Finally ... after 2 weeks ...

Two weeks away in Hong Kong seem to have taken its toll on me! I was rather reluctant to even think of riding today. It was my sheer determination of not wanting to become a couch potato or any late Sunday morning sleeper that made me take up the phone and courageously called Thomas. As a result, Tropicana was where I ended up this morning.

A rather small and lazy group of riders we were today. The weather was just great – a perfect day for a nice cooling ride. It did seem threatening initially but that was all it was, only seemed threatening! With the sight of the rain or was it the haze in the background, both Simon and myself was very sure it would rain but ...

Yesterday’s rain did not do much to spoil the ride, as there was not much messy dirt or mud around. In fact, we could not have expected any better than what we were offered today. The only inconvenience would have been the fallen tree across our passage – a downhill trail@! I had the experience of an F1 driver when I had to press hard and jam my rear brakes to avoid smashing into it! The sound of my rear Hutchinson was so screaching so loud that I thought my heart must have dropped - RM$$$ gone?

The climb up to the Telekom radar dish was quite a long one as I struggled painfully to complete it. Sanny sweared that they must have increased the height of the ground? But I think otherwise, it has to be my long inactivity of mountain biking! Thank goodness I was not alone as another one of our rather ‘new’ rider had the worst ride of his mountain biking experience! There was at one stage that we thought he had given up hope! Then another rider came along and told us that he had decided to turn back, in defeat to the continuous climb up this steep hill!

The descent from the Telekom hill and on to the tarred road – the nice cool wind was blowing against our face. It was a great feeling of air that is so fresh and clean. And when we finally reached the road, I decided not to continue riding down this hill, into the rubber estate. My reasoning was that this last downhill stretch is the worst here in Tropicana estate. With so many mosquitoes waiting below, I decided that I would give this trail a miss.

And I was not alone as a few others decided to follow me in this humble decision made! Maybe I should have continued after all? While waiting at the other exit, Louise came along. His first words were: ‘ Sanny crashed, huh’! Suddenly everyone want to know how and where and why. Another good photography opportunity wasted here!

Guess we all know how Sanny felt as we looked solemnly at his bent spoke! All he could say was, a silly ‘Novice’ mistake made caused his crash! So it goes to prove that we should stay alert at all time while riding on a bike!

In conclusion, I would like to say that the eight of us made a perfect team, a ‘family’! Once again, I have proven my own theory that a small size group of riders make a much better riding group! Sadly, I will be off again, this time to the States and Canada. It will probably be another 3 weeks before I can ever get to ride my bike! Hopefully I will still have the 'MTB' burning desire by the time I am back?