West Malaysia loop ride

Day six. The last day of a WMLR is always a little more relaxing. Maybe it's because the gang has gone through so much more after five long days of riding. Or maybe because everyone is simply getting more comfortable with their bikes in the twisties. Whatever it is, the last day of a long ride is always a good one in my book.

We woke up early as usual and met up at 8am in front of the hotel. Everyone was packing tbikes stuff onto their bikes, making some final checks along the way. The atmosphere was light and casual with a lot of jokes going around. Everyone was relaxed. The sky looked bright and cheery. It would be a good riding day.

Teng will not lee joining us today as he needed to meet his parents in KL…so there will be just five of us heading back to Singapore. This makes for an easier ride too with fewer riders to worry about so all is good. Since I was ready early today, I had some time to get a picture taken with Anker…quite rare huh?

Now take a look at this picture and see if you can figure out what exactly was happening.

What is Teng doing out on his balcony and why is Alex walking in the bushes? I won't give too much away here except to say that Alex does not have great aim and that Teng is not a great catcher…hahaha!

Breakfast was noodles at the coffee shop nearby. We all had noodles. Everyone ordered the large plate for some reason. Me? I prefer standard sized one so I could also have some toast with butter and kaya! Yummy!

We headed off soon after breakfast, riding off in a casual pace. Chris' tire held up well but still needs a little of a top up. The rest of us needed a petrol top up as well. So after a brief stop at the friendly Petronas station, we headed down south towards Bera. We came to the turnoff for route C8 soon enough and happily turned in and headed in the direction of Pekan.

The route today is a simple one. Here is an overview.

I am a big fan of small kampung (village) roads. Even more so if it follows the meanderings of a river. This road fulfills both conditions and more…it has loads of bends, it is devoid of traffic and it is generally shady! What more can one ask for? As we all know, every positive is balanced out with a negative…most of the time anyway. In this regard, I did not think the negatives were all that negative. In essence, this road was narrow (which translates to fun for me), not very well maintained and has some strange camber angles. You see, roads usually slants in towards the inside of a bend while some stretches of this road slants towards the outside of a bend, making it a little more work and care to negotiate a corner.

We rode along happily in a nice brisk pace. I was enjoying every straight, every corner and every curve. It was heaven! The section that required most care to negotiate was shaped in an “S” and draped on a slope. First the left turn at the top of a run up the hill, then it slopes down rather dramatically to the following right turn at the bottom near the river bank. To top if off, the camber was off. I enjoyed this tremendously but one of the gang had a tough time negotiating it and skidded into the barrier, wedging the front axle of his bike between the ground and the bottom of the barrier. Yikes!

We all stopped immediate to check on him. It is never fun to skid and crash and all I wanted to know was if he was alright. Thankfully, he was unhurt. The bike…well…let's just say that it will need a little work to make it look shiny and cool again. It took us almost an hour to free the bike from under the barrier. Good thing a few locals came along to help us out. It took a lot of tugging, digging and prying to free it…but we eventually did. The bike started up fine…and after a thorough inspection of the damage, was deemed road worthy.mso we continued on.

The road eventually straightened out and scenery was FANTASTIC! River on the left…mountains on the right, then a lake…a bridge…snaking roads down and up the mountains. Simply stunning! We Stopped at bridge to take in the beauty and to rest. Too bad it was sunny with very little shade!

This place was seriously serene…but it was way too hot to stick around given that it was midday. So off we went towards the town of Pekan where we had a local Malay lunch at a stall beside the sea. Yes…Pekan is right at the coast! I had chicken rice in Malay style and it was delicious! We headed down south towards Mersing after lunch.

This stretch of route 3 is right by the coast. The road is wide and well maintained. This made for an easy ride which suited us fine, especially since we have one, make that two, less than mechanically perfect bikes at the moment. We eventually made it to Mersing and decided to stop for some much needed refreshments.

And since it happened to be the birthday of one of the gang (Chris), we had cakes to celebrate! We now have one birthday on the first day of the ride, and one birthday on the last day. How cool is that!

It was time to push on for the final leg of the ride. We pushed off after filling up the thirsty bikes. It started raining again at this time and it was also starting to get darker. Our pace slowed down somewhat because of the lowered visibility and slippery roads. I needed to stretch Anker's legs a little so I went on ahead at a faster pace and stopped at the side of the road to wait for the others to catch up. Chris was acting as my wingman and would radio ahead when he sees the rest catching up. I would then head out again. This pattern repeated itself a few times and it worked really well. I even had time to grab a picture of Anker!

We made it to route 92 just as the sky started to slip into darkness. So we pushed on south until we turned off onto the E22 towards the west. It was dark by the time we crossed the big bridge crossing Sungai Johor (Johor River). That was a real shame as it was a magnificent bridge and would have been quite a sight in the light. Oh well…another time I guess.

We eventually made it to our destination: the petrol station along E22.

We decided to split up at this point as some were heading back via the Woodlands Checkpoint while others were heading back via the Tuas Checkpoint. After a round of goodbyes, we set off and headed home.

The WMLR2012 of more than 2600km is now complete, and man, it was one hell of a memorable ride. I can't wait till the next one!