A Fun Day at Shah Alam Xtreme Bike Park

Today, I had a great day at the Shah Alam Xtreme Bike Park.

Actually, my plan for the day was to ride the Elmina-Saujana trails at Sg. Buloh in the morning and later head on to the Shah Alam Lake Garden to ride biketrials. I brought my cross country bike as well as my trial bike... :-)

On the way to our meeting point at Restoran Salma in Saujana, I received a call from Jovey and Joe telling me that we should change venue as it had been raining the whole of last night and early this morning. In all likelihood, the trails would be muddy and unridable.

I told Jovey that Sean et al, will be riding at the Shah Alam Xtreme Bike Park and that maybe we all should join them. Everyone agreed... :-)

This was my third time at the Shah Alam Xtreme Bike Park. The first time was when Syarul brought me and a couple of Singaporean biketrial riders there to ride.

A New Personal Milestone

I had a great time riding my 20" Monty at the Shah Alam Xtreme Bike Park. And of course, I reached another new personal milestone in trials, which was the reason why I was so happy today... LOL. For the first time, I was able to climb up a flight of stairs using my trial bike! HAhaha... what a great feeling. I climbed the stairs a number of times for good measure just to make sure I get the technique down... in other word, kiasu... LOL.

Normally, I would have taken photos or videos when riding, but today, it completely slipped my mind. I was having too much fun... LOL.

An Australian in Shah Alam

We called it a day at about 1pm. The guys decided to have lunch at the Burger King next to the park. At Burger King, Yang asked me to helped an Australian by giving directions on how to get to BikePro (a bicycle shop in Taman Megah). After drawing a map and explaining the directions, I found out that Breton, the Australian, had wanted to go to BikePro just so he could get some cardboard boxes to pack some stuff and the only two bike outlets that he knew was BikePro in Taman Megah and the KSH in TTDI.

And Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Apparantly, Breton had been a teacher in Japan. I do not know how long it took him, but since he left Japan, he had cycled through India, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand , etc. to get to this point in Burger King, Shah Alam. All in all, he covered some 5,800 km on his bike!!!! And now he wanted to find BikePro just so he could get some boxes to pack his bike for his flight to Perth and then cycle the rest of the way back to Adelaide.

Hahaha... sorry, I cannot help laughing... but knowing the owner of BikePro's reputation, he would probably charge a bomb just for the cardboard boxes... LOL...


Sin Mee Trading Company, a Lerun franchise that carries notable bikes like Cannondale and Giant bikes.


The ever so helpful Rizal and Faizal.

Anyway, I offered to take Breton and his bikes on my pick-up to a bicycle shop in Subang Jaya. After consulting Sean and Frank, I took Breton to the Sin Mee Lerun bike shop in SS14, Subang Jaya. The guys there were so generous. They actually unpack a brand new bike to get the box for Breton. Thanks guys!

High and Mighty!

After that, I dropped Breton off at the High and Mighty Hostel in SS15, Subang Jaya, and said goodbye as I had to rush off to pick up my kids. The following are some photos I took of Breton assembling his bike after I dropped him off at the High and Mighty Hostel.









I really take my hat off to Breton and all other riders, whom have made this kind of commitment to travel great distances on their bicycles. Perhaps, in another time I may go on such an odyssey as well, perhaps.

YEAH! There is progress in my BikeTrial!

What a great day this turned out to be! I think I have made tremendous progress with my biketrial skills. Three days ago, I tried to pedal-kick down a stack of 4 wooden pallets and landed disastrously! It was my first try at this height and I remembered it was quite scary and rightfully so!

Basically, when I landed, the rear wheel right brake pad slipped out. That caused the rear wheel to shoot forward from under me. I fell over backward and landed on my ass as I hit the rear of my head on the top wooden pallet. If not for my helmet, I think I would have suffered a major concussion.

Thankfully, all I received was a ringing head with a very sore neck and a bruised ass... LOL.

But today was a different day. And I was stoked to try pedal-kick down the wooden pallets again. This time, I made sure that the chain, wheels and brakes were in prime working condition... LOL. I started with a stack of one wooden pallet and gradually added more as I gained confidence. In the end, I conquered my fear and managed to pedal-kick down the stack of four wooden pallets. YEAH!


Again, thanks to Joel for capturing the videos of my progress today.

But that's not all that I managed to achieve today. Today, including the pedal-kick down, I managed to reach a total of 4 major personal milestones.

The others are:

• From a rear wheel stand, I managed to pedal kick up a wooden pallet.
• I managed to side-hop up a wooden pallet.
• I managed to pedal-hop up to a wooden pallet and land on only the rear wheel.

I know, I know... from the video, you can see that they are nothing impressive... LOL. But all the same, I am VERY VERY pleased with my progress... LOL.

The next step for me will be to increase the heights and to refine the skills. Hahahaha... cool or not?

A Painful Milestone in Biketrial!

I have been trying very hard to learn the elusive "pedal kick" for a while now. My balancing on the rear wheel hop is not exactly very consistent, which makes learning the "pedal kick" doubly hard.

My arm and back muscles are constantly being pushed to their limits, with hardly enough time for them to recuperate.

Today, those muscles felt well enough for me to start practicing and I went at it with a vengeance.


Again, Joel was pretty excited to help me record my milestone.

Have you ever been practicing so hard and then when you finally managed to do it, you just get so excited and have to just keep going no matter what? Well, today was like that for me. Even after a nasty fall, I still went at it until I practically ran out of strength.

I have to learn when to stop... now that the adrenalin high is gone, my arms and back are killing me... LOL. I can't wait to start practicing again... but gotta recuperate first!