Pedalphilic: Telemung Ride Report 26/27 May 2012

Ride Report for Telemung Self Supported Ride and Camp.

Seems the ride and camp was so wonderful and yet no feedback from any of the so called happy campers. Yellow Manta failed to submit his version. Which must explain why he was persistently coughing in front of me on last Sunday's Kiara ride. Ok. Brownie points earned for his relentless coughing. Report still not received as of today.
Farmer Danny also failed to send in any nuts to publish. This fella chose the Selective Amnesia route. No sms or emails from him for the entire week. He better be hiding in some cave up north if he decides to hide from me. Note to Self- Next time i see him, i will remember to bring my Zippo and spin it slowly in front of him. I can also be relentless...
The lengths these clowns would go to just to avoid me asking them for a report. This is actually reason enough to make into a story also i tell you. Hmmm... 101 reasons received from failure to contribute ride report. Idea!
Anyhoo, Dot the Starving Poddle sent in a report. Phew.... Albeit late by 8 days. Still a report to digest and laugh over. Beggars cant quite be chooser now can we?

Official Ride and Camp for Telemung 26th and 27th MAY 2012.

Group Photo at the beginning of the ride

Here you go :)

Aisayman, of all the things and the bikers in the trail, why do you have to go kiss the tree??!! There goes no riding for more than one month, bruise on the face, upper body and lower body and hairline crack on the ribs means go try something else other than riding, maybe gentle exercise like yoga to stretch the muscles, meditation to calm the mind from thinking too much of bicycles and rides and power dance to get those leg muscles working and ready for more rides post recovery. Not allowed to laugh too hard and cough too hard just so the ribs don't get tickled. There goes Cameron ride as well, simply not allowed to crouch over and lean forward on the bike. Not to mention the music and tender loving care from my sifu.

No idea who these are..

We were talking about Ride and Camp even before the Cameron ride, planning might have started since last year, and the subject resurfaced on weekend rides, deciding if we were revisiting the Liang, Dua or Telemung. Somehow when campsites become popular, they are marked for development. One after another scenic places are being cleared. Finally 26 & 27 May is set for RnC of the year, plan was to either camp at the horseshoe site, or the island in Telemung, I even took leave on the Monday.

So how was the trail condition, ride distance is not too long about 13-14km only but there were lots of uphill climbing and certain steep sections thrown in to add to the excitement. OK, since only one night two days, bring only flysheet and ground sheet should be enough right?

Rare photo of a WALKING Dot

We went through the checklist of things to bring, not to bring, nice to have list and nice-to-have-only-if-you-are-super-strong-rider list. We need portable water filter to filter water for cooking, so that we don't have to carry gallons of water into the trail. Need to find a buddy to share the load and make sure your buddy is strong enough to carry most of the heavy duty stuff like camping

stove, camping gas, ground sheet etc.

My checklist included flysheet, tent and light weight foam mat to be tied to the seat post mount rack at the back with bungee cords.
In my backpack there were, tent pegs, mess tin and plastic cup, disposable raincoat, torchlight/headlight/candles, slippers, change of clothes, sarung for changing or as blanket, small towel, rafia string has multi usage to tie flysheet to tent or can be used to dry clothes, garbage bags for dirty laundry or garbage, basic toiletries e.g. toothbrush/toothpaste, soap or sample packs of shampoo, basic first aid kit,multi tool/ Swiss knife, utensils e.g. fork/spoon or chopstick,usual cycling gears and tools. Finished packing on Tuesday itself, my fully loaded backpack alone weighed 8kg. Thanks to Yong for his seat post mount rack carrier.

Up and away..

Simon volunteered to get permission to park at the oil palm collecting yard. We ended up camping at the highest campsite, above horseshoe. Foong and friend, Lee helped with support vehicle, set up communal tent and provided shelter, food and drinks. Our Singaporean neighbours brought the 8-man tent. Huge tent and heavy too on their heavy bikes and they were using 180mm forks!

We struggled on the uphills, took us about 3-4 hours to reach the campsite at the top.

Base camp.

   Riding uphill was the real torture, more often than not we were pushing uphill than staying on the saddle due to the heavy load on the back and carrier, often not possible to ride certain steep sections of the trail. Now I realised how difficult the riding can be when loaded with a backpack that weighs 8kg and more.

   Best experience was sleeping in the tent at night. It was surprisingly cosy and comfortable with Danny's inflatable mat and double layered with Simon's foam mat. Mandi in the cold mineral water was super fun although we were anticipating waterfall, so no wearing goggles and diving for us.

Half naked old neanderthals

   Coming down took us only one hour, didn't dare to go fast as logging trucks were coming in and out of that area.Singaporean  neighbours took only half an hour and complained not enough downhill.

   Having said all that, Telemong RnC was a good first experience for me, I survived the ride, camping was fantastic, the preparation was the highlight of the whole thing. Sad thing is much damage done to a large portion of the trail already in such a short period of time. Have to go for more RnC lah since invested in so many equipment already must use lah.

-Report courtesy of Dot the Rabid Poodle