What an amazing trip...
I'll be flying back to Taiwan tomorrow but I am so glad I came here - Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.
First let me start with saying Kuala Lumpur is probably one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to. Its clean, very modern, people speak English well and if I didn't live in another beautiful city which is Vancouver Canada I could easily live here. Its very multicutural just like Vancouver but with a different ethnic mix but still diverse nonetheless. That being said it means you can get just about anything to eat and if you like Malay, Indian or Chinese food then you're in for a real treat.
The other really cool thing is its just so green and lush... there are trees and stuff just all over the place and its because of that it feels less clutered with the dull harshness of nothing but concrete you find in most city's... its like it was built in a park.
First day of riding we went to this super flowy area that the name evades me at the moment. It felt like a mini Aline and really reminded me of Cypress when Digger was doing the trail work before they shut it down for the Olympics. Burms were big and flowed back 180 on each other in sections, there were nice tables and a decent gap, with hips and basically anything you'd expect from a groomed trail.
Check out Aaron manning the helmet Cam following me and Rizal through a couple runs
I have to admit I did suck on day one. I've been off the bike way to long and was 50/50 the gap but by day 2 I felt a little better. Its kinda reminds me of Whistler where your first runs down Aline you're not landing deep into the transitions as you try to get your flow back until you get a few under your belt and your hitting them with all your speed again. I'm also still getting used to the Legend coming from riding mostly a hardtail which just naturally has a ton of pop of jumps.
Still I had a great time -except for the pushing up parts. Temperature was around 30C so it kicks the energy right out of you. Your completely soaking wet in your own sweat by the time you get to the top, but thankfully there is a cool breeze always that helps a little.
We spent all day there and had a blast.
Riders were Rizal, Nick, Aaron, and Allan... a great bunch of guys to ride with who also all have skills so it was great.
To be perfectly honest I was not expecting a couple things. One was that the riders were as good as they were and second i didn't expect the amount of trail work that is being done over here and that the level of trails were requiring a good amount of skill to negotiate properly.
After we left the one side of the mountain with the flowy trails we checked out the other side just as the rain started to fall. Whoa was I blown away... the city is working on a mountain bike park and they pulled out all the stops on this one.
The park had 2 sets of 8 jumps in a row - 16 total- that had a big set and a small set. The big set were tables about 20 feet across at the tops... comparable to say some of the jumps on dirt merchant.
Down the hill were 4 graduated drops... exactly like you see at whistler where there is woodwork out to a point and then it falls away down the hill. After that you can hit the small box or big box which consists of a step up gap to the top of the box -much like the boneyard boxes at whistler and then after you have this huge wall that you can roll or even fofanu with the speed you've built up.
Around this whole area is a big recreation area that when open will have resturants and i'm sure a bike and skate shop in it. Its seriously a really big building. The skate shop is because they also have a killer skate park just below the slopestyle area and it looks like a serious skate park with deep bowls and lots of different areas to ride in - its big.
I have more from the trip but I still need to get some pics from Nick and then I can tell you about day 2 and the rest of the trip.
Let me just say if you're a mountian biker and want to go on a wicked vacation then this is a pretty nice place to go.
Thanks to all the riders I rode with. Nick, Rizal, Allan and Arron on day 1... day 2 was Nick, Rizal, Andy, Josh, and Arron. Biggest thanks goes out to Nick Ong who really made this trip awesome. He rode, took pictures and was just a great guy to hang out with. I'm so stoked that i'll see them again in a few weeks in the Philipinnes for the Terry Lazarbal festival and races.
I will miss Malaysia when i leave but I will be back for sure... and we're going back to that place where you eat indian food with your hands off a banana leaf... I still can't get over how awesome that was.
