Tour de Ayer Baloi 125km – The Report

Ouch, ouch, ouchhh…, Adoi, adoi…

That were among the first things I shouted when I started the 125km ride as early as 6.45am on last Sunday morning when I felt the pain in my legs. I started to have doubts whether I could finish the distance planned as soon as I started to paddle. At that point, I’m not sure whether running 2 hours non-stop almost 24 hours earlier has made my legs stronger for the ride, or has it became a killing factor.

I parked my car at a friend’s place, and started cycling with him to the meeting point where another 10 cyclists “should” be gathering there by 7am. Nothing was surprising. I mean, some were late as usual. Well, they have their own reasons I guess.

Being active cyclists and triathletes who love to have fun, I would say we do not really know how to just sit down and wait for people to arrive. Having had two people with digital cameras (me included), we all started to “have fun” in our own ways. Well, people say pictures tell thousand words right? You judge it yourself.

Patung Petronas tepi jalan pun jadi mangsa.

My trustworthy machine.

Hiroko-san, very powerful Japanese tri-mom who has won few prizes in triathlon and duathlon events here in Malaysia. Watch out!

By 7.50am when the last person arrived, we immediately shoot off. Altogether 11 roadies and one “berani-mati” mounties (bawak MTB lah tu maksudnya). The true fun begin.

For me, its always fun to be riding on a new route, to a new place. Once again this time, I’m riding to a place where I’ve never even been yet, not even with my car. Though the distance can be considered as a bit far, but having friends around will ease off the pain in the legs that you may have.

After the first 20km or so, some of the speed demons have blasted their ways ahead. Me? No, I was not one of them. Knowing that I’m cycling with partially fatigue pair of legs and the distance to cover was in three digits, I maintained a mere speed of about 30~33km/hr almost all the way through (on the flat road, masa panjat bukit lain cerita lah).

We made our first break stop after cycling about 45km if I’m not mistaken. As soon as I took out my camera and said “haa, lekas lekas.. nak ambik gambar masuk dalam blog/facebook ni”, below is what you’ll get. Hahaha…

Not only cycling was fun, taking break stops too can make your gum juicy (tak kering gusi lah)

The “berani-mati” guy with his MTB which we called – PAJERO of the day (because of the sound made by its huge tyres).

After about 15minutes break, we made our way towards Ayer Baloi. It was flat all the way, long stretch road with pineapple farms on the sides of it. I’ve never seen such a huge pineapple farm. Bak kata pepatah, saujana mata memandang.

Hmm, nak pegi Ayer Baloi ke nak pegi KL?

My silhouette.

Long stretch road with pineapple farms on the right and left sides. Maybe this is the reason why there’s such a place with the name of Pekan Nenas here.

Some of the guys in action.

Once again, the speed demons couldn’t resist the temptation to break away and burst their way through. Later that I heard they were doing 40~43km/hr on this flat road. Gilakkk!!

We soon arrived at the next T-junction and it’s time for the speed demons to stop and wait for the siput-speed people like me to arrive. What else to do while taking break other than taking more photos?

The speedometer was already showing the distance of about 65km. I forgot what time it was exactly, but roughly about 10am-ish. Perut dah lapar gile.

Aiyaarkkk.. another 75km to go meh? Adoila…

15minutes break time was over. It felt so fast. They were saying that next stop would be the breakfast stop.

”Where’s the breakfast stop? Jauh lagi ke?”, I asked the guys.

”Tak jauh lah, kat depan tu sikit je”, one guy replied.

PENIPU!!!

It was not after another 20 minutes of cycling or so that we reached the warung tepi jalan. It was like cycling to a place hundreds of miles away. Perut dah lapar gile, matahari dah makin tinggi. Rasa nak belasah je kat orang yang cakap “tak jauh lah” tadi.

Once arrived at the mostly-desired break point for some food intake, all of us twelve cyclists occupied half of the sitting area at the warung. Gegak gempita.

Waiting for food to arrive.

Some guys had mihun soto. I had this – nasi soto. Yummylicious!

Eh, aku silap order ke, atau makcik tu yang salah dengar?

The aftermath. Average of 2 glasses of drinks per person.

We had a blast during the breakfast break. It was great fun. This guy kutuk that guy, the other guy kutuk another guy. Everybody was laughing. Luckily there was no food fight.

We then continued our ride back in a very windy condition. Head wind was pretty strong at times that for me, riding at 25km/hr was the only thing I can manage. The ride back also led us to some ugly climbs. Ugly enough that it had me looking down at my speedometer while cranking up the hills which showed the speed or 14km/hr.

Tak kisah lah kan, janji aku tak turun tolak basikal.

Few people got dropped behind (again, me included) due to the climbs we had to do. The strong guys were already out of sight. Being good cyclists, they waited for the rest at an interception before we continued the remaining 20km back to the meeting point.

Drebar PAJERO dah terbaring dan terduduk, kepenatan.

I do have to salute this “breani-mati” guy who had the courage to cycle with us using his MTB, while we all are using road bikes. If you ever ride on a MTB, you’ll know how hard it is to maintain 30km/hr and above speed, even on flat road. Though we all never stop kutuk-ing him since the beginning till the end of the rides, he did not really bother about them all. “It’s a good training”, he said.

Whether he regretted following us with his PAJERO, I’m not sure. That’s totally a different issue for him, and I leave it to him to keep it inside his heart.

Not long after that, we all reached our own destinations – home. Some guys get back to their cars at the meeting point, some went straight back home. I rested for a while, and had a delicious lunch at friend’s place. Chit chat some more until it’s time for me to get home, leave the bike, grab my swimming accessories, and headed to the swimming pool for recovery swim in the evening.

Rambut pun dah jadi macam trojan daaaa..

That was how I spent my Sunday.

P/s: Maybe, I’ll do long ride again this weekend. Maybe…