10 April 2010
Most
people would find it insane to get up early on saturday morning for a 100 km
bike ride for coffee and breakfast, more so when it is raining. But here I
was.. getting ready for a casual ride with Mohan to Frasier Hill for nasi
lemak with sunny side egg. I received a sms from Mohan at 615am that it was
raining in Subang Jaya. Part of me wanted to head back to the warm bed to
continue my well-deserved weekend sleep. Then again, it was hard to
resist the urge to thumb the starter button and ride away. As I was
expecting rain (though it was not raining at my place and the sky was still
dark to spot rain clouds), I decided to try out my still new touring jacket.
I yet to road-test out jacket in the wet. I hit rain barely riding
10km out of my house ..
The road to Frasier Hill is pretty much like Deal's Gap in North Carolina. I yet to count the number of curves and bends from Kuala Kubu Baru to the foot hill of Frasier Hill. All I can say it is plenty enough. For those wishing for more, they could continue the ride to Bentong. The rain was not exactly heavy but the road was pretty wet. We had to look out for wet and slippery leaves on the road. One good thing about riding on the stretch compared to Deal's Gap, the road is mostly deserted on any day. Best of all .. no traffic cops on look out .
Mohan and I were riding pretty much cautiously. He got a business trip on Sunday and as such he could not afford silly thing to ruin his trip. It's always better safe than sorry especially the road was not offering any proper grip to allow us to open up the throttles.
Frasier
Hill, like other hill resorts townships, was not as cool as before. My
bike's temperature gauge gave 24 C on a rainy Saturday morning. Years ago,
the typical morning temperature would be around 20-22 C . However, the air
was refreshing. The earlier rain probably help charged the air with negative
ions making us feeling invigorated and refreshed. According to research,
negative ions in the air increase flow of oxygen to the brain, resulting in
higher alertness, decreased drowsiness and increase mental energy. And
yes, the freshly brewed coffee helped too. Incidentally, the simple nasi
lamak with fried egg was superb. I simply could not have enough of the
sambal.
We
rode down at 1035am before the gate to the one-way road closed at 1040am. It
has been a practice since the colonial days that the narrow slip road to the hill
opens up for traffic in either direction on alternate hours. Anyway, I could
not understand why the other newer road constructed at millions of tax
payers money has yet to re-open after a land-slip. It is fast becoming a
white elephant for public works department aka JKR who designed and
built the other link to Frasier Hill.
Thankfully,
the rain stopped and the road was dry enough for brisk riding. Feeling
re-charged with all the goodness of Frasier Hill's negative ions and Pak's
excellent coffee, we charged back to the city via Ulu Yam and Kuala Kubu
Baru with full vigour .. and twisting the throttle was seriously fun. To
hear Mohan's bike singing through the new Akropovic pipe was total
mechanical music. Glad I
chosen to get up from my cosy bed to brave the rain.
