Ride the waves

May distance: 560

Kluang, Johor, Malaysia
Day 1, Vesak Day, 156 km. The last time the three of us had cycled together was in 2005, on the long ride straight up the middle of Peninsula Malaysia. Since then, the other two have cycled together the length of UK. Why did I get up before the crack of dawn to cycle with them today? Things are inverse; the small Asian dude has fat tyres, the big guys have thin road tyres. We stop by a little village to refuel. Like a tiny hamster, I have to keep eating. Big guys don't have to eat a lot. I hear that bears, unlike hamsters, can go without food for a long time :o The village is so small, there's only lontong to eat but the lack of variety is made up by the friendliness. Two villagers offer, unasked, directions to where we're going. Another takes a photo of us.

My front wheel springs a leak. It's not that I'm overweight! As the wheel sags, my spirit flags - the cumulative effect of sleep deficit and work excitement. Now, I have the added excitement of stopping every half hour to pump up my tyre. I cycle ahead; the longer I'm on the road, the more I'll have to pump my tyre. Once in a while, there are trees by the road. Where there are many trees, the air is discernably cooler. The weather blows hot and cold; the burning sun gives way to rain clouds. I ride at the edge of the clouds and soon I'm back in the sunlight. My pals, in the rear, stop and shelter from the lighting. At our destination, my room mate might be the sole American in Kluang, putting up at a hotel called the White House. But there's no shelter from the giggling girls who chatter and run along the corridor outside our room. The young and the restless ...

Day 2, Saturday, 149 km. Rolling on fat tyres takes far more physical energy than changing the tyres to slicks. But, the mental effort to change tyres exceeds the mental energy to ride on fat tyres. As I wonder on the oddness of it all, I notice the oddness of the things on the road. Sure, there's the usual roadkill: snakes, cats, birds. Then I see a chicken foot; it's a clean amputation. A few minutes later, I see another chicken foot. I don't stop to see if the chicken had two left feet, but it certainly left its feet behind. I also see two cushions and a pair of trousers.

As I cycle on, I so want to stop by a dentist and ask for novocain. For my butt. Would that numb my butt or would my legs go numb too? By now, the sun is burning and we stop almost every half hour to rehydrate. And, just like yesterday, the rains come in the afternoon. No need to rehydrate then, with water pouring from the sky and from below. Rain pours from above and rushes down the road. As cars pass, water roars from the right, wash over bicycle wheels, crash against the curb on the and meet the next surge of water from the right. As I ride the waves, I hope I won't sail over my handlebars.

Not that I have to worry for long, as the rain clouds don't seem to have an exit permit beyond Malaysia. They peter out near the border. Where a puncture awaits me. How do you fix a tyre when traffic is rushing past a metre away? A construction worker unchains the gate to a work site and lets me in. He barely speaks English but his kindness is eloquent enough. I can't find the source of the puncture but replace the inner tube anyway. I certainly don't want to cycle home in the dark. I make it home, whereupon the rear tyre deflates completely. I find a 1 cm wire embedded in the tyre.

When things go ride

Woodlands, 50 km. Part of the sky is cloudy but the rest is sunny. I decide to ride and go for a nice lunch at a certain shop. I dress up in my cycling togs, grab my bicycle. A few pedal strokes later, it rains. Grey clouds stretch as far as I can see. It's a dirty drizzle, wet enough to wet the road so that dirty water from the road sprays up, with the rain not heavy enough to wash the road grime away. As today is a working day for most people, I mistakenly think the traffic will be light. A truck honks me, it pulls so close to me I pull into a bus lane to let death pass. A puddle lies ahead of me, a car joyfully plunges through it and drenches me with spray. As for lunch, that certain spot is closed! Ugh, what a ride. Until I become grateful I make it home alive, without a scratch. My gears shift flawlessly and I wasn't floored when I ride gingerly on wet, slick metal plates on the road where some road work is going on. Many things in a day go right, right? Even a crummy ride has its good side.

Deficit financing

Gangsa, 51 km. I spent yesterday catching up on sleep. Sleep deficit that had built up due to work-related reasons. I want to sleep today, but somehow get up to ride. As I cycle past the nature reserve, the air is cool to the touch. With trees on either side of the road, shadows and a huge green lung mean there's less concrete to bake. Global warming is a form of deficit financing, going into debt using tomorrow's resources for today.

I see a sign-post and detour to check out a new trail. Without my asking for help, another cyclist in the area points the way in and tells me where to go. I end up on Gangsa, which I've not been to for years. I bounce along on my rigid bike and my semi-slick tyres slide about on the wet earth. Fortunately, I do not crash. Though it is noon, there are other bikers about, some resting, others going the other way. Somewhat dangerous, to have two-way traffic on what is sometimes single-track terrain. I ring my bell around blind corners and blind upslopes; sounds so incongruous in the jungle. I'll be back - with more water and with food next time. No calorie or other deficits for me ...

Bikes, bites and a break

Bukit Timah, 43 km. While others are out cycling, I'm in bed catching up on sleep. As I head out, the sun is high but dark clouds loom ahead. So instead of heading as far north as one can go on this little island, I decide to drop by a new bike shop, which also sells things to eat ("bites").  I ogle at the gleaming carbon frames and other gleaming toys. There are bicycle jerseys too. I wonder why people wear white ones, like the one I wear today. It is tempting fate, it is tempting road grime and puddles to splatter all over it, to turn washed jerseys that smell nice but look unwashed. Yes, it rains today, but I have a break today. As I cycle, the rain falls ahead of me. By the time I get there, the road is wet but does not splash up. The rain has damped down the oppressive heat that beats down from the sky and wafts up from the ground. It is cool, it is nice. What a break!

Mentally-physically mentality

Tuas, 111 km. I didn't ride last week. Just didn't feel like it, so I kept my cycling gear. Burnout?

Today, I cycled till there's no more road. When there's a goal in mind, that's a goal in sight. When my speed drops by 30%, I stop to rest a few minutes. Headwinds blast against me, the sun beats down on me, but weather forecast says it'll rain here. I think it's another wrong forecast. Little do I know, the clouds are waiting till it's dark and I'm tired. I see mist ahead. I hope against hope that it's not pouring rain, but it is. I cycle the other way and promptly get lost. Mostly by compass bearing and some dead reckoning, I pass a cross on a distinctive steeple silhouetted against the sky. I follow it as if it's the star of Bethlehem and soon enough, I'm on the road home.

Can't think of everything

Apr distance: 383 km

Woodlands, 53 km. When I get up this morning, I don’t feel like cycling. But when the sun is shining, I go riding, as sure as the sun rises from the east. Today’s ride is not just for the cycling. What if regular readers visit the blog and find nothing new? Also, I might as well do an equipment test. I can think of some things but not everything and that’s where road tests come in.

My water bottles (veteran of thousands of km around the region) have tasted of plastic. Yes, they are made of plastic but when you taste plastic, you ingest plastic. Sigg bottles are reputedly safe. But they don’t fit conventional water bottle cages. Or so I think until I force a 1 litre bottle into the cage with usually carries up to 0.75 litre. Though slightly bigger and heavier (250g of extra water), the bottle is ok to drink from on the move. It does not squirt, so suck from the nozzle. This means lip balm accumulation, the balm being needed to prevent wind chapped / sunburnt lips. Squirts would be helpful when cleaning road rash. Also, hitting bottle against frame may damage paintwork. Recommendation: Sigg bottles are good for bicycle tours if they fit in the bottle cage. They can carry more water (1 litre), don't leak plastic and can contain hot water. But carry a squirt bottle if you need to squirt, like when the Sigg bottle nozzle is dirty and you don't have a nozzle cover.

Almost empty handed

Changi, 71 km. I go shopping today at a shop that doesn't sell bicycles but rents them. They have a wide range of "cheap and good" accessories which regular bicycle shops don't have. When I reach the shop, what I came for is out of stock. "Come back in June", I'm told. I look also for a light light but the one with velcro comes only with red beam; the white one is - you guessed it, out of stock. I wonder if having more lights would save my life on the road, weeks after Ben Mok was wiped out from this world on a night ride. I visit bikeshop man and ask him if I need to change my chain. He measures it and says "no need". I see if there's something else I can buy. Not really. Just as I'm about to leave empty handed, my headset creaks. Badly. He removes it with some difficulty; it is rusted. He tells me it's a sealed bearing and replaces it. As he works, I point out the stem and tyres to him: "I got these from you seven years ago". So thus endeth shopping day.

Incidentally, bikeshop man is the sponsor of Singapore's first "ghostbike".

North and south

Tanjung Piai, Johor, Malaysia

Day 1, Good Fri, 137 km. Usually, I pass up the chance to get up before the crack of dawn to cycle. Usually, lying in bed is means more to me than sitting on a little saddle. But I need to "decompress" from my Borneo ride (since I'd headed to work hours after touching down). So I'm up before 5 am, meeting some Bike-Aid friends up north. There are dozens of roadies on the road and I chase after them on my fat tyres just for fun. After crossing the Malaysian border, we head south. As far south one can go on mainland Asia. Complacency hits me. So what that I'm a veteran of solo rides in Cambodia and Borneo. I forget how much water is left in my bottles and I almost run dry. Later on, I get too wet. After laundry wash and a cold shower, we cycle out for a seafood dinner. On the way back, it pours. We wait till it stops, then ride on. The rain ambushes us. Cold, wet but not hungry. 1 out of 3 isn't bad? In over 45,000 km of riding, this is just about my most miserable night. Up till now, I've aimed to be off the road by nightfall.

Day 2, Sat, 122 km. After a heavy breakfast (nasi lemak + nasi goreng for me), we cycle for an hour before stopping for lime juice. We then lunch in the same shop we'd lunched yesterday: the one with the future "Asean scholar",  a little girl who was glued to a computer yesterday. Today, she and her younger sister are helping in the kitchen and serving customers. If they were in Singapore, they'd be learning ballet or bossing the maid around. It rains again. We wait till it lightens then ride, but get "ambushed" again. What a mess, even mud guards on the bicycle in front don't stop the "free flow" of water spraying up at me. We cycle at our own pace, with me leading the sole roadie (the others have touring bikes complete with panniers). Like the story of the tortoise and the hare, we are overtaken when we stop to wait. We go our separate ways; the tourers head inland, we go by the coast. Yet, we meet as if by design. Nice. And custom officers wave us through. Nice.

Solo in Borneo

Mar distance: 726 km

Thu 18 - Wed 24 Mar 10
Brunei and Sarawak, 611 km

Lost among the familiar
Day 1: Thu 18 Mar, Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB) to Muara to BSB, 71 km. As I get off the aircraft, a big white man looks at my hand-carry and asks if I'm cycling. "Will there be headwinds," he asks. I know the answer is "yes" - the wind knocks at least 5 km/h off my speed. It doesn't help that I get lost a bit getting out of town, using a tourist map where some roads are unnamed.

Some parts of town look like home: the colour and design of road signs and pedestrian crossing buttons look the same. It's as if Brunei and Singapore bought things in bulk. After all, the currencies are interchangeable and the time zone are identical. But out of town, the scene looks Malaysian. Narrow, quiet roads wind up and down short, sharp slopes. By the time I get to Muara, I barely have time to snap a few photos, pump up my too-soft tyres and harness to beat sun down hands down.

It's harrowing to go back the same narrow roads into town, I try something else. Triangulation of road signs, compass bearing and map put me on the scenic route back into town. I'm shaken out of my reverie when I realise I'm lost in town. I stop at the sultan's palace (which has 1,788 rooms) to ask for directions (bigger than Vatican Palace, presumably those who work there need a good sense of place). As it turns out, I missed a little turn; just 300m more and I would've been there. Nightstop: Le Gallery Suites Hotel

Firefight
Day 2: Fri 19 Mar, Bandar Seri Begawan to Kuala Belait, 112 km. My recce on foot last evening ensured there's no fumbling this morning as I "go west, young man'. Only that I'm not as young as I was. Or is it that hard work means no training except on weekends - piddling 50 km rides. Or is it a double whammy - no youth and no training?

A shadow flits past me. It's a bird with seemingly metre-long wingspan. It glides ahead, perhaps at 30 km/h effortlessly, wings barely moving while my legs and heart pump away. Some guys on heavy bikes roar past. They toot and flash their thumbs up as they pass. The Brunei army is out too, building sand-bagged positions at various points along the road. At one point, some attempt to put out brush fire by beating the flames with branches. That's a firefight. I too have my fires to fight. If I'd a Blackberry, I'd have stopped to fire off some emails I composed in my head. And my ass feels aflame too, which affects how many hours I can ride before taking a break. 

This is a weird road, a highway that narrows into brushes with death. The air brakes of trucks behind me sound like wings of angels of mercy. The drivers are humane. If these were Singapore drivers, I may need the lives of nine cats. There's just one close call: roadworks that take up half the road. To pass, cycle facing on-coming traffic. To avoid being caught among a truck just behind me, the huge hole in front of me and turning right into on-coming traffic, I make a split second decision to avoid them all by going off road to my left.

When I reach town, I ask a local where the bus station is. She points one direction. I ask another the same question, she points the same direction. Somehow, I go the opposite way and somehow, I find the bus station and the hotel I'm looking for. I gotta figure out how i figured that one out. 

At the hotel, I get some work done. Not just the usual bicycle inspection/maintenance like digging glass out of tyres (so much for kevlar) but office work - a first on any of my expeditions. Nightstop: Hotel Sentosa

Mired in Miri - not

Day 3: Sat 20 Mar, Kuala Belait to Miri, Sarawak, 55 km. Getting to Miri has been challenging, according to Leon Whiteley who's gone before me. Sign posting is not to Sarawak but to an "obscure" town. That would be Sungei Tujoh (thanks to advice from Hj Sofian). There's no need to take the ferry to Sungai Teraban. Cars thunder past me on the narrow road. Alongside, lilies float placidly in a monsoon drain.

In my ride across the length of western Brunei, I've seen a handful of "commuter" cyclists. As I cross the border and the Asean Bridge (which ferry boatmen might've rued), no one bothers to question me or make me pay toll. The Malaysian road past immigration is twice the width of the Brunei road, but narrows until Miri, the second largest city in Sarawak. It is a maze of flyovers and traffic circuses. I stop several times to check my map and find myself in a cheap hotel with a decent review in a travel guide. Things have changed since then. The walls have patches of grey and paint peels off the ceiling. But the sheets are sort of white and the smell is tolerable. Nightstop: Palace Inn

Caved in
Day 4: Sun 21 Mar, Miri-Bekenu-Miri, Sarawak, 114 km. Today is 'no alarm clock' day. I awake at 0730 after 9.5 hours' sleep. That's what holidays are for. It's nice to make up for work-related sleep deficit.

The road is narrow, winding and hilly. How hilly? At one point, I go downhill at 55.3 km/h without pedaling. I run low on water. The road goes downhill so why am I going at 20 km/h? Headwinds plus calorie depletion. I stop, eat a muesli bar, ride. Then come across a rest stop with only one cooked food stall. And a petrol station where there's a big fridge full of cold air but no drinks to sell. I want to ride to Niah Caves but cave in; it's just too far away. The road signs indicate I might not make it there and back before nightfall. So I head for a town not on my map called Bekenu. I intend to ride there then U-turn but see a strange sight: signboards pointing to Miri in opposite directions.

At Bekenu (how I like these nice little towns - they have character) I have an ice-cold drink and don't U-turn. Turns out I'm on the scenic route. The headwind is still there but the hills are fewer. If only I found this route earlier; the tailwind might've carried me to Niah. It's been tough: a twinge of pain shoots up above my right knee now and then. Cycling isn't just about leg power. It needs mental strength and butts of steel. I start the day with Boney M playing in my brain (because I pass a bakery "Ma Baker"). For the return leg, it's Led Zepplin and Journey.

Headstrong headwind

Day 5: Mon 22 Mar, Miri to Kuala Belait, 69 km. I like cycling on shoulder-width road shoulders compared to the palm-sized ones. On the two-lane road, metal monsters hurtle against the traffic flow and into my safety zone as they overtake slower traffic. When they see me plodding along, they may veer away from me, or just plunge headlong without wavering to whip past me. Might is right. I tire fast as I head north, first contending with the Miri Monday morning masses on the road. When I am clear of town, the north wind knocks 8 to 10 km/h off my speed. But the distance is short and I make it to KB with more than enough time to recce the next day's route out of town. I sure don't want to head back to Bandar Seri Begawan on palm-width road shoulders.

I'm glad I don't know the future. Tomorrow will be burning hot, with a headwind. When I know the future, I don't look forward to it. But at least, there'll be another hotel at the end of the ride. Preparing for the future is different. This morning, I notice my cyclocomputer shows 0 km/h. Flat battery. Yesterday, it was the transmitter, today it's the receiver. I'm prepared not scared, I've two spare batteries.

The hotel is the most expensive on this trip; at B$98, it is about 2x as expensive as Le Gallery Suites. But it is super clean, has free internet, Singapore newspaper, kettle and tea. And Grohe / American Standard sanitary ware. Round the corner is a Thai restaurant with aircon and all-you-can-eat for B$5. Enjoy the little things in life, including curling up with Sunday newspapers on a Monday. Nightstop: Hotel Sentosa

Contrarian approach

Day 6: Tue 23 Mar, Kuala Belait to BSB, 138 km. I'm off at 8am after an extra serving of toast. I know I'm going to get toasted by the sun on the narrow, high-traffic roads. I take the side roads to oil town Seria. There's a procession of traffic as people head to work but they don't speed through the residential area.

After three hours in the saddle with only photo breaks, I stop. Because I miss a turn. Where's the sign that points to Tutong? When this town disappears from the milestones I'm in trouble. I back track on the grass verge against the flow of traffic - and there's the town. I lunch at a chicken rice restaurant. There's no sign of the proprietor but lunch is chopped and served by the waitress. Unlike past expeditions where I sit out the noonday sun, I top up my gut and head for the road. What's the rush, I don't know. I'm on holiday. I also don't know why there's a missing sign at the junction I'd passed, because further on there's a huge sign. I stick to the Muara-Tutong Highway, with truck-wide shoulder and two lanes heading my way. Who would've thought it's safer on this major road than little Jalan Tutong. Nightstop: Le Gallery Suites Hotel

Bonus ride
Day 7: Wed 24 Mar, BSB, 52 km.

I usually don’t cycle on the last day of a trip. Today I do, because my flight is at 6 pm and I’d arranged (after asking another hotel staff) for extended, late checkout. At 3 pm instead of 1. I sprint as fast as I can in the rush hour, which is worse than it sounds since this is a country of less than 400,000 people. Each household has an average of, if I recall correctly, three cars. When there’s no personal income tax, and education and health are free, there’s more disposable income. I ride to the playground of the super rich: Jerudong Polo Club and then Empire Hotel & Country Club. The latter cost USD1.1b (as a comparison, Petronas Towers cost USD1.9b). Then, I go where fun is free by the sea: Pantai Jerudong and Pantai Tungku.

I'm back in ample time to pack at leisure and make final repairs to my experienced cardboard bike box which I bought in Thailand, veteran of Cambodia, Timor Leste and now Borneo. My bicycle, when not ridden, is as ungainly as a turtle out of water, ungainly and slow. When ridden, my bike slices through the air, swift as a bird, agile as a fish, savouring the freedom of wide open spaces.

Back from Borneo

The score:
0 scratches on me, no bloodshed but bike seems to have been gouged by baggage gorrilas :o
0.5 dog chase; I met a few mutts one of which made a half-hearted attempt to chase me. I didn't hear it but I heard the owner shout and when I looked back the mutt was in mid-flight and grounded itself as if the owner yanked an invisible leash
1 close call between road works and a truck
2 tyres unpunctured
3 hotels / guest house
4 to 5 meals a day
6 hundred km cycled
7 days of cycling

Details to follow :)