www.motobiking.com Gua Musang-Cameron Highland Weekend Ride
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10 Aug 2008
Over the weekend the Weather God granted us with the flawless possible weather for motobiking. The warm but overcast sky was just perfect to put on the suit and hit the road. We thought it would be a good idea to try to pound on some mileage on the bikes before the trip to Thailand, and what a tune-up weekend ride it turned out to be!
For the first time, Anne tagged along as pillion. I wasn’t sure how her bums would protest against my Zed’s tiny and thinly padded seat. As we don’t have any rider-pillion intercoms, I gave her instructions on how to give hand signals so she could cue me to stop for a break.
We planned to assemble at the BhP Station along Karak Highway. There were already some 30 bikes parked neatly beside the station at 640am. The other group were heading east to Cherating. We were waiting silly for Mohan when he suddenly emerged from the cafe. Apparently he was having tea in the cafe thinking we have yet to arrive.
We took the sweeping backroads of Karak - Bentong -
Raub to Gua Musang instead of the usual boring North-South expressway. As we
rode along, the choice of picking the longer route became very obvious.. The
road was absolutely delightful to ride on. Saved for some traffic in the
towns we passed through, we all had a roll twisting the throttle sweeping the
curves.
We had breakfast at the famous Ratha Curry House in Raub. As we have a long day ahead of us, most of us opted for light breakfast to maintain alertness. The main dish is of course the curry fish head which we did not have the chance to sample. The restaurant's walls are adorned with pictures of the Sultan of Pahang and VIPs enjoying the signature dish. Dining next to the ‘Sultan’ was an experience as we take comfort of eating at the same place the Sultan enjoyed his meal.
We continued on to Kuala Lipis. As we headed out of town, we naturally broke into 2 and a 1/2 ride groups. Ivan, Mohan and Azmil was stepping up the pace and surging away while Phang kept Ivan-Mohan (IM) company in the middle pack. I was last in the group slowly trotting along as Anne has yet to learn to lean with me/bike. In the curves on the old Kuala Lipis-Gua Musang, I was riding very slowly to get Anne to rhythm with me and gel with the bike.
When
we arrived at Gua Musang, the first group headed by Ivan was no where in
sight. A few calls traced Ivan back in Kuala Lipis. He had to limp his
ailing bike to the small sleepy town to look for a bike workshop capable of
fixing a big bike. Meanwhile, IM
complained that his bike’s rear suspension was a little spongy which traced to a broken rear absorber. The absorber’s rod had apparently
punched through the main absorber’s unit effectively doing no damping at all
to the bike’s rear spring. As IM rode away to search for repair shop to fix
the problem, we settled down at a road side stall for drinks. We figured out
we won’t be heading anywhere soon. Ivan was still at Kuala Lipis some 90 odd
km away and he wasn’t too confident he could find a decent mechanic to
diagnose his bike's problem.
