West Malaysia loop ride

I had trouble sleeping last night. I remember desperately trying to finish packing for the trip…and when I finished packing, grabbed a quick bite and then tried very hard to get enough rest as the ride today was a long one. However, I tossed and turned in bed for an hour before, thankfully, falling asleep.

I woke up with a start this morning at 4:30am. I don’t know why but I just did. It is a little irritating that my body refuses to let me rest when I wanted so much to do so. I suppose the excitement of going on the ride was impossible to ignore. I took my time to get ready…made coffee…and then took an impossibly long time to get into my gear (remember the new boots??). I eventually left at 5:50am to meet up with the rest of the gang.

I have read many ride reports in the past on the forums and always wondered what was the big deal about riders giving other riders a “send off” for their rides. Well, Chris was there today to send us off…and you know what…it was REALLY NICE to have him there! Hahaha!!! Chris rode with us all the way to the Shell station at Johor Bahru. He also took several photographs of us…hahaha! I was pleasantly surprised when I checked my Facebook during breakfast to see that I was tagged! Thanks Chris!

We left Johor Bahru at 7:30am and headed north on route 3. This road will lead us all the way to Kuala Terengganu. I wanted to start early so that we can arrive before it got dark. We started off with a good pace, riding along around 75-80kph. It wasn’t long before we got to our first stop…BREAKFAST! We went to this Bak Kut Teh store in the middle of nowhere (Kiang Kee Bak Kut Teh) and it was superb! You will have to wait till I get back to Singapore to see pictures since I have no facility to edit my photographs here. I will also post GPS coordinates when I get back. I gotta say the food was FANTASTIC! I know, some people say that food always tastes good when you are hungry…but trust me when I say this…I know my Bak Kut Teh and this one was really good! It could be the closest good one from Singapore! Hahaha! Since we wanted to be alert for the ride, we decided to moderate our consumption of food until we got to our first stop. So we only had some ribs, trotters, tau pok (tofu) and salted greens…all this with a fantastic pot of tea…HEAVEN!

Edit: photographs are ready!

We headed off soon after and proceeded towards Mersing which was another 88km away. Since my bike had the shortest range (75 miles and I hit reserve), I was a little worried if I could make it all the way. Sure enough, I had to switch on my reserve just 20km away from Mersing. We got there eventually though and I had a chance to fill up my tank. Good thing too that I filled up my external “backup” tank back in Johor Bahru! The ride up to this point was fantastic: winding roads, rolling hills and plantations with the sun back-lighting the slight haze to give a dreamy texture, and cool weather…it was fantastic!

We oiled our chains at Mersing and headed off towards Pekan. The weather was warming up now and the haze has lifted quite a bit and I felt a little more comfortable with my fully loaded bike. My iPod was running with my favourite groovy tunes…but all of a sudden…my earphones became silent! Sigh, so no music for this leg…and no radio communication either. The good news was that I needed to make an intermediate fuel stop since Pekan was just a little out of my range. So we stopped at Rompin after an 80km ride and filled up. I found out then that I had inadvertently dislodged the plug of my cables…thank goodness it was just a simple mistake on my part!

I don’t want to bore you with details on our fuel stops but just so you know, I had to stop in quite a number of places so I could get the range that I needed for my small tank. Here are all my fuel stops:

• Johor Bahru
• Mersing (80 miles or 129km)
• Rompin (39 miles or 63km)
• Pekan (54 miles or 87km)
• Kuantan (31 miles or 50km)
• Paka (65 miles or 105km)
• I haven’t filled up yet at Kuala Terengganu…so wait for this last one!

Not bad for a 500km ride, huh?

A few notable incidents happened today during the ride. Since we were traveling on route 3, there were the usual collection of traffic. Cars, bikes, trucks, buses, dogs, monkeys and cows! Roadkill is also to be expected on such a long ride…nothing unusual, no? Hahaha!

OK…what WAS notable was the fact that somewhere in the hot afternoon, I heard a loud sound…it sounded like metal falling onto the road from my bike. I decided it was a good idea to stop and figure out what exactly happened. Good thing too! What happened was that my tool tube cover worked itself loose during the ride and one of the tire irons fell out! Just as I came to a stop, my spare light bulbs fell out as well. Dan traced our steps with me all the way back a good 200m just so I could recover the tire iron. I sure am glad I did because that tire iron was a loaner from Ah Chun. Hahaha! Too bad I could not find my spare spark plug which also fell out. Oh well…it was time for a MacGyver moment and Tony provided a wire wrap to help wedge the cover tight. So…on with the ride!

Sometime later, I was a little shocked when a bike came out of nowhere and overtook me. It turned out to be an RC8! How cool was that!!! What was interesting was that soon after, another bike zoomed past…followed by another…and another…and…you get the picture! We eventually caught up with this bunch of crazy, fast superbikers from KL at the next fuel stop. No, we didn’t chat as we needed to rush off…but it was great to see all their bikes! They were rather interested in our motley crew as well…hahaha! Who says you need big bikes to tour?

My favourite moment of the day turned out to be an ad hoc stop that I made when I spotted the South China Sea on my right. I chanced upon an access road that Alex’s Steed could get on and decided to make a stop there. We had a great time chilling out. Nothing like a beautiful and natural spot to relief the stiff muscles from long rides…of course…the ice cold water from Tony was also welcome relief!

We did eventually get to Kuala Terengganu…too bad it took us so much time to get here and the sun had already set! Still, we managed to find ourselves a nice little hotel (Mingstar) to rest for the night. Yeah, it looked a little cheesy but the rooms were clean, neat and pleasant. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that the rooms actually looked close to the ones on the website!

Dinner was a simple affair as we were too tired to venture far. I had some Maggi Goreng and Teh Ice for dinner…followed by a super delicious Ramly Daging Special burger! Hahaha! I simply love this burger that can only be found in Malaysia…I just cannot resist it! I did spot an item that I never noticed before…Burger Arnab…no prizes for guessing what that is! Again…pictures will come later!

Well, it was a good riding day. It is time now to kick back and get some rest before starting again tomorrow morning. I better get to bed as breakfast is at 6:30am!

Good night folks!