River Runs Through It

Right smack in the middle of busy and dusty of metropolitan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, lies one of the prestine and flowy trails for mountain biking.

It runs along a small river (more of a large stream...), hence the name of the trail is River Runs Through It. Due to the nature of the landscape, the trail is totally singletrack, with half of it is reinforced with the river's rocks and stones and certain sections can be pretty technical and rooty.

There are four stream crossings, which two of them are built using the rock structure to form bridges and the other two are made from local timber.

Look at the photos below... and notice the clear water.
[Photos taken using Nokia E71]

[Singletrack at the left of the photo]

[Singletrack from the top left (next to the tree) of the photo and towards the rock-align bridge]

[Singletrack from the top right of the photo and towards the timber bridge]

I rode the trail yesterday and it was a real pleasure, though it was not a long trail. Well.. so does most of the other trails in Bukit Kiara.

This is where I usually play...

The photo below (taken by Andy Dass) is a picture of me with my buddies at the Bukit Kiara's crossroad.

The crossroad is where some of the most exciting trails in Bukit Kiara starts, such as the half-technical and fast 2K trail, technical 4K trail and the famous Lung Buster Twin Peak trail. It is also a 4-way junction for the tarmac road.

[Me, holding my KHS XC604, with my buddies]

This is where I usually ride and play...

Being single doesn't pay

The Canberra's mountain bike course that host 2009 UCI Mountain Bike World Championship is quite a fast course, with no long climbing section and the technical downhill sections are relatively easy compared to the Beijing 2008 Olympic course. But they have several sections of technical climbs including uphill switchbacks. You can watch the full coverage here.

In the UCI Mountain Bike World Championship on 5 September 2009, multiple Olympic & World Cup winner, Julien Absalon, decidedly and presumptuously went to use single crank ring with 10-speed cassette.

The result! He lost in a pathetic way.

The photo below shows the Nino Schurter is celebrating the win, and look at Julien Absalon uncharacteristically trying to spin the large gear.

In my opinion, Julien Absalon should be also to go faster and smoother on the uphill technical if he chose dual chainrings, because sometimes he was pushing up (briefly) rather than cycling up. During this time, Nino Schurter was able to catch up easily with his smaller ring.

Even his new helmet looks odd. His previous Catlike helmet is much more handsome and functional.