On that fateful Saturday in KL, we rose bright (actually not too bright as some were grouchy from lack of sleep) & early at 6:45am!!! for our morning ride at Bukit Subang. Like Ling commented, it’s supposed to be a holiday & why were we getting up earlier than when we have to go to work??? Understand NOT!!!! However, after a hearty breakfast with Thomas, Sany & Azmi, we were all set to meet the rest of the riders at Bukit Subang. There were a total of 18 of us that day, which was a pretty good turn-out. It was meant to be a real simple ride, which suits most of us fine, especially for those who would be racing the next day and for those who had not biked for quite some time.

The first round was simple enough, a long steady but gradual ride up the hill. Yes, it was a hill alright. One that is very well ‘camouflaged’ by what seemed like a simple gradual easy climb! Everyone was already panting and sweating by the time we reached the peak. After a short break, it was a nice long downhill charge. The ride down was so fast and quick that many of us just went pass the right turn! As Sany said; "I was too fast downhill … could not stop in time!"

The ride on the unpaved road was the worst part of the ride. With all the huge lorries and trucks coming at us, we were treated to free white dust! By the time we reached the start of our second loop, we all looked like the Abominable Snowman, with white mascara on our eyelashes & white streaks on whatever hair on us.

On the second loop, though most of us were already physically & mentally prepared to ride up the same gradual hill again, everyone still seemed pretty reluctant to cycle up and more panting and heavy breathing could be heard. A short rest while waiting for the last rider to arrive, and soon we were away, down the second hill.

This ride down was much shorter compared to the first. But this is a much trickier, one with numerous bumps and loose stones in the most unexpected places. And just when I thought that I’ve managed to clear this supposedly dangerous downhill without crashing for once, lo & behold, a patch of loose sand made my wheels slip from under me and caused me to fly again. Though it was not a bad crash, it’s enough to render me with two new huge ‘ba-lu-ku’ (bruises) on my once again beautiful ‘beykha’. And believe me, it’s the biggest I’ve ever seen! And all Billy Goat could say was that he didn’t manage to capture my crash on his camera….sigh, what a friend!

After a hearty lunch (with all the yummy food around in KL, how could it be less than hearty?) & guilty dessert, we decided to head to the race track to finally check out the race trail. Linda volunteered to be our tour guide on this trail in which she had toiled & sweated over for the past whole month, be it riding or clearing the rocks from the trail. She could probably have named every stone & pebble there is to have there. Barely 400 metres into the trail, we had to go through a stretch of pretty technical singletrack with roots & boulders strewn all over and thus causing me to jam up a few times. After that, it was one helluva technical climb and it was like that one after another, making a total of 3 big climbs. There was one part whereby even our infamous Billy Goat couldn’t ride and had to push up instead. Obviously Linda didn’t do a good enough job at the ‘Stone Removal Program’. And it was at this ill-fated climb that my jinx got to work. I was initially in the process of pushing my bike up this technical bit, after a few failed attempts to ride it on the bike. About halfway up the slope, I decided to give it one last shot to bike up and put on my granny gear to crank up. However, while negotiating a very rocky part of the slope, my wheel decided to slip under me once again and threw me off my bike. But somehow (I really can’t recall now), my leg landed on top of my chain-ring & thus created 2 very deep vampire-like bites on my leg. I cried out in pain and when I saw the blood gushing out from my wound, soaking my sock & shoe, my cries degenerated into profanity instead (oops!). I still attempted to push my bike up that stupid hill before attending to my wound. After I reached the top, we tried to clean it up but as it kept on bleeding. I figured I’ll have to get back to the car as soon as possible, where there would be first-aid.

Billy Goat, Sandman & Linda were way ahead of us and before long, I see Linda turning back to look for us. When she saw what happened to me, she just couldn’t believe her eyes & ears. Apparently, she was waiting at the start of the downhill to warn me of the potential dangers but little did she know that she had underestimated my capability of getting injured even on an uphill. Think I can qualify for the Darwin award? After attempting to walk a little, I gave up & figured it would be less painful & a lot faster to bike back instead so, onto my bike I go again & headed for the first-aid team that was waiting for me in glee…..

In a flurry of activity, I saw my wound being cleaned up by our in-house medic (a.k.a Ling, Ai Ling & Linda). And when I saw how deep the wound was, I knew then that it’s going to be pretty serious. And despite my refusal, they forced me to see a doctor and before I knew it, I ended up with 6 stitches on my wound! It wasn’t as painful as I had expected, really but just the thought of it really disturbed me, even to this day, especially when one has Linda to give a running commentary of everything that she saw the doctor performed on my poor ‘beykha’, e.g. pouring hydrogen peroxide on my wound, digging at all the pebbles in there & trimming my flesh away. Thereafter, I just lost all appetite for dinner…..yes, she’s another good friend of mine…sigh!

Thus concludes my fateful day in KL….and with a souvenir too! Guess what upsets me wasn’t the fact that I’ve one more horrible scar to add to my collection but more like I’ll be out of action again for a while. Boo hoo hoo…..