Beijing Olympic Mountain Bike XC Course

This year, Beijing will host the Olympic 2008. I wish I have the time to go and enjoy the cross-country mountain biking event.

If you're like me i.e. can't go to the Olympic, enjoy the following graphics and photos of the Beijing Olympic Mountain Bike trail.. The Laoshan Mountain Bike Course.

[ 3-D Course Elevation]

[Course Elevation]

[Smooth singletrack, but... ehmm.. quite wide for overtaking]

[The climb with rocky feature]

Kiara Underseige Again..!!!

The pristine, flowly, hand-built and well-maintained singletrack trails at Bukit Kiara are undergoing extinction process, due to the underseige by the lust to satisfy the appetite of horse riding.

As of today (Thursday 17 January 2008), my adopted trail (Pure Quill) is gone. I'm devastated. Furthermore, I was planning to carry out general trail maintenance on Pure Quill this Saturday (19 January 2008).

Pure Quill is about 400 meters of singletrack. It connected several trails at once, such as the Janie's Addiction and Around The Mountain trails at Taman Tun Dr. Ismail side and the Upper Short, TNT, Dirty Deeds trails on the center of Bukit Kiara.

The picture below shows the destruction of Pure Quill trail from flowly singletrack to unchallenging 3 meters (plus-minus) wide horse trail. The picture was taken by one of the Fakawi Tribe members.

One of the trail users has written to the local newspaper urging the public to protect the Kuala Lumpur's only green lung. Click here to read more about it.

I also wrote a blog about this earlier. Please click here to redirect.

Some of the photos of prestine singletracks at Bukit Kiara can be viewed in my previous post on Kuala Lumpur Mountain Bike Carnival 2007.

SAVE THE SINGLETRACKS...

Awal Muharram Kiara Ride

It's Awal Muharram, the first day of the new year for Muslim calendar. Awal means early or first, and Muharram is the first month of the year. Got it...

So, I rode Bukit Kiara today with Jimmy and Yee. The trails that we rode are:

Uphill tarmac > 2k > Apollo > Tarmac > Barrakuda.. oppsss... >Tarmac > Upper Short > Snake & Ladder > Twin Peaks uphill > Twin Peaks downhill > Shirner Convention > Rock Garden > Carnival. About 13.5 km.

Why Barrakuda.. oppsss...? We could ride through Barrakuda now. DBKL is building horse trails for the King of Malaysia (see my previous post) and they are taking over the hand-built mountain biking trails in Bukit Kiara. I'm very sad.

For information, by the attributes of mountain biking and horse riding, they could not share off-road trails. It's too dangerous.

A few of other trails were also invaded and converted to horse trails, such as Plan A, Plan C, Lower Short. Again, I'm very, very, very sad.

2008 KLMBH's Monthly Mountain Bike Hashes Announced

Kuala Lumpur Mountain Bike Hash (KLMBH) holds monthly Mountain Bike Hashes ("bashes") in the Klang Valley area, usually on the last Sunday of each month.

[KLMBH Banner]

The following monthly schedule for 2008 was extracted from the KLMBH website:

Sun 27 Jan 2008 - Pat Brunsdon at Bukit Kiara
Sun 24 Feb 2008 - Rob Schorr & Ying How at Ulu Yam
Sun 30 Mar 2008 - BBB at Bandar Tasik Puteri, Rawang
Sun 27 Apr 2008 - Stapo, Venue TBA
Sun 25 May 2008 - TBA
Sun 29 Jun 2008 - TBA
KLMBH EPIC 2008 - Scott Roberts & amp; Ying How at Ulu Tamu
Sun 27 Jul 2008 - Phil Bee & Jane Gapang (TBC), Venue TBA
Sun 24 Aug 2008 - TBA
Sun 28 Sep 2008 - B. Emby, S. Allen, R. Larsen & Andrew Rhodes, Venue TBA
Sun 26 Oct 2008 - TBA
Sun 30 Nov 2008 - TBA
Sun 28 Dec 2008 - TBA

TBA = To be announced.

If you guys like to join the ride, go to their website by clicking the above KLMBH banner to obtain latest information about the ride and direction.

New Stopping Power

Saturday, 29 December 2007, I replaced my brake set (Hayes HFX9) with the 2008 Shimano XT brake set.


The new 2008 Shimano XT brake set has the features that I really like:

1. No tool adjustment for the position of brake level for reach adjustment,

2. Simple adjustment for free stroke

I installed them myself, and it was easy. The only dissapoinment (compare to Hayes HFX9) is that the Shimano did not come with flip-flop design for mounting on either side of handlebar.

Udang Galah (Fresh Water Blue Prawn)

I love udang galah, especially when you fried them. They are delicacy in Malaysia, the taste is exquisite and better than lobster.

During my wedding reception in Teluk Intan, my parents served us the udang galah... yummy.. they were delicious !!!

How to catch them? So, I bought my self a couple of fishing rod and reel sets, and a rod and reel set for my eldest daughter. Suprisingly, the reels were made from Shimano, even the name has XT series added to it.

My first set is Shakespeare Sigma Titanium rod and Shimano Aernos XT 2500. This set will be used to catch the blue udang galah and other fishes (I like the baung fish).








I will try to use this lure bait(from Strike Pro, model JL119, suspended) to get the baung fish.



My second set, especially for reeling up the blue udang galah, consists of the affordable Exori Belida rod and Shimano Slade FB 1000.






Now, catching the famous blue udang galah is another matter.

20 December 2007 : Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha (Eid Qurban)

Assalammualaikum or Be peace upon you...

20 December 2007.. its Hari Raya Aidil Adha, and where the Muslims who are fortunate enough to perform the Haj ritual in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

For those Muslims whose unable to perform their Haj this year, try another year until you succeed. Additionally, a Qurban or animal sacrifice is highly recommended. The calculation is simple, either a goat or 1/7 of a cow.

The meat will be distributed to the needy Muslims (only Muslims) around the world.

Be peace upon you.

Big Lenses, Small Sensor : The Canon EOS 400D

Photography has always been my other hobby, but it was superseded by various adhoc things that happened in my life. Now, its back... capturing every moments of life (well... almost!)

Lets start with some brief history of my SLR equipment:

1988
Yashica film camera.
Konica 35-70mm F4-5.6 lens.
No external flash.
My school bag was my camera bag.

1995
Canon EOS 50E film camera.
Canon EF 28-80mm F4-5.6 USM II lens.
Canon EF 70-300mm F3.5-6.3 USM II lens.
Still no external flash.
CCS shoulder bag.

2007
Canon EOS 400D digital camera.
Canon EF-S 18-55 F3.5-5.6 lens - comes with the camera, crap lens.
Tamron 17-50mm XR DiII F2.8 lens - replace the crap lens for wide area coverage.
Canon EF 28-135mm F3.5-5.6 Image Stabiliser USM lens - my walk around lens.
Canon 430EX flash - finally.
Tamrac 5E shoulder bag.
Lowepro Topload Zoom 1 bag.
Lowepro Lens Case 2S.
Lowepro Lens Case 2.
Lowepro small belt.

I still can use my old Canon EF 28-80mm F4-5.6 USM II and Canon EF 70-300mm F3.5-6.3 USM II lenses.

More coming... with pictures as well.

Trail Maintenance 25 November 2007: 4K

We walked along Tony's new and still secret bypass trail along the 4K trail. Short but interesting...

We armoured (with lots of rocks) one of the dangerous 4K descent.

[The hardworking crew]

[The rocky downhill - before]

[The rocky downhill - after (smooth but still rocky)]

[Me.. taking the photo, Asri and Razali]

[Pat, Tony and The Rock]