One Sunday Morning

It was a clear Sunday morning (April 20, 2008) in Shah Alam and I already dressed up for the occasion. Old padded cycling short, new bike frame, new shoes, new socks and with the renew spirit - I've pressed the START button on the Cateye Cyclometer. It was time to roll and move on. Wheels started to roll at 8.05am.

Cateye Microwireless Cyclometer. Bought it few weeks before the long 'holiday'.

I made a big loop around my housing area for warm-up. The gearing is maintained at middle-ring upfront and using up all possible gearings at the rear to check for any problems and to set my legs muscle to the pedaling load. I'm a little bit worried on my right thigh after I had a fall from my motorcycle 3 weeks ago. After a few minutes, everything went smoothly. Distance covered for the loop is already 2.3km. Now I'm ready to hit the open road (actually it is 6-lane highway!)

Borderline. Cross at your own risk!

The only connecting road from my housing area to the outside world is via Guthrie Corridor Expressway (GCE). The expressway is a 6-lane highway connecting Shah Alam to Rawang - it enables motorists from South coming from Elite Highway to continue the journey northward by using the GCE and then rejoin PLUS highway at Rawang bypasing routes that take you into KL citycenter. It's a boon for me if I need to take 'balik kampung' trip without the need to enter the bigcity - turn left to Sitiawan, Perak and turn right to Muar, Johor. In that morning, the highway is wide open without much traffic. People still in their beds!

Highway to heaven?

It is already 825am and time for me to take a breather. I would call it a pit-stop without any refuelling, sort of a stop-go penalty in F1 terms. Why? I actually forgot to bring any water for this maiden trip! So the stop is to relax the leg muscles, check my right thigh and release rear pressure on my butt. I got off from the bike and walked on the green grass at the side of the highway. Such a great feeling as the Northwave Kaiman shoes step onto the grass. The shoes are great! Worth every cents if you asked me.

Happy feet!

And now it was time to go back home. I wished that I could continue the journey for a little bit longer as I had no pains on the legs and my heart pounding enough juices to pedal even further. But I didn't bring any water. And the biggest 'but' was that I promised to my wife that we are going out at 10am to MidValley for shopping session .... what else than shopping for the gentle kind. The only way was straight ahead to Bukit Subang, no right turn to Ipoh this time!

Di Persimpangan Dilema. Straight ahead back home. Turn right to oblivion.

I safely reached home at 900am with total distance covered only 12km. Not that impressive as too much time wasted for the 'Kodak Time'. The only drawback during the journey was the front fork - it must go or I will endo again in the hills. But the rest of the journey was really worth it. No really pain or aching in any parts of the body and the new shoes really shine (yeahh.. after spending RM260 for it). I still got 1 hour left to take a shower and get ready for the next events - 20km wandering around in MidValley. Sort of 'Ironman' event on that brilliant Sunday!

The bird has landed! Mission accomplished