TurboSnail recce at Batu Kawan Pt 2

By Turbo Snail.

This is the second part of the recce we did on Batu Kawan new trail.

We decided to continue our unfinished business with Batu Kawan today again. I SMS-ed Fatt a day before to find out if he were still game for the recce ride in Batu Kawan on X'mas day.  We talked about it last ride.  Fatt wasn't able to commit that time due to the uncertain temper of his long hair. Being the latest victim of this marriage thinggy, I fully understood his situation!

I received  his SMS this afternoon while I was still struggling with the pounding head (an after effect after the X'mas party a night before!). So he managed to talk his way out to spend some time with his beloved Giant!  And this is the plan, we would climb up to the Celcom tower, take a short breather, descend to the foothill using back hill trail and check out the new trail.  I ws late for 10 minutes when I met Fatt at 1540hours. Fatt decided to climb first.  I would follow later after I have my Diamondback fixed up.

It took me even longer this time to reach the tower, 23 minutes. I was in no hurry mood and there was plenty of time for us to recce the trail. After my three minute breather, we continued our recce by attacking the back hill trail.  The trail had shrunk to a single track. In some places, we even couldn't find the evidence that there a trail before!  Luckily we were familiar with this part of the jungle so it wasn't difficult to find our way.

As we went further in,  we were more convinced that there had not been any human visitors to this trail for the past few months.  Also, we encountered more spiders along the way.  I thought the ones that we saw last Sunday were big.  But this was really a giant!  Man, more than six inches from legs to legs!  And the cobweb that weave across the trail was so huge that it could wrap me and Fatt together!  Fatt decided to turn back after we encounter the second giant spider that weave its cobweb across the trail.  Of course I agreed to his suggestion since the sign showed that there would be more along the way down.  We started to talk about the thousand year old female spider that turned into human form from the Chinese myth, "The Journey To The West".  One thing that really puzzled us was how the hell did the author knew that only female spiders weave cobweb and dominant in the spider community???  The sole responsibility of the male spiders is to screw the female spider, pregnant her and be eaten by the female spider after he deposits his sperm into her.  Weird animal!   As we continued talked about the spider and later argued about which type of condom provided the best result (we both agreed the "bulu" type one provides the best sound effect from the fairer sex!), we finally got out of the back hill track and descended to the foothill.

As I mentioned in my last email, the new trail is just next to the trail end of the existing trail.  So, the rides would have the choice to bypass the Celcom Tower climb and go direct to the trailhead of this newly open double track. This is a very undulating track with a lot of steep by short climbs.  We found ourselves cranking most of time at granny gear. Even at descending we also did not dare to switch to higher gear as the ascend would start abruptly right after the end of the descent.  Both Fatt and I felt like riding on Taman Negara logging track.  But when I think about it later, it would be closer to Muda ride Derek, Kar Hong, Su Aun and I did before. This is not the trail for beginner because once you start, you have to finish it.  Turning back half way is not an advisable option since the trail is very undulating.

We finished this section in half an hour time.  But believe me, we both felt we had traveled more than that!

Conclusion: Vipers' best kept secret.  This is a perfect one hour ride loop (if you do the back hill track of the Batu Kawan hill) for intermediate level riders.  More advance riders might find it too short.  But definitely it is not the trail for beginners.

If any of you want to do it as one of the weekend rides, my suggestion is to extend the ride to make it a three hour XC ride.  You can start from Juru firetrack.  The extra 10km or so firetrack ride will be able to warm you up before the climb.  Or else, I don't think it will be an idea weekend MTB outing.

Second option:  Make it an evening ride and enjoy seafood afterwards.  There are three seafood restaurant before the foothill.  I recommend Batu Kawan seafood restaurant since it serves the best stone crabs among the three.

Alan aka Turbo Snail