The MUDS Equilibrium

The Malaysian University Duathlon Series Equilibrium:




Thickly padded Nalini cycling bib shorts worn by a heavy-set fella during a run equals Donald Duck yang berlari terkedek-kedek and 'burnt sausage'.

Memang menyesal lah tak try buat full-dress rehearsal. For your information, Nalini cycling shorts are one of the best. Thickly padded dan mempunyai kuasa 'sedutan' yang amat power. Memang sesuai untuk cycling, tapi kalau running, on the rear it doubles your gluteal thickness, and up front silap-silap boleh tersedak beb.

And vaseline! Where's my vaseline!!?

The One When My Brother Got Slashed By A Parang

This happened last Friday.

6:14am, I was sleeping.

Mak: Man.
Me: .....
Mak: Man!
Me: mmmm.
Mak: Eh, Hadi kena serang kat kedai makan.
Me: Hah?
Mak: Tangan dia kena parang.
Me: HAH!!

It's hard to belief, because my mother was so cool saying those words.

Yes, my brother got parang-ed. It happened at 4:30 am in a mamak shop somewhere in PJ. He and a friend were the only customers that morning. A group of 5 men, each with a parang, came to rob the shop, but changed their motive when they saw my brother was carrying a laptop.

A struggle broke when one man grabbed the laptop and my brother resisting because he was protecting some important documents in the same bag. 2 swings were given by this man. The first one hit my brother's watch, but the second bit the outside of his left forearm.

Blood covered the floor. The rookie robbers panicked, grabbed whatever he could from the table and cash register and left. They never got the laptop.

My brother was rushed to UH and got there under 20 minutes. He suffered a complete open fracture of the left ulna and ulnar nerve damage. He's now a proud owner of a titanium plate that is screwed onto his ulna bone which will trigger metal detectors in airports.

He's fine. He was discharged on Sunday, and was already missing in action on Monday night.

I would like to thank Shaffiq, the friend that was with him, who faced the 5 men alone while all of the 10 mamak shop workers fled the scene like pondans. He is a photographer by trade, but knew first aid immensely. He dressed the wound with clean towels and applied a wooden splint to stabilize the fracture before transporting my brother to hospital. His action probably saved my brother's arm.

To the staff of UM Medical Center - nurses, housemen, medical officers, ortho surgeons, the whole lot - you guys are fantastic. And a special thank-you to Dr. Mafeitz who happened to walk into the OT waiting room, took the trouble to find out what was happening in the OT and updated my mother while she was restlessly waiting. That simple gesture calmed her greatly.

And to everyone who is reading, please be careful. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when economy plummets, crime rates skyrocket.

Ipoh Century Ride 2008

To all the riders who are trying to put the face to the name of your's truly, I was the one who was coughing his lungs out the first 5km of the ride.

Nonetheless I finished the 160km ride (100 miles, hence century). My time was just slightly under 9 hours. Nothing great lah. The fastest guy clocked in 3 hours something only.

The route was fantastic. Scenic, considerate motorists. This is the summary of the town we went to:

Ipoh - Chemor - Sayong - Manong - Kuala Kangsar - Chemor - Ipoh.

I will not bore you with the details, but I will tell you about Sayong.

I've finally figured out how they got the name Sayong. Bear with me.


This is Labu Sayong. Perak's heritage. It is a clay water bottle, that's supposed to cool your drinking water and add some muddy taste to it for those who like it that way.

Ok. This is how this simple device is related to the place Sayong.


First, create a silhouette image of the labu sayong.


Then, cut it in half symmetrically, and tilt it 90 degrees.


This is where the fun begins.

Create a mirror image of that tilted and halved labu sayong, and paste it next to each other. Create another mirror image of that, and again paste that next to that other one. Repeat this for about fifteen million times. And you will get something like this:


Profile of Sayong.

That's how they got the name. Yes, my friend. Sayong is hilly, and the hills will kill you.

Ok ok ok lah. Maybe not you lah. But it did kill me. And I was born a new man, as I did NOT once dismount to push my bike up those hills. Kira new man la. The old version selalu turun tolak basikal.

So that's my century ride story.

* * * * *

Oh and one more story. This one is kinda draggy, but again, bear with me if you want to learn a lesson hitting on hot chicks.

My half-cooked scientific theory: The normal human body, has only enough blood to power one function at a time.

My half-fried inference: Since cycling involves a lot of leg-work, all the blood is pooled in the legs and none is left in the brain, thus rendering the brain useless during rides.

My half-baked scientific proof: Of the 8 hours or so of cycling, I spent 6 hours trying to figure out who was Sir Edmund Hillary's sherpa, but to no avail. I knew the answer, because I remember telling it to a friend once. But I could not recall it during the ride.

Sherpa? Phurba? Kamchatka? Kathmandu? It went on and on and on.

Only when I was back at my uncle's house, in the shower, relaxing after the long ride, did the answer come to me. And it wasn't even an effort! It just popped straight out of my head. Tenzing Norgay!

The half-boiled scientific implication: I was one of the last 2 riders who came in. The other one was a girl. I'm guessing she's around my age. We rode together until Kuala Kangsar, where I left her and 2 more riders for a bihun goreng (aku lapar gila siol). It was then 43km from the finishing line.

After the bihun goreng and laici ais (masa tu tengah panas siol), I continued riding and caught up with her again in Chemor, cycling alone. I already knew we were the last 2 riders, so no point passing her and leave her behind. So I rode next to her, and before I could say anything she said worriedly "Eh, I'm so scared lah. Are we on the right road?"

Heroically, I replied "Don't worry, we're on the right track. I'll ride in front of you and block the wind. Stay close behind me." WALANNE!!!! Damn heroic man!! You can throw in a bit of 'cik adik' here and there for a cerita melayu feel.

I made sure she was close. If I looked back and she was far behind, I'd slow down. Damn gentleman leh!!

To cut the story short, after a few kilometers, the finishing line was in sight. We crossed it together, with identical finishing time, talked a bit, I asked her name, she asked mine. I said I'm from KL and she said "oh! So am I". She thanked me for helping her finish, I said "no lah, it's nothing, just one rider helping another" (and I don't remember blushing because all the blood is in the legs, not the head, remember?). All sweet and dandy.


........


And that was it.



The time was right, everything fell on their right places. But after all that, I couldn't even bother to ask for her number??!!! What the bloody hell was wrong with me?! Apelakebodonye aku nih.

So to Yit Thing, if you are reading this, please drop me a comment. I would love to cycle with you in Ulu Langat.


p.s: Seperti biasa, sapa finish last tak dapat ambik gambar. Haha.

Demam 160km

Fever

My sinuses feel like exploding.
The nose runs like a dripping p***y
The tendon-ends feel like they're munched by goats
All the joints feel icy
My mouth tastes like acar buah gone bad
Everything looks yellow, everything is not fun
And just so that I can stop coughing
All I want to do, is to gosok my throat with a berus jamban.

Jom pergi Ipoh Century Ride this Sunday. 160km.
Demam pun demam lah. Hati mau kuat.

Michael Shoemaker

With the registration fee for Century Ride paid, I have no excuse left not to bike. So to iron out few of the setbacks, I sent my shoes for repair as the sole was already gaping.

I sent them to a cobbler in Great Eastern Mall, Jalan Ampang. Not so sure what it's called but it's on the P1 level and it's the only cobbler there.


Consistently pushing my bike when climbing steep hills (i.e dismount, turun basikal, tolak naik bukit la) has worn the carbon fiber sole out. You can see the wear clearly, marked by the red lines on the image on the right.


He decided to patch the thinning layer with a rubber sole and sew it up.


It's a pretty neat job, considering most cobbler don't dare drilling through a carbon fiber sole. The stitching is very tight.

He also stitched back the velcro pieces that are close to becoming useless.

Total repairs cost me RM25. Another shop in Leisure Mall can get it done for RM10 I'm told, but petrol doesn't come cheap these days.

p.s: I'm in dire need of a new pair of Shimano shoe cleats. Sapa ada jual, name me your price and aku datang beli kalau berpatutan.

Bengang Ke-frust-an

Macam mana la tak frust sakit jantung. Boleh pulak ada tinggal barang dalam shopping cart. Aduuuu!! Hampeh betul.