Jamboree 2003

By Yap Chi Wei,
Participant No. 110, SACA, Singapore

110. That was my number for the KOTRT MTB Jamboree 2003. It was also a chance at winning a yellow Santa Cruz Superlight frame in the lucky draw, or a hamper of Indocafe. But I get ahead of myself.

Going there
Everyone turned up on time at Golden Mile Complex on Friday night and we loaded the bus to the amazement of several spectators who were wondering how we were going to get all 17 bikes squared away. With teamwork and creative packing, we finished loading our bikes, barang barang, and ourselves onto the super VIP fridge (bus) that was to take us up to Penang. 
This moving refrigerator had only two air conditioning settings - ON or OFF. When it was on, it was freezing, and it was on nearly all the time. I swear that Eskimos must feel warmer than we did huddled under our thinly and seldom laundered blankets.

Clearing through Malaysian customs was a breeze after we contributed some 40 ringgit to their kopi fund. It sure beat dragging down everything for a customs examination.

During the early part of the ride towards Penang, we were treated to some choice Indian music which only got turned off after we told the driver that we wanted to sleep.

The journey up was uneventful, with everyone frozen in their seats in some sort of hibernation state. Rebecca was the only one not able to catch the required 40 winks of beauty sleep. A couple of pee breaks later, we crossed the Penang bridge at around 7am on a wet Saturday morning.

Arrival in Penang
Arrival at the Waterfall Hotel where we unloaded everything in the drizzle. Checking in went pretty smoothly for Alan and I, and we were soon settled in room 340. We decided to extend our room for another night so as not to have to pack everything in the early morning and shift into a family room. Besides, we did not want to subject the kind folks in the other rooms to my rather off-key bathroom crooning. We decided to head for breakfast at nearby hawker stalls but that didn't work out because it had begun to rain quite heavily. So we settled on eating at a small little shophouse serving thosai and noodles. With our hunger appeased, it was back to the hotel for bike assembly. 

Bike assembly
Upon unpacking my bike, and after putting it together with some help from Roland, I found the front shifter unable to shift. With Lynten's and Roland's help, we found that the indicator had broken and some internal mechanism had been damaged during the packing. Some masking tape and a little front derailleur tuning later, the front gears were shifting again, albeit without the indicator. Thanks to Lynten and Roland. Alan's bike did not need much assembly as he had transported it in the cargo bay almost fully assembled minus the front wheel. With our bikes ready, a few of us decided to head to the local bike shop run by Gary Yap. I tagged along just to perve at the bikes like a kid in a candy store.Rina, Roland and Olaf decided to head out for a ride in the rain. Crazy buggers.

Bike shop
By Max's dead reckoning, we found the bike shop off a street near Komtar. It was well equipped and sold a wide range of gear from run of the mill bikes to some really chi chi stuff like Specialized S-Works and Santa Cruz. Gary was (is) a really nice guy and helped Ling with her new brake pads and rubbers (the rolling kind as opposed to the rolled up kind). He also got her some parts to fix her headset. A medium sized, anodized black, Specialized S-Works brain bike with full XTR and SID carbon fork was stickered at RM9300. We wondered if one of us would succumb and buy that bike. But alas, it was not to be.And the rain kept falling...

Lunch
Gary ferried some of us in his pickup, with Giddyap in his Clio trailing behind, towards a "die die must try" nasi lemak place near Gurney Drive. It turned out to be closed, much to Gary's chagrin. We asked him to drop us back at the hotel instead, as it was getting near the time when we had to register our names at Youth Park.Since it was still pouring, a bunch of us headed for the in house grill to partake in some steak and lamb. Certainly not "die die must try," but filling nonetheless.

Wet wet wet
After lunch, it was still wetter than shark's back under 60 feet of water. Rina, Olaf, and Roland had returned from their ride somewhat wet and hypothermic. We got on our bikes and headed in the downpour for Youth Park to register. Poor Ling washed out on a concrete upslope because her brand new Swamp Thing tires had not been worn in yet. Washing out was probably less painful than the alcohol swabs that I gave her later to clean her wound. Heh heh!I registered as rider 110 and got a goody bag filled with a snazzy t-shirt, two isotonic drinks, a Powerbar, and a lucky draw coupon. There may have been other things in there but I forget.Wouter and several others decided to join the ride that afternoon even the rain never let up. We found out later that it turned out to be quite a nice ride.Alan and I followed some of the SACA folk to do some more eating and shopping in Gurney Plaza. A few from this group ended up playing in the amusement arcade for an hour or so just to while away the time, while the rest went shopping. Rebecca ended up with the most goods. I think there must have been some make-up in there somewhere.A quick raid of the local Cold Storage and nearby bakery, and we had what we needed for Sunday's breakfast. We had dinner at the Plaza before heading back to the hotel and over to Youth Park for a mandatory briefing. Their CIO told us that there had been landslides due to the rain and that the route had been changed several times. Another recce team would proceed to check the downhill section early on Sunday morning before the start of the ride.I, and the others, really appreciated the trouble that the organisers had to go through in order to make our ride as safe and enjoyable as possible. Kudos to them.After the briefing, we left for the hotel and got some early shuteye.

Pre-ride
At the holding point, the organisers made available to us boxes of bananas. I took the opportunity to eat three bananas and put two more into my jersey pockets. I figured that I would be fuelled up enough for maybe half the ride. A final briefing was given before we all mounted our trusty steeds and headed for the start line. We were told that there were checkpoints where we had to collect stickers so as to prevent someone from taking a short cut and cheating. There were a total of 4 stickers to collect without which you would be denied a participation medal. The rain had mysteriously stopped just before the start. Must have been the garlic and chilli mixture sprinkled over the race route. Or maybe not.

Kayuh Lasak
Or solid pedalling (or so I've been told). The ride began after the obligatory VIP pictures of sponsors looking slightly unsteady on a few donated bicycles. With that over, the blast of an air horn signalled the start of the ride. A convoy of nicely painted Beetles led us toward the botanic gardens. There, we turned up a road that would eventually take us to the top of Pain-ing Hill.I tried to keep near the front, cycling next to Lynten (on his singlespeed) and wondering if Alan had gone on ahead. He later turned up on my tail. I decided to pedal a little harder and made my way to the front of the pack as I knew that any landslide that we had to cross would turn into a choke point, otherwise known as a clusterf**k. I spun my way past Rebecca and Ling on the start of the ascent. I figured that they would later overtake me when I ran out of steam.Before long, we encountered the first obstacle which was a landslide that covered the track. Carrying my Blur over the mud mountain and a fallen tree and getting all out of breath in the process, I looked ahead in dismay. As far as I could see, the track only went one way - UP.Coming from a sized A cup Singapore, the climb was a brutal double E. As Alan and I slowly spun our way up, we saw Andrew on his nice looking Retrotec bike and Yu Seung taking a short break at a switchback.It was 5km to the top and although there were some parts that were a little flatter, these were few and far between. I saw a guy (CK Ooi) on a DH spec Santa Cruz Bullit pushing his way up the hill. He later blitzed the descent and came in 9th.Whenever I ran out of steam, I zig-zagged to reduce the gradient of the climb. Even then, I could not ride up some of the steeper slopes as my legs were full of lactic acid. Alan was shouting encouragement to me all the way up. But the last thing I wanted to do was to talk to him while I was trying to get my BPM below 180. We rested by getting off our bikes and pushing them. I found that pushing the bike only on one side made my back hurt in one place. Therefore I had to change sides every time I got off to push. This made my back hurt all over!We passed several other riders and were in turn passed by others. I swear that some of the slopes must have been close to 50 deg to the horizontal. We saw several riders wash out on the metal gratings that covered the drains spanning the track. Near the top, the fastest riders were already heading back down; some skidding their rear tires in an attempt to slow themselves down.Cameras stationed at some points caught expressions of dejection and effort. I sincerely hope that the audio didn't pick up my swearing. No matter how tough the hill climb was, whenever cyclists passed each other, there were always kind words of encouragement.

Home sweet home
We checked out, loaded the bus in the rain, and headed down the NS highway toward Singapore. 9 hours later, we were on home ground with the mud and rain, only a memory away.

Jointly Organized By :-