad. 

Leisure cyclists were riding on their own pace while the race was going on.

Even the whole motivation of making money on a Car Free Day seemed morally wrong..

Cycle to work @ 2013 Pre-World Car Free Day ride

We won the battle...

Eddie "niceguy" Chua, my colleague whom I have known for more than two decades had drafted a letter which he managed to get the top man at The Star to lay his signature.
The content stated that a few of us are cycling to work and wanted to bring our bikes to our workplace.
Our big, big, boss agreed. 
He sealed the deal and there are no more controversies about bringing a bicycle to the workplace.
Eddie did not agree to park his bike in the loading bay and since it was a folding bike, there were no issues having it at the workstation as it does not get in the way.

Far and few in between

I cycle to work whenever I need to.
On a few occasions, I had no choice but to cycle because my car was in the workshop.
To do so, I must give myself at least one hour head-start to slowly make my way from USJ 26 to the Federal Highway motorcycle lane.
This is roughly about 10km from where I live.
And for the record, I am the only guy from The Star who cycles to work regularly.
Now, with the permission granted to do so, I do plan to do more often.

Living up to a tradition...

Cycle to work was initiated by Star Two Assistant Editor Andrew Sia back in 2011.
He wanted to do an article about commuting to work with a bike.
I obliged by cycling from my home in USJ 26, Subang Jaya, covering a distance of 43km on a round trip.
Last year, I continued the tradition by roping-in Eddie Chua. Only both of us cycled on Car Free Day.
This year, the plan was the same. Meet up in Sungai Way and cycle to work.
The only difference was having three more guys joining us.
I also put up a request for a video shot by multimedia.

This year's gang.. 

We had The Star Cycling Team captain Kevin Tan on his Tern Verge X20 folding bike, Mohd Sean Shazarin who ride a GT mountain bike and StarMetro Assistant Editor Jacobus Jeyaraj who also rode his GT mountain bike.
So, we gathered at Tukang Basikal Fook Sang at 08:00am in Sungai Way and ride towards Menara Star in Section 16.

Samo leading the way.. 

Negotiating the traffic

A simple ride..

We set out from Fook Sang with ease, rolling down towards Jalan 223 and half-way through, I received a call from the multimedia videographer.
He was late, so we met up with him in Medan Selera Jalan 222.
After filling with some Nasi Lemak and teh tarik, Patrick, our video guy shot some footages.
I also liaised with Award-winning photographer Azman Ghani for the lead photos.
Throughout the ride, we coordinated and planned where the best angles are for the shots.
Azman did a superb job and so did Patrick with the editing and linking up the video on YouTube.



The video put up on YouTube

Arrival at the office.. 

It was a short ride to the office, the only tough part was the long climb from Section 13 to Section 16 at Jalan Dato Abu Bakar.
I had no problems keeping up with Kevin who seemed to be cycling with much ease.
We waited for Eddie and Jacob to climb the hill and I can see that Eddie was struggling to keep his pace.
After clearing the hill, it was a smooth roll to the office.

And there's work to be done.

The moment I got to m workplace, I began to work on the story.
Later in the day, I saw to it that it sees print with an on-line photo gallery and the video link.
My work day came to a close at 06:15pm when I clocked out from the office.
It took me another one and a-half hours to get home.

Likes and dislikes...

The YouTube video was put on-line and publicly shared. On the last count, there were four likes and nine dislikes.
I don't know whether the losers who disliked the video were simply trolls or people who hated cyclists. 
But hey! The least we did, was to cycle to work and we did just that.
I hope that the next cycle to work venture will attract more people. At least this year, we had three more guys joining in the ride. 
And for a company with more than 3.000 people, five cyclist out of the lot goes to say that something is very wrong..