KUANTAN SUNGAI LEMBING INTERNATIONAL DIRT BIKE CHALLENGE

This is a short plus brief report on the race held on 16TH/17TH AUGUST 2003, my next message will be a long grandmother story.

Track was very fun n challenging to ride on, includes 4km long riding on the riverbed(soft sand n water), steep + lengthy upslope with down slope and off camber turns. 1 lap is 22-26km long

we reached Sungai Lembing town ard 6-7am.. had breakfast, preparation and briefing...

race started ard 11 to 12, the riders had totally no knowledge what was in store for them (the track layout n toughness)

Basically there were 4 classes

1) Classic bikes (those 70s to 80s bike which i dunnoe their name)
2) International Open (Open to any nationality)
3) International Close (Singapore n malaysians only)
4) Veteran (those 40 years and above)

16 August (sungai lembing enduro track)

Moto 1 (clockwise 3 laps)
Lunch and prep.
Moto 2 at 3.00pm (anti-clockwise 3 laps)
everything packed up to left ard 5-6pm

Marshalls were in position and any bike breakdown would be sorted out by the rescue 4WD.

Start of race riders would be like the old game suzuka 8 hours. bikes off engines on one side of road while riders on the other. once the flag comes down riders will run to start their bikes..

17 August (kuantan)

rode about 30km to kuantan for the start point of the moto.

Only 1 moto about 12km long with 2 major slopes to climb and some stream crossing.

Everyone then rode to the beach.

2 events was in store. Long jump and wheelie contest.

Mini ramp was setup. Riders had to start from a fixed position, pickup speed to approach the ramp then the furthest landing bike will emerge winner.

Did not really stay ard for the wheelie contest. I suppose it was the longest distance wheelie bike will win.

We left the beach ard 6 plus reached new york hotel area bike wash then headed home..

i took a bathe n crap then it was ard 4 plus when i tucked into bed...
More detailed and spicy report will be coming up...

oh shit i missed 2 of my morning lectures liow...

Anthony

Quote::

More detailed and spicy report will be coming up... oh shit i missed 2 of my morning lectures liow... Anthony

Might as well miss the rest . Quick send us your juicy report!

This event was made possible by PAHANG TOURISM ACTION COUNCIL, CBK MOTOR SPORT, and Pahang riders group as i was told.

Breakdown of portfolio as follows:

Pahang tourism - Advertising, liasion with local hotel for accommodation, food.

CBK - Registration and paperwork with track preparation

Pahang riders group - Helping out CBK as marshalls, participants and also track work.

I wondered if you guys believed in bad omens...?

Nevertheless i shall pen my informal report now ...as much as i could recall...

Met up at abt 830pm and people started trickling in one by one.
I think we managed to load up all the bikes onto the lorry
by abt 2300H and all our barang barang onto the coach.

Started leaving around 2300H. Thanks to everyone especially the JB riders Ah Fatt and friends who worked all round the clock to help load
up the bikes. Not to mention Ah Ban for riding my bike up the lorry.
Very steep!!!

All in all, about 25 bikes.

Journey to Kuantan was damn long and butt numbing. Made frequent stops and by the time we reached Kuantan, it was around 7am. Called up the local contact there who guided us to the exact location. I think it's pretty high up as we were going round the mountains and could see mist/clouds. Finally reached the town and after unloading the bikes,
all went to makan.

Quite a no. of us went to the "Jie-Mei" (Sisters) noodle stall and the food
is really nice and good. After makan, started wearing all our gear, prepping the bike and registering ourself.

Due to some miscommunication/screwup, Sniper, Supertoad,Plonkagain, myself and a few more riders had to sign up again on the bike cos we found ourselves with no bike no. after they finished annoucing all the
participants.

Flag off was at the town central with a marshal leading us to the exact site which isn't far off. I believe there was abt 80-100 particpants in all the classes? I had the last bike no. of 100 I believe.....

We were in the International Close category and flagoff was as in sequence as below.

Classic bikes. ( all the classic old bikes not necessarily slow....)
International Open (Open to all foreigners and the faster riders?)
International Close (To all Malaysians and Singaporeans)
Veterans (40 and above)

Damn hot day. When our class were flagged off, everyone ran and started the bikes and off in a hurry. Lots of duststorm but cleared up upon
the immediate river crossing.

Think a lot of "casualties" here. A lof of bike got drown and stuck.
We were briefed that must travel along the river and no "shortcut" on
the banks. So I thought must travel in the middle of the river...
Eh... After getting stuck and seeing other's line, I also started shooting
from visible shallow sand spots to one another rather than staying in the
water.... Kekekeke. I think being tall has it advantage here if u do get
stuck.

The water section was a mixture of river action accompanied by some sandy/rocky bank action and for quite some distance. Really fun!
But I didn't do any bike prep and had water inside my bike but managed to keep going.

After the cooling river section, it was a series of turns and climbs. I was going pretty slow as it was unfamliar terrain. After 3 or 4 climbs, it was the descends. The climbs were pretty easy and safe as there were no technical climbs. The descends were the difficult part. Pretty steep and
very long stretches and quite a no. of rutty sections. As steep as the Senai
track but longer, narrower and more technical.

During the descents, I started seeing more and more people overtaking me. First bike that went passed me was very famaliar and noticed it was YoungGuns. Tried to chase after him but gave up cos he was going too fast
and I did not feel going down the descents so fast.

Anyway, a few more bikes started to overtake me but I mainly concentrated on descending and slowing down and letting them pass me
at the safer section. Dun want to block them and kenna taken down kekeke. Anyway, some of the descents were at the edge of the cliffs
and so was some of the bends.

After the descends and the bends, it was a series of relatively okay bends and some muddy rutty bends before leading back to the starting point and back into the river section signalling the start of Lap 2.

Now that I was more famaliar with the terrain, started picking up speed and everything was relatively smooth.Along the way, saw people and bikes stopping along everywhere. By the end of Lap 2, I was pretty tired but was quite excited as last lap remaining. however, bike got into some
trouble at the river section and I can't seem to open more than 1/4 throttle
as it started bogging. I could only vary throttle between close to 1/4.

This is when I realised the power of the KTM. Even at 1/8 to 1/4 throttle open, it can just still lug itself up the steep climbs!!! So in Lap 3, tat's when
I realise it's a lifesaver.
However, during one of the climb, almost right at the top, the bike died on me. It was the last climb of the ascend.... Managed to wriggle the bike and orentate it downhill to start all over again. Wasn't going to give up cos
it was the last climb before the descent and the flat bends....

In the end, managed to finish all 3 laps in the first Moto! Yipee!

In my desperate attempt to "clear" up the clogged carb, I kept bouncing
on the bike while riding it up and down for some distance. Hmm... Seems
to help after some time...

Back to the tent for lunch and bought a lot of drinks!!!

In between Moto 1 and 2 action
------------------------------------

After lunch and drinks, started to look around and saw a lot of drown bikes and attempts to get the machines started again.

Supertoad and Eddy had their bikes drowned at the river. Eddy WR400 was already recovered. After some dilly dally, swimming at the river and
taking our own sweet time much to Supertoad's displeasure, finally went up to the beastly XR400 with full IMS tank....
Plonkagain, me, Ah Loh, Ah Bui and Eddy (five really huge guys...) amidst
the water, soft sand and steep river bank managed to pushed it up to the side of the river where it was towed back to the starting point.

Plonkagain started to fix his front punctured tube. The rest were getting ready for Moto 2. I was going to join Ah Bui and Eddy wear shorts/slippers and call it a day but somehow, Plonk and Funny got me
to join them again. I had this funny feeling though after seeing all
the drowned bikes. (Signs of things to come.)

Thanks to Oldfart for being the great team manager. Looking after our
stuffs, buying drinks etc etc! Kekeke....

Moto 2
---------

Well, this time round, bike was in sequence to I think maybe top 10
finishes in Moto 1 and remaining in bike no.
Being non-top 10 and bike No. 100 (last no....), I had to start at the
rear again. But decided to go easy cos won't want to incur any $$$ bike
repairs. Flag off and off we went. This time, Moto 2 was reversed route of
Moto 1. Alas, at the first climb, bike died for no reason!
End of race for me. Made the bike descend and parked it and called it
a day. Helped one rider who had his clutch lever broken down the same hill and we practically slept there until help arrived after the 3 laps.

While sleeping, managed to catch some of the bike actions. Every moto,
I see less and less people. I guess the water section took the greatest no.
of death tolls there.

When help arrived, apparently, finally managed to push-start the.
The kickstarter spline rounded off and kind of got stuck and hence, not
able to kick start the bike. I alreay knew the bike had kickstarting problem but didn't realise it will pop it's ugly head here....
Sad.....

Aftermath
-----------

At the pits, once everyone was gathered, we pushed off for the town and
was later asked to follow one of the 4WD to our camp site.
After a "short non-technical river", came to a camp site by a river and
waited for the rest to come up. however, we were brought to the wrong campsite. So the whole group started moving off to the other site.
however, due to #$%^##% kickstarter, I lost the group!
Luckily, Errol was behind to help me start the bike and the 2 of us
started riding to the other site but didn't know the way. Fortunately,
Errol and me had headlights.... but unlucky thing was it started raining
in the jungle, lightning storm which momentarily lit up whole area everytime it struck up, and just retracing the route up.

After some distance, saw a rear brake light and joined up the main group.

At the chalet
---------------
Took a warm shower and immediately hit the sack.
The whole group went to town to have a sumptous meal while oldfart,sniper and me stayed back to rest and guard the area..
actually we slept throughtout until they returned.
After the meal, went back to sleep liao. The group was rowdy for a while.
Karoke, fire crackers, but I guess the bus ride, whole day of riding took it's toll and after some time, all went to sleep liao.
Kenny Fatt was full of energy though... I wonder
where the energy comes from....

Day 2 - Wakie wakie!!!
---------------------------
Kenny Fatt was the last to sleep.... First to wake up!
Anyway, Plonkagain had some electrical problem and didn't
start in moto 2 and was up early to try to fix it.
I was up to try to fix the kickstarter. Kenny Fatt knocked and knocked
and removed the kickstarter. Confrimed that the splined grooves are
gone.
Plonkagain's bike, after de-watering the ignition cover, Ah Loh towed the bike and attempted to tow-start it after our failed attempts to push-start
it. Got it fired up and great, all was well.

After the commotion while repairing our bikes, one by one the rest
woke up and after quite some rush, changed the gear oil, put on their
riding gear and headed to town for breakfast and getting ready for the 30km ride to the next venue.

After breakfast, the whole group pushed off for the next venue with
the help of police escort. The whole convoy of bikes and support vehicles was damn long!!! Really impressive sia.

Moto 3
----------

Rode up to the start point of the Moto 3. 13-18km of roller coaster climb to the beach I was told. After all was flagged off, the injured, the disabled bikes followed the vehicle to the beach via the road route while the adventurous one took the same route.

But alas, when we reached the first climb, all we see was little dots of people and bikes laying victim to the first climb. From afar, i could see that there were about 5 short steep bursts of climbs and if u were to stop
at any one, gotta start all over again.
Seeing the amount of jam there, the marshallers and the rest of us
went back to the main route and decided to go via the road.

Alas, when going back, there was a XR400 inside the water crossing
who was following us but got stuck there. After some valiant effort, pulled it out but still couldn't start the bike. Another XR400 got stuck in the same river a moment later as well but not so bad.
Then Eric Chia and later Errol also retrace their route back as the jam was pretty long.... Apparently, one EXC 525 flipped and landed on Eric
hurting his hand in the process.
Some time later, The 2 of them rode the 2 XR400 with one towing the
other unstartable one back to the main road where they tried to tow-start
the bike.Bike fired up and all was well. Rode to the beach and had fun
full blasting the bike while riding along the coastline till the final
destination - the prize presentation ground.

Prize Presentation
---------------------
Here, everyone gathered and awaited the prize presentation.
There was a long jump and wheelie competition to entertain the crowd.
After the talk by the Dayang of Penang(female equilavent of Datok?),
prize presentation and photo session, everyone started packing up
and getting ready for the long journey back.
Worthy mentions are 2nd for Eric Chia for the Close International,
6th for Ah Ban in the Close International, a 15 year old kid from our group 7th in Close International, Kenny Fatt 6th in Open International, Errol for the Wheelie Competition, Eric Chia also for the Wheelie and Long Jump competition.

All took a shower and some snacks and at abt 7pm, after loading the bikes, and packing up our stuffs, all headed back for JB custom.

Had a meal at abt 10plus pm and after which, non-stop all the way
to JB custom where the bikes were unloaded first at hte bike wash. Around
2plus am Monday morning liao.

After the bikewash, one by one started headed back home. Guess
everyone is pretty tired.

Anyway, just would like to express my thanks to Kenny Fatt and
the JB riders for all the help rendered! Very supportive and helpful.

Looking forward to the next ride.

And thanks to KX250 and the organisers.... I've still haven't met you. Maybe no fate... Kekeke... next time perhaps!

And thanks to everyone in the Singapore/Malaysia group!!!

good report.........and nice work guys!!!
congrets to all the winners!!!
:thumbs:

Thanks for the interesting write-up =) Quite sad for the bike drownings though, very disruptive.

Kudos to the organisers and partcipants, and congrats to the winners =).

Little minor issues cropped up during the trip...

Some of us were upset that the a van fully loaded with crates of Tiger Beer went to the international riders camp, and we had to pay for the Carlsberg at the dinner stall :moon:

But what the heck, it's a great ride.

Sincere thanks goes to Kenny Fatt and Loh Pat who were tirelessly doing all the dirty jobs which the Singapore guys should have done for themselves.

And definitely KX250 who was trying to get the whole show running. We do know how tough it is trying to control 6 year olds on dirt bikes, don't we?

Not to forget KingKong Dennis for taking good care of us during the race.

Next time got race remember to appoint Dennis as manager

Not to mention

The guys in orange, CBK Motosports!

Thanks for the informative report...

As they say...a picture says a thousand words...
Any1 took pics of the above mentioned race?