And so the DUKE was conferred

On Saturday, 20 Dec 2008, 7.30, The 'DUKE' highway was officially conferred by myself, Bandit, Kam and dozens of other cyclist/runners.

Bandit called me on Friday dgn penuh semangat to tell me about the Saturday ride. I told him I shdnt be doing any serious activity as I wanted to ease up my body for Sunday's Malakoff run. Bu tthen he said, kita layan pelan2 je, and the total distance shd be less than 30K. Its too good to resist and so I agreed.

Saturday morning, ride down to Bandit's house to pump my tyres. Kalau pakai my pump tangan yg kecik tu berzaman la nak habis pam. Started out from Bandit's house abt 7.20, went down from Akademi TV3 simpang and managed to get thru the plastic barricade to get into the highway at Setiawangsa intersection. Bandit called Kam, and he was just abut to leave his house, so Bandit ajak layan time trial. Clocked max 43km/h. I think I can tekan some more but didn't want to overload my quads (Sunday Malakoff).

Turn back and waited Kam under the Setiawangsa overhead. Kam, future IM09 came riding with just a mountain bike and without the cycling attire (short n jersey) Dia pakai seluar and T-shit biasa je. As we started off, he told us just to carry on if he's lagging behind as he was using Mountain bike. But, that did not happened, he was with us all the time pedalling effortlessly on his MTB.

From Setiawangsa, the hway took us thru belakang polis depot, belakang ttwangsa and cut thru in the middle of setapak near the Masjid Jamek. Its a bit weird bcos u never knew all the Taman perumahans existed kat area Setapak, but one thing that was very familiar was the 'tungkik' smell from the Loji belakang TTwangsa GC.

The highway stop short at Sentul. Stop for a while to check out the incomplete part of the hway. We think it will take 1-2 months more to be completed, hopefully they can do it sooner, tak larat la nak pakai Jln Tun Razak kalau nak pegi to the other side of KL.

From that point we turned back and headed to Gombak. On the way, there was this high point on one of the bridges/ramps. Stopped to look at the view of Genting and the range of moutain belakang Melawati. Kalau photographer mesti suka gile because the view was exhilarating that it made me fell off the bike, litterally. Very funny man, I forgot that I was using cleat pedals, so when we stopped, I just fell down with my bike like a nangka busuk, lupa nak unclip the shoes.

The Gombak part stops at the simpang 3(kiri Sentul, kanan Setapak). So we turned back and made our way back. The wind was blowing very hard on our ride home. That was where I learned from Kam that he had experienced the difference between aero and normal position, it can go about 20K/h.

Parted with Kam at the Setiawangsa intersection, and still need to climb damn steep hill to get out of the hill. Nevertheless, this will be my new favourite route if I need a quickie.