Saturday 26 May 2018

Test Ride No.1 Bringing Bluey Back Home

Somewhere along the way I started calling my bike Bluey … whenever someone comment about how beautiful the bike is, Bluey become a ‘her’ but when the comment is about its practicality, the cheap price, the great old classic style where one can self-maintain the bike … bluey becomes a ‘him’, guess the non-gender like name of Bluey fits in a way 

My Bike Bluey - Demak D7
Its been 4 months now since I bought Bluey back in Dec 2017 and this was to be the first long journey I would take in a mini self-experiment before the long-term trip. The plan was simple … ride back home to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore via the old kampung road. Total distance about 355km via old road. 

I started the journey early in the morning of 530am from Tune Hotel Danga Bay Johore Bahru with the morning chill and the absence of heavy traffic. All was well till I started reaching the Senai-Kulai-Simpang Renggam old road. Old road is still good road in Malaysia, just mainly used for the neighboring towns commute and not really for the long haul. Only problem, there was minimal street lights … so almost impossible to speed up. 

Sunrise - Time to pick up the pace 
By sunrise it was time to up the speed and cruising at 70 to 80 km/hr, it was a lovely ride all the way to Ayer Hitam. It was maybe 1/5 of the journey completed, and I already started to feel body ache all over with fatigue in places I had no idea existed. Maybe I was hungry I thought to myself … no breakfast and lack of cigarettes might be the cause … 
Ayer Hitam Pit Stop for Breakfast 

Roti Kosong & Teh Tarik for Breakfast

Parit Sulong Pit Stop for 2nd Breakfast - I Pit stop many times really .... 
Nothing much along the ride home, plenty of stops every 20 minutes, smokes, drinks, eat, rest …. Going by old road from Ayer Hitam-Yong Peng-Muar-Malacca-Alor Gajah-Senawang then I hit the Lekas Highway all the way back home.

Total time was 11 hours … for 355km … immediately I got comments on my FB & IG …

--> Why you riding at 30km/hr??

I was exhausted! Simply not accustomed to Riding a bike for such long hours and distance. Still I was proud of Bluey … never disappointed me once. 

Bluey back home ... 
The ride home was a solo test ride and the plan was to join up with Bijan & Kim to ride to Taiping the next day. Kim called me that night for something came up with Bijan and our trip to Taiping had to be postpone by one day … while they felt guilty of the last minute changes, in my mind I was glad … coz I could not fathom how I would be able to ride to Taiping the next day with the amount of butt ache and exhaustion I was feeling…

Immediately after confirming the postponement of the trip I send a whatsapp message to my boss …. I need another two days leave I told him …

(One day postpone and I request for two more days of leave extension haha …. Coz I know I would need another butt
break once I get back from Taiping)

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