By Winston “The Boss” Loo.
It was 8pm, while watching London Olympics on tv, I received an message stating that I am the assigned scribe for the scenic. Nine hours into after the ride, 5 hours after the last LONG RIDE rider came in. Gosh, those guys must be fast asleep by now. So OK, I thought to myself “just try to recall every part of the ride. It was just a simple scenic ride, simple mah!” So here goes…
I was running late and only arrived at the RV point at 8.30am and since we had sent reminders out to people to come in early as we were taking jersey fitting today, the car park was already packed with bikers. Very quickly, the tents set up, registrations running, Lloyd was back to manning his eskies and William who was helping out was busy with the jersey fitting. “Amazing” I thought to myself, it was Ramadan and we have > 100 bikers. It was already July and we signed another 14 new members. “Wow, just wow”. And I actually expected a lazy Sunday morning. Nice sun, a little breeze and all.
Around 9.35-40am, Robert Spinks, our lead hare called everyone in and started his briefing to the Long riders. Setia Alam was a virgin area for many (if not all) and the riders were listening attentively. ON ON was called and over the the Scenic boss, Mr Supreme King Stan himself. Stan started his briefing while I was tidying up the counter then gearing up, so all I heard was there were no checks and the directions for ON ON. Stan left in another directions to complete some markings while I waited up for a latecomer newbie, Michael.
About 5 minutes and Michael was ready and off we went, leaving the Canopy Club and riding tarmac through expensive neighborhood. 1.5km later, the tarmac led us to a construction area. Calling it a site would be an understatement as here was flat, wide, and ground clearing work was abuzz with contractors. So we were squinting trying to catch glimpses of shredded paper while making sure we were not in the way of the construction crew and their equipment. The paper trail led us to a trail in a small hill when the first climb started….ok, ok, it was not actually a climb but at about 15 meters in elevation, I still believe some riders pushed it. Another short hike a bike brought the riders into some Kiara-like single track. Very flowing, not much climbing and minimal descending, something like 2K but much tighter and overhead branches. A couple of rutted downhills sections later, we were put through more single track where the scenic route met the long.
A short while later, the scenic split with the long again and this downhill brought us down to an opening, after which we were back into a housing neighborhood again. Nice, so nice to have flowing single tracks in Setia Alam. Hopefully it won’t have to make way for development. So as we were rolling on tarmac, I met a first time basher, Vin, whom too was enjoying every part of the trail which we just rode, and before we knew it, we were off paper. Off paper in some housing estate in Setia Alam. With us was a few other bikers and I back tracked only to find stands of shredder paper on the road but no paper, flour and whatnot marking the way. As I left my phone in my car, I borrowed another biker’s phone and Stan pointed out that we missed directional arrows in flour on the road. I thought to myself, no way, I would not have missed arrows on the road but off we went towards the direction which Stan pointed. Then there it was, 3 LARGE arrows marked on the road and we had missed it when Vin was telling me about his 2 months experience riding in Kiara.
This led us around a pond and a hike a bike (I did not have the balls to ride that section, well, I have more brains and brawn 
) into a kampung. Along the kampung road we went and I must say this must rank as one of the more beautiful kampungs which I have seen or rode across. Kampung houses with a stream in front, private bridges to their stilt houses, matured wind beaten coconut trees….serenity. It was as if this place resisted change and development. As we were riding, one of the riders remarked that it resembled someplace like Trengganu.
But we had to go, keep riding and past the kampung, into another single track which brought us into some palm and in another 100 yards or so, we were back onto a clearing where we met the long paper again. But not for long, we made a sharp left turn into the construction site and dejavu, we have been here before. It was the first construction clearing where we came in, now we were looking at flour arrows in the opposite direction. A quick look around the vast open field and we felt the best way was to follow the paper back to the RV point.
As all of us did not have an odometer, I had no idea how long we have ridden or if we missed any section. But I guess the ride past the kampung made our day. We were back to our cars say maybe a little more than an hour. Excellent short ride and everyone there can attest that all the scenic riders enjoyed themselves.
So a 100+ and a beer and I was back to helping out at the registration, Johnny 7 foot came by showing no signs of his hangover and Lloyd went on his merry way.
Beautiful day, nice trails, thanks to Rob, Stan and gang. We loved it. See you guys at Broga next month. 
ps: I was not so sure about the Long riders as the last one came out at 3pm. Bash piss sold all the 100+, cokes and water. It sure was a hell of a ride for some. 
