Two Wheels

I am a champion!

...or at least a participant.

The past couple of months I've been cruising around town on two wheels. While Mr. Happy enjoys road biking, I've been entering the jungle for some pretty intense mountain biking sessions.

On my first ride, I was pretty surprised. We literally turned off the road and rode into the jungle. It seemed like a mistake. I guess I was expecting a safer proper dirt road. And while some of these paths are crowded with tree roots, some puddles and others rocks, the one thing they do share is they all seem to go straight up.

But while going up is excruciating, going down is terrifying. I enjoy the straight aways, but these seem few and far between.

My favorite place to ride is FRIM - the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia. Why? Well, one reason is the ground is softer. This makes falling less likely to send me to the hospital.

Here we are in Putrajaya. Here the ground is hard and rocky and one of my friends did end up going to the hospital after a fall.

My general partner on these rides - Outdoor Girl -  was with said victim.

She diagnosed him as just being scared. Unfortunately, the licensed doctor who examined him disagreed and immediately sent him into surgery. By the way, while she may be lacking in diagnostic skills, she does have mad skills when it comes to hooking up that bike rack. It takes her approximately 3 minutes (I timed it!) It's all the more amazing to me because on the family vacations of my childhood it would take my father just under a week to attach the bike rack to the car and - more than once - those bikes would manage to escape before we reached our destination.

So, mountain biking is not for the light of heart. Fortunately there's nothing light about me - heart or otherwise. And the best part?

Being able to enjoy a late breakfast after burning 3000 calories!

All this mountain biking got me in shape for my first road race! OCBC Bank sponsored a ride through KL and a group of us signed up.

Hardcore!

Outdoor Girl and I met early in the morning and peddled over to Merdeka Square together.

Luckily it was a Sunday and traffic was light on the highway. I'm well more frightened of hitting a car (or vice versa!) than hitting the ground.

Particularly since I'm apparently incapable of putting my helmet on straight

We met up with our group and got ready...

Got set...

and we were off!

sorry...no pics of us actually riding. I was too preoccupied!


It was a 20K course and so peaceful to ride through the city without traffic to worry about. Unfortunately, the organizers opened the course after our first lap to cars, taxis and motorbikes. And those drivers were mad! They'd been stuck in traffic for ages because of the race. I felt like a target. Luckily, I was able to dodge them and finish - not victorious, but alive - and with my friends.