Took a week off from riding. Being offered to do Kiara the following week puts a smile on your face. With the current weather, it makes you wonder how Kiara will react to riders. Rain and muddy trails in Kiara is a wonderful recipe for spitting riders out. Mishaps and bruised ego aplenty whenever it rains in Kiara. I could barely wait. The legs have been twitching since Tuesday.
Come Sunday morning. 0800 hours as agreed. The old goats started showing up in front of KSH. Saw Alberto and Jesse sitting down having their morning coffee while Judy was put in charge of watching over the bikes. They managed to find a cool spot for Judy to sit and keep an eye their bikes while the boys get on with their male bonding and carbo loading session.
Looked inside the mamak and saw Kompressor having his round of coffee with the Singaporean. So decided to join in and hopefully bum them for a glass of free coffee. Chit chat . Yaa daa yaa daa yaa daa....
And we suffered our first casualty of the day. All this before we even set foot on the trail. The Singaporean had to go. Seems his delicate stomach were not able to cope with the mamak's salty finger kneading his roti. Ran off to the toilet before we could make him pay for breakfast. Well.... better here than him running off into the bush somewhere in Kiara I thought. Not fair to the hikers having to watch a primate with lycra squatting by a tree. So we waited for the Singaporean to return from his visit to the loo and made sure he paid for breakfast.
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| May's view before "The Office". |
Drama concluded and wiped, off we went to pick up two more lazy riders at the car park. Alberto took Judy up the tarmac for a leisurely ride. Her reward for watching over the bike of course.
Collected the pair of love birds at the car park and off we went up towards the first section of the day. "The Office". Queue to walk up the first rocky bits before we arrived at the entrance to "The Office". Like obedient lemmings we rode into the trail in a single file. Little slip here and there. It was wet, moist and nice overall. No complaints. Could see the sunlight sneaking in between the trees. Caught a few stares from a family of monkeys. Dews still shimmering on the leaves. Cool sweet air filling the lungs. The occasional accidental fart from the old goats riding ahead. Acceptable collateral damage i convince myself. Shrugs...I'll live. It's ok.
Then the peace was shattered by a woman's piercing scream.
Right at the end of "The Office". Just before the exit. Where the resident boulder has been and will remain. Everything stood still. Looked back and saw the Yellow Manta turning green. Now that's weird. Saw him waving to someone at the bottom of the cliff on the left. Ok. That's interesting. Ran back as fast as i could, hoping to join in the waving party.Waving is a fun activity if performed in a group.
Looked down and saw May sitting beside a tree with her helmet off. That's a strange spot to choose for a break i thought. Then again. Women. You will never know what they are thinking of. Being a much wiser person now, i chose to just continue waving alongside the Manta and kept my mouth shut.
Choi! came up from the climb. Saw the Ibis which was leaning against the boulder. Eyes wide open like a deer caught in headlights. Looked down and saw May waving back at the Yellow Manta. Confusion lingered for a split second. Saw and was convinced the Ibis was not scratched from leaning against the rock. Choi! decided then and there that he needed to speak to May about why she shouldn't be leaning the Ibis against a large rock. Carbon bike against rock. Huge No No.
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| May's view at the end of "The Office". |
So off we went up "Lungbuster" towards "Magic Carpet".
From "Magic Carpet" it was a quick spin up towards "Magic Circle" before we connected into "2K". Mostly silent and quiet during this bit. Not much was heard between the riders at this point. No bantering or name calling for almost 10 minutes. Can't quite blame the silence really. Watching a carbon bike being thrown against a rock like a rag doll must have traumatized a few of the riders. Heart wrenching i believe.
And so we emerged at the Cross Junction to do the ritual apple break and bike ogling session. Caught Alberto and Judy at the hut having a chat with Nat. Somehow managed to convince Nat to join us for a blast down towards "Mission". And off we went towards "Mission".
Emerged from "Mission" to find Alberto and Judy sitting at the road shoulder waiting for us. Another chit chat session before it was decided we will attempt "Lower Short" and hopefully connect into "Snakes and Ladders". Off we went.
"Lower Short" done within minutes. Nat was grinning and out of the blue, said good bye at this point. She decided it was probably nicer to spend Sunday noon with her nice smelling lady friends over coffee than to be surrounded by smelly old men. Reluctantly we waved her on. Kompressor burped again.
Received a short message from Choi! on Whatsapp. He and May have decided to head off early. Poor fella must still be in pain. Oh well, such is the strong emotional bond between a man and his Ibis. I hope he feels better today. It's not nice being caught in such painful situation. Having to choose between saving the bike or getting it scratched is not an easy choice.
"Snakes and Ladders" here we come. Single file we rode towards the wooden bridge. All chatty and breezy. The trail is in surprisingly good condition. All clean and moist. More monkeys were seen scattering along the trail as we came along. This is really nice i thought. Having good company and wonderful trail condition. Bliss...
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| CH's view before "Snakes and Ladders" |
The silence was broken by a muffled scream from a man.
Turned around and saw the Yellow Manta waving again. This fella really enjoys waving eh? Who is he waving at this time?
CH waved back from the bottom of the bridge. He wanted a better view of how the bridge actually looks like from beneath it seems. We were lost for words. What can you say?
" I was right behind him. I saw everything. CH saw the Unbelievable ride up the climb and thought. Aaaah...Peanuts. I can do this. So CH took the same line and cranked as hard as his stubby legs could. Alas, the stubby legs and bike failed him. He dropped to the left in exhaustion and made a 270 degrees flip. All this was executed while remaining clipped in. Amazing
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| What CH was really trying to look at... |
Plenty of head shaking and more farts heard. Waited for the Yellow Manta to collect back his heart from his stomach. CH continued grinning. Singaporean clenched his butt tighter. Jesse was still trying to figure out why we stopped so long. No one bothered to explain to Jesse. Jesse started waving... Ride on.
So it was at this juncture, the decision was made. Let's not do any more waving. This is getting to be a wee bit stale. Let's head towards "Twin Peaks". There is no way in hell anyone will be able to execute any sorts of cliff diving there.
Lessons learnt from This ride.
1- Do not ride in front of Yellow Manta. Riders in front of him falls off cliffs like suicidal lemmings.
2- Avoid riding behind the Singaporean. He needs to take a dump every hour.
3- Let's pool money for a GoPro. The Yellow Manta will make us plenty of cliff diving videos to watch.
4- Kompressor burps a lot.
5- Choi! really loves his bike.
6- Yellow Manta has a loose heart. It drops every so frequently. Help keep an eye out for it.
7- It's a lot of fun watching riders climb back up a 20 foot cliff. It really is....
8- Watching an old Accountant trying to climb up a cliff is even more fun. You can clearly see all the bald spot on his head. "Like"
Unbelievable'
Note:-
The coming week will be an exciting one. The goats will be grazing across the sea in MIRI. The weekend will be spend visiting Tycoon Arther's mansion and Headhunter Dot's village.
20 bucks says someone will forget to bring his front wheel....
