4am and raring to go
Most people will agree that getting up at 3:20 to start a bike ride is seriously insane but my early rise seemed relatively normal compared to some of the people I was meeting at 4am last Saturday morning for the latest adventure of the Audax Randonneurs Singapore – a 300km/400km Brevet.
We set off, 12-strong at 4:30 from the Longhouse, a hawker centre that also acts as one of local cycling community’s meeting points. Eight of the group had already covered some 90km! The journey up to Woodlands and the Malaysian border was uneventful, no doubt because we were all used to riding those roads in the predawn hours. What was different was that arriving at the immigration checkpoint so early meant there were no queues and the process was seamless on both sides of the border.
Night riding
We regrouped at a petrol station in the city of Johore Baru (JB) just over the border where we all got our first stamps of the day; not the postage type but the all-important rubber-and-ink merchant chopes that prove we’ve all covered the designated route. I can’t think of any reason why anybody setting out on a 300km+ ride would even consider cheating but you never know, so we get the stamps.
As it was 5:45am when we pulled off onto the motorway heading north for the town of Kluang, it was still dark. Having done this same ride almost a year earlier but a bit later in the day, I can tell you that’s it probably better to do it the predawn hours as there’s nothing to see but a big dirty city and there’s less traffic. Sure, it was harder to make out the numerous potholes – especially on the frequent sections where the street lights were out – but there are so many on this stretch that you end up accepting that it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Al G in da house
The next checkpoint was another Petronas station around 75km into the ride and a murky sort of daylight had dawned as we pulled in. The dark skies threatened rain but in reality it was still so early that it was more a case of low-lying clouds escaping from the hills with daybreak.
Kluang and “lunch” lay some 50km ahead. As we had left Singapore so early it was always going to be more of a brunch and JF Torrelle, the esteemed founder and leader of the Singapore Randonneurs, had promised us a new spot where we could eat our fill from a choice of Indian, Malay or various Chinese culinary delights.
There’s no requirement on staying together for the whole 300km and so we soon drifted into two groups with the idea of meeting back up in Kluang. The front group contained two Americans (David Kolpack and Eric Pesik), two Frenchmen (Richard Thevonon and Gilles Dumaus), A Canadian (Jeff Paine), an Aussie (Matt Finch) and a Scot (yours truly). We were setting quite a pace on the rolling terrain and before long there was no sign of the second group. The idea is not to go too fast early on, no matter how good you’re feeling as there’s no worse feeling than bonking far away from home. It happened to me last year on a ride into another part of Malaysia and I ended up with no choice but to sit behind my solo riding partner for 100km, struggling the whole time to even maintain 30kph.
A few cautionary voices were raised at this point regarding the pace but onwards we went. This section of the ride is much more pleasant on the eye as the route is surrounded by lush green forests as far as the horizon. Only they’re not forests but palm oil plantations. Sure, these trees are still sucking in carbon dioxide and feeding oxygen to the atmosphere but the damage done to the natural flora and fauna over the past few decades is nothing short of catastrophic. Still, it was rural and pretty and the sun still hadn’t come out from behind the clouds. The roads here are in pretty good knick too and the drivers seem much more accepting of cyclists than back in Singapore.
Palm plantations provide a pretty backdrop
We reached Kluang in no time and our average showed 31.3 kph. In my message to the Anza Cycling forum I had advertised it as 28-30 so we were going a little faster than that. It’s funny when you set out on long rides like this, normally having ridden 140km would be a good day’s work and you’d be glad to get home. But we weren’t even half way and I wasn’t tired at all, either physically or mentally.
Having completed this ride many times, Jeff was our Kluang guide and he didn’t know where the new food joint was so he presented us a choice of an Indian vegetarian place or McDonalds. The Frenchies, Eric and myself opted for the former and the fare was cheap and delicious. We ordered various types of bread that came with usual chutneys and curry sauce, and the hot, sweet, milky tea and coffee washed the delights down perfectly.
The idea now had been to regroup with the following five but just as we were about to go look for them after our leisurely meal, Gareth Cooper rolled in to announce that they’d taken a “new” route to Kluang and had just arrived. Faced with a wait of at least half an hour the seven of us decided to press on.
The ugly side of the plantations
Jeff warned that the next 90km or so to the town of Kota Tinggi was basically a straight country road south through the plantations and as the sun was now up the stretch had the potential to be brutal if we didn’t play our cards right. The road was marked with clearly defined kilometre markers, so the plan was to ride in a disciplined paceline with each of us roiling off and to the back at each blue and grey “gravestone”. And you know what, it worked perfectly. We kept the speed steady and only once or twice during the first 45km to the next checkpoint did we temporarily lose someone off the back. And the markers acted as a perfect reminder to drink; I took a long slug at the end of each of my pulls. I felt great and was really enjoying the ride. Not everyone was feeling so good and during our refueling stop at the next checkpoint Eric decided to wait for the group behind as he reckoned that extra half hour or so would give him time to cool off and recover properly.
We reluctantly rolled off without Eric but he had made a wise decision as each man knows his own limits. The six of us slotted back into our rhythm and for me at least the time and distance to Kota Tinggi seemed to fly by. I was looking forward to this next stop as it promised another meal and then we’d be into the famous hills of Kulai. Richard, Gilles, Matt and I plonked ourselves down at a big roadside restaurant serving a mixture of Indian and Malay food. I wolfed down a huge plate of curried chicken, veggies and rice and partook in my fifth Coke of the day (ok, one was a Pepsi). There’s an old endurance coaching adage that says once you have one Coke you have to keep downing them at regular intervals. I have no problem with that as a cold can of that dark elixir really is the perfect cycling refreshment.
Bunch of posers
We went to pick up David and Jeff outside the air-conditioned supermarket that they had chosen as their refueling point. Immediately it was obvious that David wasn’t ready to go. It’s worth noting that along with Jeff and Richard, he had already ridden some 320km to our my paltry 230km so there was no shame in wanting to rest a little longer. We were reluctant to leave Jeff and David as my single ride a year earlier was the only experience of the route among us but in the end we decided to go for it as we all felt good and we had a map and directions. How hard could it be?
So now there were four. Our average for the ride had fallen to 30.7kph so we had sensibly slowed the pace a little. The sky darkened a bit again and the clouds around us rumbled ominously but someone we avoided the worst of the weather and the sun was mercilessly hidden, offering some respite from the heat. I think the hottest temperature Richard recorded for the ride was “only” 38 degrees Celsius so it could have been worse.
The Kulai hills were some 18km ahead but we had some doubts that we had missed the cut off. We stopped two or three times to consult the directions and very nearly turned back once or twice but luckily we kept going and soon we came to the Good Year Arch across the road that signaled we were about to enter the big rollers, a stretch of about 11km. A fair few Singapore cyclists come up to “do a Kulai” each weekend but they take a more direct route than the trip we’d chosen today.
The long-distance rider’s “passport”
I still felt super strong as did Richard and Gilles. But Matt was beginning to feel it a bit. It’s worth noting here that Matt had just arrived in Singapore three weeks earlier. He’d responded to my email to the Anza membership about the ride and was eager to come along but had some reservations as to whether or not he’d be able to make the distance.
“How long was your last recent long ride?” I’d asked him.
“Oh, I’ve just got back on the bike after living in Delhi for nine months,” he’d replied. “But I’ve got good base fitness, so I should be right.”
He’d already been dropped on the last few little rollers so it was decided that he’d do the hills at his own pace and that we’d wait for him at the end of the section. My and my two French pals took to the task with relish and we raced up and down each incline. I’d say that Gilles and I shared the King of the Mountains prize as who ever was behind going into each hill invariably got to the top first. Richard with that extra 90km in his legs wisely took his foot of the pedal but he wasn’t far behind.
We had another “lost” moment as we reached a T-junction which I was vaguely remembered from the year before. I thought we should turn right here but Gilles seemed to recall the directions saying the next turn was a left. Hum and hawing and a reexamination found that right was right and so Richard and Gilles went to a nearby coconut stall while I waited for Matt. Eventually, worried, I turned back to look for him but within a minute he came into sight. What a trooper.
Matt flying...
... and lying
The “Kulai” was now over but the terrain was still rolling until the next scheduled checkpoint some 9km ahead. A couple of clicks short of this promise of cold drinks and ice cream we had our first and only mechanical of the ride as Matt got a puncture. For the previous 200km or so we had been surrounded by greenery but he’d chosen a particularly ugly little spot to flat. But that layby outside a factory was picturesque compared to the little village ahead where we did stop to get our cards stamped. Malaysia may be fairly well developed but this little settlement was a reminder that it still has a long way to go. Still, a little shop had the all-important cold Coke, chocolate milk and water.
Matt, though, was in a spot of bother. He had goosebumps on his arms and legs and his heart rate was at 135 just leaning on his bike – sure signs of dehydration/overheating. He just wanted to lie down. Eventually Jeff and David rolled in, with the latter still looking like he was surviving rather than enjoying the experience. As such they were in no hurry to get going so Matt immediately found the only bit of grass, a tiny sliver right by the now quite busy road, and threw himself and his bike down for a nap. He would go on with our North American buddies.
Lost but loving it
So we were down to three and we were in the home stretch. Jeff told us to go about another 10km straight then to take a left turn, which would take us to JB and signposts for Singapura. Of course it wasn’t as simple as that and we didn’t find the “correct” road, a stretch of highway that hugs the coast and which leads directly to the immigration checkpoint. Rather, we followed the first sign that said Johore Baru and in the end, despite a few more “lost” moments we came across signs for Woodlands and we got to the checkpoint safely and it was still daylight. Indeed, the road we took might well have been more direct than the traditional route and certainly wasn’t as busy with traffic. I recalled from the previous year that the final stretch to immigration had been quite frightening.
There were no queues to speak of at either the Malaysian or Singaporean counters and so we were back home with maybe another 20km or so to get back to the Longhouse. As we rode back down the familiar roads we were witness to surely one of the biggest traffic tailbacks Woodlands had had ever seen. We found out subsequently that the Malaysian authorities has that day decided to implement a new finger-printing system and this had caused chaos. Media reports the next day said that some people waited seven hours to get through. Funnily enough, we weren’t finger-printed in either direction.
Download GPX file
 |
High-resolution pictures |
| Follow Alan |
