Updated: 5 Jan 2005 by Yiling
Dunno who was the crazy one who suggested it first. Cycle to Sedili again?!?!?! Somebody?s legs must had been itching very badly huh.
Sedili?s tough. I have loads of respect for the Slopes of Sedili. The first time I did it, I had cycled from morning till night taking more than 12 hours. I remembered resting my numbed legs @ a petrol station on an upslope, exhausted, and reaching Sedili only at 930pm, my back almost broken. The second time, I still only managed to reach it after 930pm. And after the cycling trips, I couldn?t walk properly much less run, for 1 whole week and was totally reliant on deep heat throughout to ease those maimed leg muscles.
Here?s how the Slopes of Sedili looked like
More Slopes!
The total cycling distance was about 200km, to be covered in 2 days. The terrain?s terribly inconsistent: utterly flat for a long stretch then full of steep slopes after that, the types that prescribe leg cramps. I thought there would be few takers. Who knew? More than 20 people signed. Tsk tsk - Mm chai si!
The cycling gang!
Now, such a big group was cause for worry. It?s so easy to screw up the logistics and itinerary. You worry whether the time would be stretched till the group ended up cycling at night in the dark (dangerous!). The bigger the group, the greater the stretch. Or whether there would be accidents (the possibility increases with every additional person ? I?m still working on the numerical probability) and if there would be casualties (people who peng sang before reaching the destination) cause it would be very tough to hail a taxi on the road (and god knows where the nearest hospital was).
As organizer, the objective was always to get everyone to the destination in good time (no lost sheep), in good shape (including bicycle), on a reasonable budget (cheap) and in good spirits. Yet, despite this being the 50th cycling trip I must had helped organized, there were numerous slip-ups and ?what-should-not-have-beens?. See, there were so many things I had forgotten to take into consideration.
Lesson 1: Communication, communication, communication
Admittedly, I?m a terribly poor communicator (never highlight the key issues). My instructions were rather vague if any (dunch bring too many things ? what?s ?too many??), I?m too impatient and I hate repeating myself. That?s why I can?t be a teacher. I?d start beating up my students. I shouldn?t even be the organizer, period.
What should participants bring? I left it to very much to their own discretion (except the key items such as spare tubes, passport). Who should/should not go? How many vacancies did I have? What was the distance like? What was the terrain like? The only thing I was clear about was this: look for your own bicycle. You could beg/borrow/steal etc. But then I also din specify what kind of bicycle would be suitable.
Checking one of their key items.
Lesson 2: Complacence
Because many of them had cycled to Sedili before, I though there was no need to reinforce on them the physical demands of the trip. But people forgot. And I forgot to remind them about many other things. I din think it was necessary to arrange for any land support. Expectedly, quite a few peng sang along the way ?
Lesson 3: Training is essential
How to cycle 200km suddenly in 2 days? When the most seasoned cyclist amongst the group last touched a bicycle 3-4 months ago? We only managed to squeeze in 1 cycling session just the Sunday before the trip. But the mileage (a measly 70km) covered wasn?t sufficient to oil those rusty legs. Either I underestimated the terrain or overestimated those legs.
Lesson 4: Always plan for contingencies
Erm well, I never did have any contingency plans for any of my trips. Cause a) I hate using my brain, b) I am an ultra-optimist & c) my participants were usually very strong. Got buy insurance or not? No? But got provide first-aid. Really, I should be boycotted and banned from organizing more trips.
Okie. But still there are some foil-plan stuff that no fool-proof planning can avert. And here?s the list.
a. Accidents (Definition: Externally inflicted injuries or damages to cyclists or bicycles)
Such as when a cyclist fell, or crashed into another etc and some skin is amalgamated to the road. Accidents happened quite readily when the group was big, got very distracted or liked to fool around while cycling. Thankfully, there were no accidents on this trip, at least none that I was aware of.
b. Casualties (Definition: Ailments that arise internally in the subject)
Say, cramps in the legs, gastric, fever etc etc. Like when Carie suddenly had dizzy spells and broke out in cold sweat after clearing the first slope at the Sebana Cove resort and had to rest for half an hour before she could continue on. Luckily she?s got 4 (or was it 5?) trusty bodyguards escorting her all the way till the group met again. And a glass of heavily guarded ice milo to revive her spirits at the drink stop.
c. Punctured Tubes (note: these are the inner ?tyres? not the thick rubbery casing)
An occasion all cyclists must always be prepared for. That?s why every cyclist should carry at least 1 spare tube. Especially when cycling in ulu kampongs where there were no petrol stations, no bicycle shops for the next 20-30km. Tools, pumps were essential too (cause fresh tubes which remained flat would be of no help)
Remember to bring your spare tube
And your pump.
In fact, within the first half hour of cycling on Day 1, Omar?s back tube fizzled out. Then, immediately after lunch, his front tube fizzled out too. 10km or so after that, Kokwee cycled onto some glass shards and punctured his front tube (as well as tyre). Together, these punctures stretched our trip time pretty much, especially the last one. So much so we could take a long long break on one of the slopes, savouring fresh sweet watermelon (the fruit) bought for us by Watermelon (the man aka See Kway) and his support group (Keow, her 2 kids, maid and See Kway?s friend).
d. Weather
This is a major variable on any trip and has been known to make a lot of difference to the pace and enjoyment. And there are many variations. Here?s 3 main ones.
i) Scorching Heat
Not the worst but be sure we?re bound to get it on at least one of the days. And there were precious few shades along the way. Scorching heat dehydrates and impedes performance. It?d make cyclists crave for lots of fluid to quench that burning thirst. So there would be lots of drink stops. If the heat gets very bad, and the road long and boring, they might even hallucinate: hey, isn?t that a sugarcane stop? Sugarcane stop right in the middle of a deserted field? I dunch think so mate.
Drink Stop 1
Drink Stop 2
Drink Stop 3
We were blessed with benign weather on Day 1 so the slopes felt quite bearable. But on day 2, question marks were all hovering above everyone?s head. Why did the slopes feel so tough, much more than yesterday? Why did we seem more tired? Except the front pack cyclists who zipped off like they had wings attached (Engtat, Pohsoon, Kai), putting at least 1-2km between us. George?s pack of Hershey kisses were depleted to naught in no time. (Aha. Forgot to ask people to bring e-rations!)
E-ration!!
ii) Heavy Storm
A little rain is good because there would be less friction on the road, the weather would be cooling and one could actually move quite fast. But woa, not a thunderstorm. You risk getting struck by lightning, deafened by thunder and blinded by the torrents. And then there?s the floods.
So it was quite unfortunate that before we could even start the trip, we were struck with a raging thunderstorm at dawn. I pushed the meeting time back by 1 hour. Thankfully the rain had abated into a drizzle by then else would have to cancel trip.
iii) Killer Headwind
Imagine an invisible wall which you kept trying to bang into and push back. That?s how strong that killer headwind had been. I?ve never encountered such a ferocious one in this part of M?sia.
It was Day 2 and we had cleared all the slopes already and were looking forward to a more relaxed pace. We were heading towards Sungei Ringgit (the town) via the main road when it hit us head-on (wide open space, no blockage that?s how). Imagine your speed being slowed down from 20km/hour to 9km/hour?!?!? After an interminable 4km, we finally veered left into the coastal route. At least there were more things to distract us (and the wind) such as coconut trees, sand, sea, huts, fallen leaves etc.
Sea View
Grassland View
But because our pace got slowed down considerably and we had a ferry to catch, I requested the group to give up the ice-kacang they had been looking forward to. Because the ice-kacang Ah Bang would take eons to prepare 16 ice-kacangs and I couldn?t afford the delay.
e. Late comers
What do I do with them? Nag them? Chide them? Punish them? Leave them? Ignore them? Nothing seemed to have worked and sometimes I had to resort to meeting much earlier to make allowances for people turning up late. Which ain?t fair to those who were punctual or early. Changi?s not exactly central and 7am?s rather an early meeting time (I?ve gotta start cycling about 615am and I live in the east, dunch ask me what time those westerners need to get going).
For this trip, 1 whole group was late. I thought I could get bread for them so that they could eat breakfast on the go. But when I got back, they had already ordered breakfast and we had to wait another 20 mins for all of them to wolf down their orders, go to toilet etc before we could take off. I was so worried we would be so delayed we had to cycle until nightfall. Of course, they felt my wrath ?.
Breakfast on the move is the correct thing to do!
Breakfast on the move: Kok wee feeding Mark.
Got to think of a better deterrence. Perhaps next time I should just stipulate the departure time instead and leave on the dot. Like what the airlines do: Pls check in 2 hours before departure (!).
f. The food makers
These guys in the villages were usually not accustomed to handling big orders of 10 pax and above let alone for 16 so they would get overwhelmed and take a long time to cook. That?s how we waited 1 hours for our lunch to get done.
Also, they might not always open shop that early. Luckily for us, we went to check out the breakfast place at Sedili on Day 1 night after dinner and requested the Ah Bang to get breakfast ready for us by 7am. And he did. So we jostled for the fresh cupcakes, tasty beehoon goring, nasi lemak, beehoon soup etc etc which were served in buckets and basins. There weren?t enough plates to go around; we either shared plates or ate straight from the containers (hygiene be darned). It was all so chaotic and Ah Bang found it so difficult to tally the damage that he charged us RM2.50 per head for the food and countless drinks. We managed to start cycling by 8am.
Big Breakfast!
In an ideal situation, all meals should be pre-ordered. But then, it was never a sure thing where we would have our meals ? at least not on my trips.
The rest of the story
Always, before a cycling trip, there would be much scrambling to borrow bikes, organize the transport to pick up the bikes from the owners and sending the bikes to Changi. This typically needed 1 week of coordination. This time, we had Kokwee and Kai to thank. And they must be the earliest ones to wake up on that day cause they had to make the rounds.
Day 1, we really only started cycling at about 1030am and reached Bayan Sentosa (not banyan sentosa!) resort at 530pm. At Bayan, we had good Chinese-style dinner (includes fish, seafood, etc) which was reasonably priced. It was a rather long dinner (7pm ? 10pm) and we were tirelessly accompanied by an ensemble of hundreds of mosquitoes which we kept trying to dissipate with smoke. Most (the cyclists, not the mosquitoes) went to sleep early.
Day 2, we woke up by 6am and headed for breakfast before 7am and started cycling at 8am. It was hot! Hot! Hot! Everyone asked why? were the slopes so tough ah? Only the front-packers made it seemed so easy. We rested after clearing all the Slopes of Sedili. But the flat portion wasn?t that much easier either.
The slopes after the flat portion (the Slopes-in-between-Sedili-and-Desaru) were worse than all the ones preceding them or the ones that came after them. They were so siong we took a long break thereafter. Then we cleared the Slopes of Desaru at 1 go and reached the bus-stop outside Batu Layar at about 1130am, all very bushed.
Taking a break.
After battling the headwind, we reached lunch station by 1pm. Lunch was great as usual (Jade Garden) but everyone seemed too tired or too full with drinks to eat much (too much coconut water and lime juice). George was so tired he fell asleep and had to be shaken up to eat and even then, he ate very little.
We left at 230pm, cycling in 1 single file together, all the way to the jetty. That was quite good. No rush and the drafting helped us fend off the heat and wind and all reached jetty together. We made the jetty by 320pm and left by 345pm. It was one of our earliest departures! Couldn?t believe it was still so bright when we got to Changi and when we eventually got home.
Yes, at the jetty!!
According to Kok Thye?s speedometer, we had cycled 86km on Day 1, and 93km on Day 2. Altogether, the 16 of us spent S$16 each on the bum boat rides, and RM75 per pax for lodging and food for the trip. And I could breathe easier after that. At least no mishaps!