PCC Ride - Batu Arang

I joined PCC yesterday morning for another very enjoyable Sunday morning ride. I counted 28 riders leaving Centrepoint Bandar Utama at 7.30am. We covered 87km in 3hours and 18mins at an average of not far under 27km/h. If I remember rightly that's the longest ride I've done since 1998 or '99 when I was in Singapore. Soon I'll have to do a full 100k!

As I seem to have left my track pump in Ipoh or Lumut, I borrowed Ron's pump (with guage) and filled my tires up to 120 psi. This would give me some extra speed i thought! After 20km we were joined by what seemed like a rather small group of Bike Pro riders, and our pace increased. I enjoyed cruising along at 30-40km/h but didn't do any work at the front!

After a while the Bike Pro group went off the front. Before Batu Arang, Ron, myself and a few others regrouped and I set the pace from there almost all the way to Batu Arang, along nice undulating roads through Palm Oil plantations.

We stopped in the town for some 'makan', drinks and a rest. I ate some fried rice and mee-hoon noodles.

On the return leg it took my legs a good 30minutes to get warmed up again. By that time the lead group of 5 or 6 were about 1km ahead. Myself and 3 or 4 others, including Rahim, caught up another 3 or so riders (Harun, Arif and Wendy) at about the 60km mark. I took a break for a while by riding behind Harun, at which point the group broke up and some went their separate ways. 'Twas getting mighty hot out there at this time (about 11am).

I caught Azwar at 65km and stopped for a drink at the next petrol station, where I had spotted Ron and Benny. Noticing that time was running out (I had to get home and out again for the Kids Hash) we quickly got going again. At the Sugai Buloh junction Benny was strongest up the hill, never to be seen again. I noticed my rear wheel was badly buckled (possible snapped spoke - explaining the loud cracking noise I had heard earlier).

Ron and I almost caught Benny, but he caught the green light at Tropicana and we lost him again, although we picked up a guy (sorry. no name) with a nice-looking Token bike with carbon everything and ZIPP 404 wheels. Even his seat was carbon with no padding, on which he said he'd ridden 160km comfortably!

More, including route profile, to follow........