Adrenalin and Endorphine addict

I dont ride because I like riding. I dont ride motorcycle because I like them. Sounds confusing right?. Not really. Read on and you will understand.
Human bodies produce adrenalin and endorphine. These chemicals are not unlike drug. They are natural drugs produced by our own bodies.These chemicals are produced in the brain and injected into our blood streams. Once it is in circulation, it will bring good feelings i.e a high that can not really be described. The question is when and how does a human body would produce these chemicals?.
Adrenalin is produced when human gets excited,scared,aroused,angry and other likewise actions and reactions. Normal human being has low level of adrenalin and normally these people are sedate and live a non active lifestyle. Sporting people have high level of adrenalin. They will experience a natural high after their activities. They get uneasy and sometimes sick if they do not carry out their chosen activity. That is because they dont get regular adrenalin fix just like those hardcore drug addicts along the big drains and in dark and dirty alleys of Chow Kit. We just have to do our activity thats legal and bring out the adrenalin to get our fix. The Chow Kit guys have to beg, steal or borrow to get their fix and will put them in trouble eventually.
Endorphine is one step above adrenalin. Endorphine is produced when the activity done is of high thrill and even plain dangerous to some. To endorphine addicts dangerous activity is just child play. They know what they are doing and understand all the elements involved. The French guy who climbs tall building with his bare hand and without any safety harness is such a hardcore endorphine addict. To normal people it is a pure suicidal act.
Now back to my opening statement. I ride because it is the only way I can bring out the adrenalin and endorphine in me. Riding in my own style is the best way to get my fix.
I dont ride a hundred thousand ringgit motorcycle, I dont wear thousand ringgit worth of branded riding gear because they do not bring out the endorphine in me but riding them the way I like, would. Its not neccessary though, I can do it on a cheaper bike and in cheaper riding gear in my own chosen environment and just as good.
I love riding off road because I can get my fix by pulling dangerous stunts without upsetting others. Its between me, my riding buddies and the natural environment where we are in full control. Trees dont hit us but we hit them,rocks dont throw themselves at us, we throw ourselves at them, so no issues there.
To ride the street on your motorcycle that cost as much as a small house and suiting up with riding gear befitting a professional racer just to get a fix, is purely suicidal. We are not in hundred percent control of the various elements on the road unless.......you are a poseur just like a nineteen year old kid with pimples trying to impress college girls or a man with lotsa money and rides once in a bluemoon who demands public attention for having so little self confidence or self.......whatever.
I always choose my ride based on the level of adrenalin and endorphine it will produced for me. If it does not produce enough dosage for my fix, no thank you. I set my standard, not some ride leaders. The same goes for road touring. If its the destination and not the journey, I would rather fly.
Now go ride and pull wheelies, do drops and jumps,do whatever that will give you a fix but do it offroad and........ get high. I have been getting high since I was 13 years old stunting and trailriding my bicycle.

The Lakeside Trail repeated

I think I have found my dream trail. A two to three hour ride thats closer to home. It has everything that a real dirtbike trail has to offer. A single track trail with plenty of challenges thrown in such as fallen logs,slippery climbs and even a mudhole. I have ridden the trail last weekend but could not really learnt it since it was my first pass. I decided to make another run and this time more prepared. I had a new set of brushguard fitted to my handlbar. The fear of sudden stops and falling on my head was allienated. The vines would make a habit of grabbing your front brake lever unexpectedly and throws you down. I fully recommend to have the guards fitted for riders who like to ride this sort of singletrack trails.




We have an additional companion for this ride.The three of us sat for breakfirst and headed for the trail a bit later than usual. After 15 minutes of tarmac ride we reached the trailhead. I made a dash at it followed by Meor and Mifthah who were riding on identical bikes.
Being on my second ride on the trail, I knew where I could speed up and where to slow down. I knew exactly where the obstacles were.


I made through the first two big pieces of fallen logs with ease. I stopped and coached the two riders behind me on log hopping techniques. Both of them made it without major assistance. We proceeded on until the mudhole, where a little bit of trail repair work has to be carried out. All of us made it through without major problems. We took a break at midway point partly to gather back our strength and also to enjoy the fresh air of the forest.The sounds of the jungle was always music to our ears.
We went for a short recce of the forest but it was not to be yet. I decided that we should continue on the trail that we took last weekend. There were another three pieces of big logs that we have to clear before we could reach the trailend. There was nothing to worry about and proceeded with the ride. The first log immediately after our resting point was cleared without much drama. I was really happy for the two riders. They were fast learner.





In dirt biking normally you sit on a dirtbike but sometimes it can be the otherway round. Sometimes they sit on you!!!. Meor had a minor spill when the chain on his bike fell off during a short climb.The bike fell on top of him but thank god there was nothing serious.



We have conquered four logs so far and there was only one more to go but this one was the the hardest. We enjoyed the singletrack ride heading for the last piece of major obstacle. I was very surprised when we managed to clear the log much easier than what we had to go through last weekend. We had a short rest before cruising to the trailend and rode back to our starting point for a cooling down drink.
Pepsi never tasted so good.

RTW Touring

The calling of riding beyond our shores is getting stronger each day. To travel the world on motorcycle is looked forward to by all genuine motorcycle riders. At least once in the whole life time. My time is yet to come. Being on the heavier side of the average life span for Malaysian male, I have to do it sooner before its too late. It will be one heck of a good memory when Im old,sitting in a rocking chair and eating through a straw. I really deserve the ride after working for my whole life. It will be a great personal achievement to have accomplished the dream. I will be a great story to pass down to my grandchildren. It will be cherished as a great accomplishement before I fade away.......smiling.

My trail weapon of choice

I dare say I have the authority to talk about motorbikes,having gone through full circle in the world of riding. In the good old days, a TS 250 only cost RM2.700,that was in 1975 ringgit. My RM125N costed me 3200 in 1980s money. Even that was expensive. Compared to current pricing of dirt bikes,it is blatantly ridiculous. Its murder. The pricing of dirt bikes went up sky high when the manufacturers decided to stop local production or CKD for no apparent reason. It must have been a business decision. Beginning of 90s all machines were imported CBU by grey importers with a price tag that only deep pocketed people could afford, hence the beginning of another sport for the rich only. Riders like yours truly has to be contented with riding the good old TS,DT,XL and KE. Some people resorted to buying and riding illegally imported dirt bikes. We ordinary dirt addicts, just have to make do with whatever machines we can lay our butt on. To satisfy our lust.

moto musings

How did I start into the world of motobiking?
Well, actually the interest was sparked by my late father. He loved motorcycles. As told by my uncle, my father got his first big bike at the age of 16 courtesy of my grand father. The rest of his brothers at one time or another rode a motorcycle but he was the only one who preferred big and powerful bike, a Triumph Thunderbird,650cc British made twin. It was in the 50s. He rode the bike everywhere during his youth right into adulthood before he met and married my mother. He rode the bike as his main mode of transport came rain or shine. When I was about 3 years old, he had a road accident and broke his leg. The broken leg took six month to heal. The available medical technologies of the 60s was not able to correct his injuries properly. He ended up with one leg shorter than the other. His condition did not allow him to ride big and heavy bikes anymore. The bike was sold and he bought himself smaller Japanese motorcycle,a Honda C201. He rode that little bike until I was big enough to have a go on it. He taught me how to ride on that little bike on my 7th birthday. That memorable moment got me hooked on motorcycle to this day.
I did not realize that he still got the urge to ride big bikes and kept it to himself for years until one day....
After finishing college, I was working and staying in another town 120 km away. I was not able to afford a big bike then and I was only 19. I rode a 250 but had a friend who had a brand new 1100. I wanted to test his machine and decided to ride the bike to my parents home. With his permission, I rode the bike home one weekend to have lunch with my family. Reaching home, I parked the bike and went upstairs. My father was curious and was checking the bike, all the works. He came upstairs and was asking questions like how many cylinders? how many CCs but did not ask how fast or how heavy?. He dropped the bomb!could he had a go on it?.He took the bike for a short spin and came back smiling.....that was 32 years ago.
May Allah bless him.

Offroad Riding

I am going to talk about offroad riding from the local context. Offroad riding activity started in the country in the 60s. The Royal Australian Airforce personel were generally responsible for it. Based in Penang,they built a motocross track in Teluk Bahang and conducted weekend racing among themselves. They would also organised weekend offroad outings to the nearby forest. Naturally the locals got interested and the sport began to grow. Among the local participants then were our famous ex-racers Bulldog Kwan and Oh Ka Beng. Motorcycles used were basically modified British road bikes and a few Spanish Ossa and Montessa. Many of the bikes were brought in by the Australians when they were posted to Malaysia. Japanese had not started building dedicated offroad machines yet at the time.Only in the early 70s,Japanese bikes i.e Suzuki TS,Yamaha RT,Honda XL and Kawasaki KE were made available. Hence began new interest in offroad riding. Dedicated Japanese motocross bikes were imported in the early 80s and the sport of motocross grew with many participants taking part. The popularity of the sport remained until the early 90s when the sport began to decline.It was also partly due to sanctioning issues. In the meantime many recreational offroading were organised by small riding group all over the country. Most of the machines were of the trailbike,enduro and MX varieties. The sport was eventually killed when the price of new imports went up skyhigh coupled with high import tax structure. We as riders had to face reality and either changed our interest or just have to make do with any cheap available bikes in order to continue. The sport now belongs to the super rich and the same goes for our road counterpart.Some business people got smart and started to smuggle in dirtbikes in containers and sold them to desperate dirt bikers. We do not condone this act. Illegal bikes would eventually put you in trouble and the sport especially motocross cannot progress properly without legitimate machines.Hence the prosper of homemade cubcross machines which also dampened the proper progression of the sport of Motocross and dirt biking in general. Lets forget about motocross competition which is not really conducive for our application.Even in western countries the most popular form of offroad sport currently is vintage racing. Old machines are resurrected and used in friendly competition. It is more fun and cheap.
There has been a second wave of interest in offroading lately with the availability of legal/affordable machines in the market. It is good that some manufacturers/importers see this market segment and not entirely concentrating on underbone market. At least our sport can survive and maintain its existence in this country. There is still hope yet.

Singletracking Bukit Bandaraya Lake

Most of my riding buddies were away for the weekend.They rode their big bikes to Trengganu and would ve spent the weekend frolicking in the sun and sand of Pulai Perhentian. I was not able to join due to some personal reasons.On Saturday I received a call from Meor asking for my plan for the weekend. Naturally it is going to be another trail ride and he would join me, just the two of us. Actually my plan was to do some skill training ride at some empty spot in Bukit Bandaraya.
It was raining heavily in the morning so I prolonged my sleep and woke up at 9 o`clock. Got a message from Meor saying that he was waiting for me for breakfast at Mirasa Restaurant. I joint him at 9.30 and have discussions while waiting for the sun to shine again and dry up our intended trail a little bit.
We started our ride from the restaurant at about 10.15 and headed for Bukit Bandaraya. We did some fun riding at our riding spot when I got this brilliant idea to do a recce ride along the perimeter of The Bukit Bandaraya Lake. The lake is a popular spot for anglers.There is a walking trail around the lake created by these anglers and we decided to follow the trail and see where it ends. I ve heard few reports saying that we can completely circle the lake on the walking trail,well being me, I would prefer to check it out for myself.
I was fully aware that we were not prepared for any serious eventualities. I was wearing sneakers,jean and short sleeve T-shirt but at least Meor was in full gear.On top of that I did not bring any drinking water but Meor got some on him.I was being complacent at worst.
The trail started very well,a bit slippery but manageable. We had to overcome a fallen log but whats in a log?. The trail started to get worse and we were getting tired due to many logs that we have to ride over.
The sun was getting very strong. I glanced at my watch and it was already 12.30 pm. Towards the end of the trail we came accross a fallen log about 3 feet high and was positioned unfavourably. To make it worse,there was a small river with running water immediately after the log. Hmmmm....some major work here no doubt. Most of our energy were spent overcoming this obstacle and we ran out of drinking water. We needed plenty of rest at this spot. We continued riding on the nice singletrack under canopy. We had to stop again to clear some vines which halted our smooth progress.
We made it out of the forest safely and had to ride along the construction site at Setia Alam and proceeded via Bukit Bandaraya to reach Mirasa at 2.45 pm.It was the most challenging ride for a while yet made worst with only two riders which require more energy to survive the trail.
We will definitely ride the trail again but next time I would be more prepared. My partner in crime mentioned to me that he learnt a lot of technique on how to ride over logs. At least my original plan of a training ride was not wasted he he he

Adventure Riding

The world is created by the almighty for human being and other beings to co-exist and live in harmony.The jungles,the vast desert and grassland,the seas and its contents exist for a reason.They are there to be explored.The great explorers took the opportunity to travel and discover many findings which are of great use and of benefits to us today.
The mode of travel and exploration changed and keep changing with many new dicoveries and technologies being adapted to modern form of transportation and roads.
Motorcycle travel is one way of discovering new places and learn about new things and people which are alien to most of us. For many motorcyclist,reading motorcycle travel journal is a form of therapy and learning about new places and going through an adventure without leaving the comfort of our home.But,nothing beats experiencing the adventure ourselves firsthand.
As motorcyclist,our ultimate dream is to ride around the world for the above reasons.Being realistic,it might take years to prepare for a round the world adventure.Finance,time and present commitments are the main stumbling block for us normal Asian people.

Shah Alam Trail Riding

The constant hot wheather recently has put a damper on my outdoor activities.The heat and humidity was unbearable.It gives me more reason to go to the jungle and have a dip in the cooling river.It was not to be,our plan of going to Ulu Slim was cancelled.We managed to gather 16 riders for a ride in the Shah Alam jungle instead.We had many new riders for company for this ride. They were many incidence during the ride but heck its all in a days ride. We had fun nontheless.The route was our recent finding from Setia Alam to Taman Subang Sandaran with total distance of 20 km. The route consist of little bit of tarmac,estate road and single track under canopy.