Kuala Lumpur Mountain Bike Carnival 2009

The 2009 edition of Kuala Lumpur Mountain Bike Carnival was held on 21 and 22 Nov 2009 ago.

It was held at Bukit Kiara trails, where the first half of the loop was climbing... lots of them, including technical climbs, several switchback climbs and triple deckers climbs.

I was getting ready for the race for the last 2 months before the event. I was doing simulated indoor riding based on the Carnival trail elevation, riding intervals and a bit of strength training. Two and half week before the event, I lost 2 kilograms. Things were looking good.

Nope!! I had a stupid crash two weeks prior to the race. I felt down a 12 feet ravine when the rock where I stepped on slip. Apart from lots of cuts and bruises, my left knee had an internal bleeding.. ouch! After seeing the doctor, thank God nothing broken or tear. However, she serious advised me not to do hard riding within 3 weeks. Well.. there goes my chance to be competitive in this year race.

However, I watched the 2-day race and captured lots of photos; 215 in total and here are some for your eyes.

Disclaimer:
All the photos are not touched up, except for resizing and rotating. This time I'm lazy to label my photos, but they are still mine... hahahehehh..! However, if you are interested on having them, please contact me.

I also have more photos in higher resolution on my harddrives, so again if you're interested, please contact me.

[KLMBC's sponsors printed on t-shirt]

[Start of 18-30 years men's category - Seeding]

[Toward the end - Triple terrace downhill]

[The continuation after the triple terrace drop...]

[Start of Elite Women's category]

[18-30 men's category - Final]

[My friend, Megat, pumping on the technical climb]

[... and he made it, bravo!]

[...but many just pushed up]

[One of my favourite photos - SY climbing up the switchback]

[Another one of my favourite photos - Rider coming down after triple terrace downhill]

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...

Nikkor 10-24mm, I need you now...

I started serious photography with Yashica SLR. The FX-3 Super 2000 model.

When I was in the university, I was intrigued with the eye-control focus by Canon, so I bought the Canon 50E in 1994. It served me very well and I was satisfied with it. My graduation photos were taken with Canon 50E by my girlfriend and she also like the way the Canon 50E handled.

The Canon 50E broke down in 2002. I immediately bought an APS automatic camera. Then in 2006, I jumped into digital technology and decided to buy the Canon 400D. The main reason that I bought another Canon SLR was because I wanted to use the lenses that I have with the 50E.

So, after a while, I started to wonder that the old 50E was easier to use and has better ergonomic. I wasn’t very happy with the 400D compared with the times I used the 50E.

Then, I was thinking to upgrade to Canon 40D. I tried it, and decided to wait for while, as it didn’t give me the click. A couple of months later, Canon introduced Canon 50D. I was quite excited, but after reading several reviews, I had a mix feeling about the 50D. So, I should stick to the 400D.

Then, came the blow. One day, I was helping my wife to take some photos of her colourful, crafty and delicious cupcakes and wedding cakes, see Chef Laily. The cakes were on a red cloth (as a background). I took the photos and reviewed them, and found that the red was not captured as red. I was slightly orangey. I tried to use other white balance settings including several manual settings but to no avail.

After that, was looking to Nikon. I borrowed my friend Nikon D80, and test the same things as above. The colour matched on auto white balance setting.

At that point of time, Nikon just launched the D80 replacement, the Nikon D90. I checked my bank balance, and decided to invest on Nikon D90 to satisfy my photography appetite.

After 6 months of playing with the Nikon D90, and after several events (such as 7 birthday parties, 3 official corporate events, 5 catwalk sessions and lots of other I interesting small occasions), I am back to the feeling like was having the Canon 50E.

The only complaint that I have about the Nikon D90 is I wish it has more cross-type sensors, but that doesn’t stop me at all.

The Canon 50E was a film camera that is equivalent to digital full-frame camera. When I was using it, I often borrow a 17-40mm lens to take landscape and in tight areas. This lens is equivalent to 11-25mm on the Nikon D90 APS-C camera.

And now, I really miss the wide angle lens due to my close proximity with my subjects i.e. my kids. Nikon recently introduced their new Nikkor 10-24mm f3.5-4.5. I need it…

Disclaimer: Most of the photos are from the Internet.