First jamboree of the year for me and my friends.
First time wearing the all new team kit as well :-)
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| pic grabbed from Pinkz Ladyz FB page |
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| pic grabbed from CycloMotion's FB page |
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| pic grabbed from Kitty Sue's FB page |
It's been a few months since I last joined a jamboree.
It's getting harder and harder to prepare for these
jamborees especially when you have other activities
like DragonBoat and Outrigger Canoe paddling.
It's a good thing that Podium Louie (Finisher #6
in Women's Cat) is always there to take care of
Registrations, Deck is now ever dependable to
get us a bus which will fetch us from Novena,
drive us to the race site and back again to Novena,
Efren takes care of designing all Team insignia's
and race kits. All that's left for me and my other
teammates are just to pay the requisite fees and
cooperate with minimum fuss ;-)
Ok, so for this race, we cut it quite close by
arriving at the race site with only 20 minutes before
the flag-off. I blame this on us forgetting that there's
usually some kind of traffic jam going to JB on
Saturday mornings. Yes! I think most Malaysian
jamborees that we're scheduled to attend will be
held on a Saturday instead of the usual Sunday.
Anyway, I didn't have much practice and so
I listened attentively to the race DJ (he's the usual
skinny guy with the goatee) so that I won't
have any 'surprises'.
The race DJ mentioned that the sticker checkpoint
will come first BEFORE the water point. He is very
specific that these two points will be separate. This
is odd as last 2 years, all jamborees combine the
'sticker' checkpoints with the water/food checkpoints.
By the way, I have this fixation with the water
points because it was a very very hot day last
Saturday and I wouldn't want to get dehydrated.
And so off we went! I would like to say that
this route is very nice because there is very little
road section. We started on grass and we immediately
went to the loose gravel section. Hehehe it is in one
of these loose gravel sections that our team Ace,
Randy Vega took a spill very early in the race.
Me? I didn't practice so, just finishing this
race without getting beat up is my main priority.
At the start people have lots of energy and
most want to overtake everybody else. Hence, I
just let everybody go. I am quite sure I will
overtake most of them later on once the
cramps set in.
Anyway, unlike what the DJ said, the water
point came first! I took some water and doused
myself on the head and the back. After a
few clicks more, the sticker checkpoint came.
Nowadays, the Malaysian volunteers have really
gotten to a point where you don't have to stop
and yet when you get out of the checkpoint
you will surely have a sticker, a bottle of water
and a banana stuck in one of your jersey
pockets. Well done guys!
... and then after a few clicks more, I saw
another water point! So it seems that the
organizers have realized beforehand that people
may just faint from the heat and so ADDED
a water point before the actual one.
That is a very nice gesture on the part of the
organizers !
En route to checkpoint #2, I arrived at
a place that looks like Butterfly Trail ! You will
definitely know who is from Singapore because
(I kid you not) lots of people were heard whooping
with glee .... until .... I (we all) found out that the
singletrack is just going UPHILL !!! and so
the long, slow slog started. This is the part
where you start to question what were you
doing on that place when you can be sleeping
at home. Anyway, the checkpoint is where the
climb finished.
Now going to checkpoint #3, this route is
characterised by a very long climb. I mean
checkpoint #3 itself is located at the highest point
in that area. But even before you get to that steep
climb, it felt like we have already been climbing
for ages !
After I finally got to the highest point, that is
checkpoint #3, I doused myself with a full bottle of
water, ate two bananas and admired the scenery.
Too bad I didn't bring a camera.
After looking at the 360 degree scenery for
a while I started to go down ... and met Podium
Louie on the way up ! It turned out she got lost
and was cycling for 2km before she realized she
was lost. How she got lost, I don't know. There
were times when I was also alone at the trail but
the trail was well marked and not for a moment
did I get lost. Of course, it meant that I had to slow
down whenever there's a fork at the road and check
where the trail markings are.
After that climb to checkpoint #3 (from here on
to be referred as UPHELL), everything was smooth
sailing.
Lastly, I noticed this before in other jamborees
but am only going to mention now : at the finish line,
there is a fire engine that pumps water up over the
coming finishers offering a welcome respite from
the heat.
After I have exchanged war stories with my
friends, we all took our free lunch made up of rice,
soup, chicken and some pineapples as dessert.
Sigh, it is really nice to attend these Malaysian
MTB Jamborees. If not only for the fact that I
hate waking up sooo early, I would go there
every week.
