Perez

The past year I mostly cycled with my 'steady' group in Putrajaya - great fun - great friends. Almost invariable I'm the last one but usually I dont mind. We wait for each other at important junctions and afterwards go makan2 togedder. Usually either Danial or Kalam accompagnies me at the back. Or Dino , Akhi or Xman function as sweepers.
Sometimes it can get scary if youre alone for long stretches, especially nightrides.
Last sunday however Kalam, Danial and Dayan formed a team for the KLAVA-relay-run somewhere in Gombak. Dino and gang are in full training for IM09 and needless to say I'm no match for them.
So I accepted an invitation by Aini to join her, Kash and a group of cyclist up to Perez.
It turned out to be a really big group, some 20 riders. The only ppl I knew were Aini, Kash and hubbie Rais. A few of the other faces looked vaguely familiar. Anyway I had great fun. For a change I wasn't the last one. Their pace is much slower than my usual group and I can actually keep up. Going up Perez wasn't as tough as I thought. It not as steep as I expected apart from the last little bit. The last 200m my mind said "GO, you can do this" but the message didn't get relayed to my legs and I pushed the bike the last bit. Ah well, just another reason to retry this route another time. Going down was actually worse. I had pinjammed Kalam's bike and this guy seriously knows how to neglect a bike!!! The brakes were hardly functioning, couldn't tighten them -all rusted. When I sms-ed him after wards he replied " my bike for IM not for Perez", kasihan the bike.
Rais had planned to cycle to the junction only but with enough people pujuk him he managed to cycle up all the way -another great cyclist in the making-.
Anyway I went down Perez at a speed of 20km/hr. Where is the gila-mum who loves to go down Alamanda-hill at at 50+km/hr, this is one old nenek at a snailspace.
Regroup at the junction and the next 11km back to bt18 took turns with Aini to draft, managed to maintain at average 30km/hr (okay- for me that's fast you know).
One punctured tire too many forced us to shortcut the last part of the planned route and we made for breakfast at Sg Chongkak.
All in all a great ride with a real nice group of cyclists, nice to make new friends.
Arrived home early afternoon to find all the other athletes fast asleep -so of course I joined them...
may there be many more sundays like these....
For pictures and proof, refer to Kash' fesbook:
http://www.facebook.com/people/Nurina-Van-Oostrum-Abdullah/655978392#/profile.php?id=682578046