Cycling Event Report : Bentong Raub Golden Ride 2016

The beautiful Klau Dam in the clear morning light

Think hills, lots of green, open spaces, back roads winding into the distant countryside, oil palm estates, quaint villages, fruit orchards especially durian! And you might think of Bentong, a town tucked away in the heart of the state of Pahang in Peninsular Malaysia.

I was a bit reluctant at first to sign up for this cycling event. The reason being, I was wondering how we were going to travel from KL to Bentong in one car with two bikes and ourselves, since How How’s car did not have a bike rack and I wasn’t used to driving  further beyond KL.

However, I finally gave in after How How’s endless persuasion as he was all eager to try the 100km route that would take us from Bentong to Raub and back to Bentong in a circular anticlockwise direction and badly needed my company. He promised to solve the issue of a bike rack. In all honesty, I was also curious about this route which was new to me and so that was it. I registered a few months’ back for this inaugural event with no more second thoughts.

The Route

A few days before the event, I fell ill with a fever and sore throat. However, the fever lifted a day before the event, so I deemed it fine to carry on with plans to Bentong. I promised myself that I would enjoy cycling the route at a leisurely pace instead, so as not to kill myself in the process.

Hannix, a friend of ours, had kindly lent his spare bike rack to How How and had it fixed up for him onto his car the day before. Real friends are there in time of need. Thank you Hannix!

We are ready for flag off

On the morning of 26^th March 2016, after securing Yukiko to the bike rack, and the Black Prince (How How’s stallion) safely tucked inside his car, we set off early to Bentong. Traffic was light, and the roads were windy and dark. We made good time and reached Bentong in 1.5hours after leaving KL.

With the scorching hot and dry spell we had been experiencing lately in KL with some haze on certain days, it was a refreshing change to find the new day dawning with plenty of grey clouds and a cool breeze.

The route map with distances and water stations clearly marked
(Photo courtesy of organisers)

We made a beeline straight for the Pusat Kesihatan Bentong as we had not yet collected our goodie bags / race kits. The queue for the goodie bag collection was rather long but I was surprised at the efficiency of the volunteers, how quickly they worked with smiles even. 

The queue moved quite fast. I noticed that all the goodie bags had already been prepacked for each of the participants and all you needed to do was show your registration slip and the volunteer manning the laptop would search and call out your number which was already pinned to the respective bag which another volunteer at the other end of the room would pick up and pass to you.

This was good as I rarely come across an event where my race kit had been already prepacked for me in advance. What more at a first edition of this race!

The contents of the goodie bag : A recyclable bag, the dry-fit event tee,
Certificate of Participation, Bib Number, a bottle of 90 capsules of Proviton plus CoQ10
and very clear instruction flyer.

We found a convenient parking spot and proceeded to set up our bikes and fastened our bibs to the bikes. We then hung around at the start area with other cyclists waiting for the short briefing around 7:30am before flag off.

In the small crowd, I spotted friends : Brian, Hannix, Sam and another colleague named Koo whom I met for the first time, and who was attempting the 100km route on a foldie. Good job and great courage!

With Hannix, Sam and How How before the start of the ride

With Koo - my colleague on his foldie

It was a small race event with only close to 400 participants. The organizer had originally targeted 500 cyclists but only 400 registered. I think, this was largely due to the fact that the event was being held on a Saturday instead of a Sunday, some cyclists could not take part as they still had to work. But hey, having grown up in a small town myself, I wasn’t complaining. I love small town events.

We purposely wore the same jersey so we could easily spot each other
if we got lost in the crowd.

The event carried on as planned but we flagged off early at 7:45am (instead of 8:00am) after the punctual briefing by the police and organizers at 7:30am.  The police reminded us that this was not a race but a fun, leisure ride. Safety was the primary concern.

With Brian and How How before the ride flagged off

The early start was good as the sky was threatening to rain, everyone who was supposed to turn up had already showed up for the briefing and besides, everyone was eager to be off and on their way. 

The weather was cool and breezy throughout the entire route except towards the end as we finished a little past noon. It did not rain despite the ominous rain clouds which dispersed midway through the ride.

First 20km of the race

Me and How How taking a corner together

And the scenery! Oh, the lovely rolling hills of oil palm trees, the wide, open spaces of land, the shady  trees, the shimmering ponds and the beautiful serene Klau Dam along the route was so beautiful to behold. Words cannot even begin to describe it.

Cycling past oil palm estates

With birds singing from the trees and flitting overhead in the skies, this was a perfect day to cycle. It was enough to stir up the wings of my free spirit and set my heart soaring with a sense of freedom. I was in cruise mode and had no idea what pace or speed I was pedaling until a quick glance at my bike meter later on, showed the pace between 35 – 40kmph!

The route also took us through quite a number of Chinese New Villages along the way. Most were farming villages as evidenced by the vegetable patches and fruit orchards.

I found myself several times with a silly smile pasted on my face as I cycled on enjoying the sights, sounds and the feel of the cool breeze caressing my face and neck, rustling through my hair and rushing pass my ears. I instantly fell in love with this route.

With the beautifull Klau Dam as the backdrop

There were some lovely scenes, which I missed out capturing on my mobile camera as I was unable to stop due to sharing the road with other cyclists at that moment in time. No matter, as I was already contemplating returning to ride this route! Anyway, pictures would not even begin to do justice to the awesome sights laid before me. I had no idea my country could be so beautiful.

How How rode behind and beside me throughout the entire way. There was hardly any traffic save for the last 6km as we re-entered busy Bentong town towards the finish line.

The organizers had shared with us a very detailed and clearly marked map on where the 3 water stations would be and what were the distances we were expected to cover before reaching each point on the route. There were traffic marshals manned at every junction and every corner clearly pointing the way, it would be impossible to get lost. The traffic at each junction we passed was also well-controlled by the traffic marshals in place.

I was also pleased to find ample water, ice, isotonic drinks, bananas, taufu fah (beancurd dessert), cendol and chocolate at each water station. The volunteers were all very kind and polite as well. How How was finding each water station a real blessing and he took advantage of the opportunity to refuel. The 2nd station also had announcements being made in very good English.

With Brian and How How at Kampung Sang Lee

Can I poke that durian?!

Some of our stops along the way were for some photos, like for example, Kampung Sang Lee and it’s huge suspended Durian statue touting what the village was famous for. This was just to break the monotony of cycling and give our legs a bit of a change from pedaling.

Altogether, we stopped for 5 times along the entire route. Largely to let How How rest and catch his breath as he hadn’t been cycling long distance in a while nor did he engage in any intensive training lately. Perhaps we had gone out too fast the 1^st half of the route and he was feeling the after effects now during the 2^nd half of the route. Oops! My bad!

I, on the other hand, was making a surprising discovery about myself and my fitness level; that despite having fever the past few days, I was still going strong and was pedaling effortlessly most of the way. Even at the 90 km mark, I was still feeling fresh and raring to go. Yikes!

However, cycling is not always about wanting to be the best or the fastest. It is meaningless to cycle alone without companionship, friendship, that unspoken “togetherness” felt that words cannot describe. If we had promised to start together then we would finish together. 

So I purposely slowed down many times along the way and patiently waited for How How to finish his refueling at all the water stations while making sure that I drank plenty of fluids as well to avoid dehydration.

After crossing the 90+km mark at the last water station, we were expecting to hit the finish line soon at 100km. After all, the organizers had said this was a 100km distance event. 

However, when we reached the 100km mark, we were surprised and I think How How was aghast, to find there was still another 10km to go and what more, the route had been and still seemed to be going uphill gradually rather than downhill contrary to what the organizers had shared in the elevation map on their Facebook page. The road surface at this particular section was very bad and filled with portholes. There was one particular downhill section which where the uneven surface of the road made my bike vibrate so badly that both my palms were numb after reaching the foot of the hill!

The difference between actual elevation and shared elevation diagram
from organiser before the event. Notice the difference?

Brian was riding very strong and had long passed me on the long uphill after the 90km mark.

The sun was high in the sky by that time and the shade from the trees and foliage along the way had started to thin out. We started to feel the heat from the tarmac. A few of the climbs were pretty steep but manageable with the majority of the climbs being long but gradual.

Suddenly, after the 103 km mark, I somehow lost How How behind me on the long climb but the traffic heading towards Bentong Town started to get very heavy with workers returning to their homes after work. Moreover, it was lunchtime and the road shoulder was far too narrow to make stopping very dangerous.

We had not far to go before reaching the Finish Line. Trusting How How and his strong willpower to slowly make his way to the finish, I pedaled onward and weaved cautiously through the heavy Saturday noon day traffic to make it to the Finish Line in 4 hours 26 minutes. Oh, and by the way, the actual distance cycled was around 110km and not 100km.

Safely reached the Finish Line with no issues in the high heat of the day.

The volunteers at the Finish Line actually put the medal around my neck and asked me to stop for a picture. In fact, they were stopping almost every finisher to take their finishing picture. So nice of them!

There was a fire engine and firemen on site near the Finish Line as well waiting to spray water on cyclists to cool us down. Brian took advantage of this added bonus and asked the firemen to turn their water jets on him and spray him down.

Brian enjoying his cooling "bath" courtesy of the Firemen

Two minutes later, How How also reached the Finish Line. According to him, he could feel his leg muscles cramping up and thus decided to slow down on the long climb up. No wonder I lost him. Anyway, what was important was we were both safely back.

After taking photos with a fast cyclist friend Jeffrey, I spotted another running friend turned cyclist : Sunny Tan who had also joined the event, waving at me. It was good to see he had finished as well.

With Jeffrey and his friend at the Finishing Line

Happy to see Sunny Tan at the Finish Line

We headed off for the complimentary lunch – packed chicken rice (which was already cold and hard and extremely difficult to eat) and cordial drinks and then made our way slowly home via the old trunk road from Bentong to Genting Sempah and onto the Karak Highway. We didn’t wait for the lucky draw as we were both tired. Also, the venue for the lucky draw was located away from the lunch area and they had started a lomg time ago. We had no way of knowing whether our number had already been called. 
The famous homemade ice-cream at Kow Poh Restaurant would also have to wait until I recovered fully from my fever and flu.

All smiles at the end!

At the Suria Hot Springs in Bentong, on the way home to KL

All in all, this was a pleasant event. The organizers did a really good job for their first time. I would sum up the Pros and Cons of this event as below and believe me, I will be back to ride this route again!

Pros

- Briefing and announcements were bi-lingual i.e.in Bahasa Malaysia as well as very well-spoken English.

- Plenty of food and water served at water stations.
- This event being co-sponsored by the Health Clinic of Bentong, aid stations were not lacking.
- Friendly and helpful volunteers – even offering to collect your used cups and chocolate wrappers to throw away in the bin
- Hassle-free and fast goodie bag / race kit collection.
- Prompt start
- Beautiful scenery and cool, shady route
- Ample volunteers giving clear directions and good traffic control at all road junctions
- Nice cooling event T-shirt (could have been better if it was a jersey) & Finisher’s Medal
- Personalised touch with individual Finishing Photo at the finishing line (not sure if everyone who arrived later had this same treatment or not).
- Free lunch and plenty of water / fluids at the rest area after finishing.
- Real value for money event considering it is only RM80.00.

Cons

 - Bad road surface at the last 10km of the route

- Perhaps the event should be held on a Sunday instead of a Saturday to avoid the busy workday traffic rush hour

- Elevation map and road distance shared by organizers before the event was wrong and misleading. Not sure whether it was done on purpose (I am certain their intentions were pure and this wasn't the case), but outstation cyclists were thrown off balance when what they were expecting did not match the real deal in this aspect on the day of the event.   
- Startling lack of photographers along the entire route.

A nice medal for our efforts.

*Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post is entirely the author's own.