The last time I bike-packed was in December 2019. Six of us, including Brian, rode to Port Dickson and back the next day.
This time Brian and I went on a four-day trip. For the first time, I used two pieces of kit I had bought specifically for bike-packing.
I bought the Route Werks Handlebar Bag in November 2020 and the QUOC x Restrap Sandals in May 2023. Most handlebar bags occupy the space on the handlebar where a Garmin Out-Front mount fits. The Handlebar Bag comes with an add-on stub (shown top right in the photograph above) that fits on the side of the bag. I can attach the Out-Front mount to the stub. That lets me use my UT800 headlight unimpeded. My Garmin Edge clicks into the mount on the lid of the bag.
The differentiator of the QUOC x Restrap sandals is that the centre straps can be reconfigured to hold the sandals on either side of a saddle pack.
You can see an Out-Front mount attached to a stub on the right side of the handlebar bag, my Garmin Edge on the lid, and the QUOC sandals strapped to my saddle pack.
The photograph above was taken on a KTM Komuter train. I caught the 6:54 am train at Putra station. The plan was to meet Brian at 7:20 am at Petaling station— five stations and twenty-six minutes away.
“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry” is a line from the 1785 Scots-language poem To a Mouse by Robert Burns. That is what happened to my plan. My train made two unscheduled stops between stations and a long stop at Sentral station. It took almost an hour to get to Petaling station.
It started to rain en route. Brian wisely decided to serve breakfast at his apartment, adjacent to Petaling station, while we waited for the rain to stop.
We supplemented the bread, butter and jam with some excellent nasi lemak from a small stall outside his apartment building.
The rain had lightened to a drizzle by 9:00 am. Clad in rain gear, we headed out to cycle to Bagan Lalang.
Thirty minutes later the drizzle had stopped and our rain gear had to come off. We were overheating. That was a harbinger of things to come.
By 10:30 am we had ridden through Kota Kemuning and were at the traffic light at the entrance to Rimbayu. The light turned green and I pedalled away. Seconds later a car bumper brushed against my right ankle. I looked over at a driver, focussed on the mobile phone he was holding up in front of him. He hadn’t realised that he had run into me. “Stop looking at your 💩🧨💥 phone while you are driving” is one of the more polite things I shouted at him.
It was a good time to take a break. 7 km down the road we came upon the Toli-Toli Backyard Café. Like the other new buildings we passed after crossing the South Klang Valley Expressway, the café was not there the last time I cycled from Rimbayu to Jenjarom in January 2023.
We enjoyed Toli-Toli’s teh tarik, kaya toast and air-conditioning. It was 11:45 am when we left Toli-Toli. It was already getting hot.
It got hotter as the afternoon wore on. Our route was along quieter rural roads so we didn’t have to deal with traffic. The downside was that we didn’t have much shade to deal with either. These were the temperatures for Tanjong Sepat and Bagan Lalang. That ‘Feels Max’ of 39ºC is 102ºF. It felt every degree that hot.
I was cooked when we got to the Seri Malaysia Hotel in Bagan Lalang. It was all I could do to down two large iced lychees and nap for an hour before I did anything else. Take a shower. And go for a swim. When I made the room reservation the hotel swimming pool was a selling point.
Refreshed, we took a walk to the beach.
Dinner was at a ‘pick your own seafood’ restaurant. You fill a basket with your choice of freshly caught fish, prawns and squid and tell the staff how you want it cooked.
We ate well and we slept well that night.
Old Roots, New Routes 