Cycling Outdoors Adventures: June 2014

Date : Sunday 16 June 2014

Location : Batu 18,Ulu langat -Perez- Titi (return).

The route from Batu 18,Ulu Langat up Perez to the Selangor / Negri Sembilan border and back to Batu 18 has been a favourite cycling/training route for me. I like it for it is a quiet area with few cars and the air is always fresh. I am sure many cyclists will share the same sentiment with me. This route is always full of cyclists. One can cycle up to the tee junction (approximately 11 km from Batu 18, Police Station). Here one will see the popular "photo taking" road sign of Kuala Klawang and Semenyih.

Pic 1: Popular photo spot(taken in 2012-Semenyih trip)

Depending on how determine one feels, one can take the challenging K Klawang route to the left or the scenic Semenyih dam to the right. (The Semenyih Dam is another story for another time). The K Klawang route will lead one uphill to the Selangor/Negri Sembilan border. This would be the highest point of the ride. At this point K. Klwang would still be 33 km away. Most riders will usually make a U-turn and enjoy the downhill ride back to the T-junction before heading back to Batu 18.

Pic 2:Highest point of ride-Selangor/N.Sembilan border

I have always stopped at the highest point and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the area. If one were to continue on this road, one would reach Titi town before eventually reaching K .Klawang. Riders I have met would tell me that if one is adventurous enough one can continue onwards to Titi where one can have lunch before making the return trip back to Selangor and Batu 18.

I have always stopped at the border and made a U-turn back to Batu 18. The total distance cycled would be approximately 39.5 km. On this day we decided to take the challenge to continue pass this invisible barrier and see what it is like to cycle beyond this point. A total of us five riders decided to try to go all the way to Titi town. We were not sure of the additional distance to Titi. We guessed that the return trip would be in the 100 km range.

From the beginning of the ride, I had a tyre problem. I had pumped both my tyres to a higher than my normal tyre pressure in anticipation of the long ride. I pumped my tyres up to 120 psi. That created a problem for my front tyre. After travelling for less than 5 km my bicycle tube began to force the tyre to bulge out of its tyre rim. Initially I had thought that my brand new brake pads were not aligned properly and were touching the tyre rim as it was making occasional squeaking sounds as I was pedalling. Eventually the sounds got louder and more frequent. I stopped the bike and inspected the front tyre. On seeing the problem I was thinking, "Well some much for my attempt to Titi…my ride will have to end abruptly here!" I pulled to side of the road, found a suitable place to sit down and tried to solve my predicament. I had to release most of the tube pressure so that I could force the tyre back into the rim before re-pumping the tyre pressure back up. Luckily I had brought my three year old never been used before Raleigh bicycle pump. Today was when I realised that my pump was not a good pump as I was not able to pump my tube up to a high pressure. This pump of mine had a pressure gauge but the pressure gauge kept coming off and it was also the leak point at high pressures. Eventually I gave up and cycled on with an extremely under inflated tyre. I hoped to meet up with my other cycling buddies at the K Klawang/Semenyih T junction to tell them that I was aborting the ride. Once reaching the junction, Edward was able to lend me his pump and to my surprise I was able to pump my tyre back up to a reasonably good pressure. I decided to continue uphill to the next point (Selangor/ N.Sembilan border) with the hope that this time the tyre would behave and stay in place within its tyre rim. Initially there were the same occasional squeaks that got me really worried. But the tyre held and I reached the highest point of the ride.

(Footnote: never leave home without a pump)

From here onwards to Titi, the journey was made up of undulating elevations with a general downhill ride to Titi. We reached Kongkol where there was a lone watering hole in the middle of nowhere. But to us this was an ideal spot to take a breather.

Pic 3:KongKol Pit Sop

We were still not sure how far Titi was. After a brief re-fill of “100-plus” and bananas, we asked the owner the distance Titi town. We guessed that it was another 10 km away. The owner said it was only 5 km away to Titi. So that gave us the impetus to cycle onwards

After what felt like a fairly long 5 km we reached the Titi junction and turned right into the town. We had passed a Rotan factory, Lata Kijang forest reserve and the Jelebu correction facility (jail). This part of the journey was a good and welcomed stretch of flat elevation. We already noticed cyclists heading in the opposite direction towards Selangor.

We knew we had reached the town when we saw a bunch of cyclists eating at two coffee shops. Both shops served wantan-mee and pan-mee. We asked a local for directions to the famous wantan mee stall but he said all the shops are good. So we stopped at where there were lots of patrons. (Looking back at the route profile I think the actual distance to Titi from Kongkol was about 10 km)

All of us ordered the pan-mee and in my opinion it was good. I supposed everything would taste good after cycling a distance of 45 km . (This was what was recorded on my Apps)

Pic 4 : Brunch at Titi

Pic 5: Brunch at Titi

After we had our fill we decided to explore the road and found another shop where there was a large crowd gathering. This shop was selling all sorts of cakes and condiments (kuih-muih). I did not try as I was quite full from the noodles. Made a mental note to eat less next time and save some space for the snacks on the next trip.

Pic 6: Kuih-muih shop

Pic 7: Snacks galore

It was getting to around 10:30am when we decided to make our return trip. I stopped to take a few souvenir pics of a wall with a painting. The rest of the gang went on ahead.

The return journey was tough as I now had to cycle in the hot morning sun. I made a mental note that I had to only cycle about 24 km back to the Selangor border. The objective was to clear as much distance as I could before the noon sun. Once I reached the Selangor border it would be plain sailing downhill. The first 10 km of relative flat road was easily covered but the last 14 km uphill was tough. I had to stop to rest, to cool down and to lower my heartbeat as it was tough pumping uphill under the hot sun.

I was basically looking at the concrete kilometre road posts along the road and started counting backwards until I reached the sign post which read ”33 km to K.Klawang”. It was a sigh of relief when I finally reached the Selangor border as I knew the hardest part of the ride was over. I had the image of the long, cool one from the Batu 18 coffee shop in my mind. A nice bottle of chilled barley water made fresh from the coffee shop.

Pic 8 : The Long,Cool One

I was the last of the group to reach Batu 18 and when I reached the coffee shop…. the long cool drink was sold out. Dang! The nasi-lemak was also gone.! I had to settle for a 100-plus.

Thus ended the Titi ride which is my longest one day ride distance attempted to date.

The Route Details and more pics below:-

Total Distance travelled : approx. 90 km

Note: As usual to get a zoomed in view of the pics place pointer onto the pic and double click the mouse button