Bentong-ites

Hearing the word Bentong and Genting Sempah would drive the chill down my spine. Always is and I had to have deep thoughts before committing to any of it. The endless bike swerving is so freaking scary.

But, there was no exception when most of the buddies decided to ride it last Sunday. I toss and turned nights prior to the ride, juggling what strategy do I have? I thought of riding the mountain bike, but it will just exhaust me to death (tried it before and regretted). My only hope to survive the climb is with a road bike, but I need to be strong on the descends.

I don't recall our last ride to Bentong but it has been awhile. In fact Genting Sempah flocked with cyclists from many kinds. The foldies, the mountain bikers. Yet to find tandems though. And I was most surprised to witness runners! They scale the 16 km climb and ran back down completing the whole 32 km. That is horrific...for me at least.

As more 'tourist cyclist' riding up to Genting Sempah, some minor social ethics began to crop up. They tend to stop at odd places to rest and posing for photos or selfies. My concern is their respect for other users when they started blocking the road ignoring passing cyclists while they chat or take a breather or worse, clowning around with buddies. It may not a big issue since the average climbing pace is rather slow, but what if things goes out of hand and these buggers started blocking the opposite side of the road, where cyclists descend at higher speed? We have already too many cyclists killed by motorists. It can sickening to hear cyclists killed by another ignorance cyclist.

At the peak of Genting Sempah things are becoming like morning market. Super cool guys in spandex had to blend in with these ultra cool noobs. And these ultra cool noobs became so cool and they thought they own the road, ignoring not just cyclists, but other vehicles. It was eye soaring with these act of stupidity.

We didn't wait long for the unnecessary camaraderie. The descend down to Bentong was perfect with everyone latched on to the group with perfect pace rotation.

The challenge is the way back up, fighting against the gravity. The 30 km climb, slithering like a very long snake as the gravity starts to pull little by little until the legs can't stand the soreness. It was never a happy story when riding to Bentong, but we kept coming back for the itchy butt invitation.

As the gradient grows, the legs start square pedalling and that's not a good sign of strength in progress. Due to our routine change from ride-and-meal to less-and-short-stop-ride, we managed to spend ride time effectively and finish it early.

After all the curses and inner peace turn outer peace conquest, we concluded the climb and that opened up the final challenge for me to descend back down to Gombak. The fear still linger inside me especially approaching those tight curves. I had to catch up with the rest at other less 'dangerous' curves with hard pedalling. That was one huge time-trial descending effort for me and it was a huge relief reaching back the low land. Phew!

Cahaya SPK - A Solitary Cyclist

When I came back from the tour, there was a small window to train for the next century ride. I know that I didn’t gather any fitness advantage from the tour considering the easy pace and ‘threshold’ eating habit.

As a backup, I signed up for the Shah Alam Endurance Ride, about two weeks after my tour. I have one weekend prior to the event to test out the route and my bike and my stamina. Hence, this event should be my gauge stick to the bigger Kuantan Century Ride on 1^st June.

As I jotted down millions of time before, the route on this part of Selangor was never easy. I guess the climate played the most factor. Hence, it is an ideal place for us cyclist that wish to torture oneself to the heat, terrain and boredom.

The climax of this route is the Cahaya SPK climb. Cyclists frequent here find it spine chilling like we used to listen to legend folklores about haunted road or something like that. The place would simply give you the ‘stars and chill’.

The loops can be altered to suit ones level of stamina. However, opting to finish with the Cahaya SPK climb is the best alternative.

The week after my tour, we did the small loop, excluding Kuala Selangor flat and straight death road. Still, the Cahaya SPK was in the menu. And I misread the pace from the earlier Jalan Puncak Alam. My last ride here was a few years back and it didn’t quite safely kept in my good memories bank.

A total of five magical climbs and the slightest miscalculation of energy regulated means doom.

My training ride that particular weekend taught me that attacking the first two climbs after 80 km in your legs is not smart. I paid the toll, witnessing the front riders fade away into the afternoon glare. The churning of the crank was heavy as I dragged the bike and myself to the top.

During the Shah Alam Endurance Ride, we had 120 km already in our legs after making a huge loop from Batang Berjuntai to Kuala Selangor and back via Asam Jawa. Both are straight as an arrow road and flat as a pancake. There’s not a chance of coasting on flat route like this. Gauging your cadence and heart rate is the smartest way to survive the rest of the ride.

Come Cahaya SPK, most of us were scattered along the Jalan Batu Arang 16 km stretch. We were blessed with good weather that afternoon, right exactly at the climb itself. It drizzled with cool breeze against our half-awake legs and fatigue bodies. We were solitary riders by then. We completed the 149 km challenge. Alhamdulillah.

A week before Kuantan Century Ride, it was taper week. Now these legs are itchy twitchy to get it spinning after the good outcome of Shah Alam Endurance Ride. And the spirit is also itchy to have Cahaya SPK in the menu again. And this time, though we made a smaller loop, we managed to churn our way up together finishing with huge grins on our faces as we scattered on the floor of Bukit Jelutong 7-Eleven.