Man Against the Clouds: Chinese New Year Ride

When Malaysians were busy heading back to their hometown during the festive break, I, panglima and few new friends planned a day ride to Fraser's Hill on Saturday 24th January 2012. Its been a while not doing a climbing trip to Fraser's Hill which was done during my first introduction to road bike riding. This time five of us planned to hit the hill from Bentong..we gathered at Shell, Greenwood and used old road to Bentong since the highway was reported having a massive traffic congestion due to a broken down lorry near the Genting Sempah tunnel..morning ride to Bentong using the old road was awesome and had very few cars passed by..we reached Bentong around 8.30am and parked the cars in front of legendary Kow Po ice cream shop and prepared for the ride..i was introduced to Doc Azim and King whom i met for the first time and Doc Taufik - have been training with him before..

We started the trip and headed to Tranum (30km from Bentong) before start the climb..the ride was quite fast since we reached Tranum in an hour which was 30mins earlier than i expected..from Tranum, there is another 30km to be climbed to reach the clock tower..the weather was great and i could not maintain the pace to follow Doc Azim who leading the peloton..everybody was taking their own time to reached the 'Gap'..it was tougher than my last ride because the intensity and pace set by Doc Azim were beyond my capability..we arrived at the Gap an hour later from Tranum checkpoint..it was too fast!!we stopped by the stall and had a sip of hot drinks before proceeded to the last 8km climb..along the way to the clock tower, i could not push myself anymore coz had no more energy (out of gas)....i needed to stop twice before continued the push..4km to go, the rain started to pour down heavily..after struggling with the body and ascending road, i reached the clock tower almost 15mins later than Doc Azim..Damn, it was a very hard climb and felt my body degraded and going to collapse..We took a few pictures the tower and met few cyclists that successfully reached the summit..

With an empty stomach, we searched for the best restaurant and had our lunch in big amount to replace the energy lost..after refueling the energy, we did not waste time at the top and began descending..this was not a best part because we need to be carefully and aware of potholes..any misjudge can lead to crash or puncture..downhill ride was superb and we reached Tranum around 4 o'clock..here was raining some more at last 5km, and we reached Kow Po at 5.15pm..total mileage - almost 120km..

Most rewarding moment, we had ice cream special at Kow Po and headed back to KL..its a pleasure for me to ride and meet new friends during this Fraser's Hill trip..very strong team and its was good for me to improve my riding skills and pace..i did enjoy the long trip and hope can do it again..