PCC Ride - Genting Sempah to Bentong & Back

Had another good ride with PCC this morning. There were about 12 of us to start with. Those that I can remember are James, Ivan, Annie, William, Dennis, Ronald, BK, Me and 4 others whose names I don't know. The day got off to a good start when Dennis showed me how to strap my fi'zi:k saddle bag to my saddle properly - thanks Dennis! As a reward here's a picture of his nice Wilier Triestina bike...


Here's some of the gang getting ready at Genting Sempah R&R stop car-park...


As you can see from this profile, courtesy of my wonderful Polar HRM, it was downhill all the way to Bentong, apart from a little blip at the end of the 35km outbound ride.

'Twas a chilly start to the day, but warmed as we descended. There was very little traffic (good) but the road surface was a bit dodgy in places, so it was a leisurely descent. I only made it above 45kmh once.

Once we got to the valley floor at about 17km I cruised along nicely behind 2 guys in front. Eventually they let me take over so I time-trialled a bit for a while until I'd had enough. Then I was joined by AD and Ronald. We stopped at the petrol station at 33km to regroup, at which point I got my camera out again...

From L to R - William, Ivan, Annie, James, BK, Me!, ?, ? (sorry guys), AD.

Another couple of km brought us to the famous Kedai Kopi Kow Po, for Ice Kacang, although I had Cendol. After 10 mins or so we were joined by the Bike Pro riders, some L2A riders including famous Malaysian triathlete and generally very fit girl - Kimberley Yap. I also bumped into Tony from Leighton's (big Aussie construction firm who I might want to employ me in the future!!).

Here's the famous shop, with lots of bikes outside...

On the return journey it was one big bunch of about 26 riders, led by the Bike Pro gang with Ronald and I clinging on at the back.

We got sucked along at 30-35kph for about 17km until the gradient increased a little bit, at which point you can see my HR go up, and then down as I cracked and slowed down.

It was only a matter of seconds before a few other also fell off the back of the group and before I knew it I was back in a bunch of 7 PCC riders - me + Annie, James, Ivan, William, BK, Ronald.

As I messed about taking photos whilst cycling with no hands, the other 6 pulled away from me. After a while I caught and passed Ivan and could see BK and Ronald but the other 3 had gone off the front. I passed William as he waited to sweep up Ivan at the bottom of the climb, and slowly but surely caught Ronald and then BK.

Here's the gang...

The climb was quite shallow apart from a couple of short slightly steeper inclines. I was quite comfortable in 1st gear all the way up. Was pleased to note from my alititude reading that the seemingly flat bits were actually slightly uphill - thus explaining my slow speed.

On this profile, red line is my HR, blue is speed and solid red is the terrain. The climb was about 400m (1200'). Note how speed drops dramatically after HR peaks at about km 18 - that's when I'd had enough of the Bike Pro pace!