nik.hisham
Well-known member
Dear friends. Did a 4 day ride with some old friends last week. This was a few months in the planning and I was so looking forward to this adventure as these are good friends that I had ridden with before in Malaysia, as well as Europe. It turned out, I got more adventure than I bargained for.
Here are some pictures from the ride. Hope you like them.
Chrissie (left) and Sandra inspect the bikes.
Being close friends, I let Chrissie and her husband Ian use my FJR for this trip. In the red shirt is Dave. For this outing, I rode a friend's GSX-R 1000.
This is Larry from Scotland. We've stopped here at a man made lake along the way up to Genting Highlands. The lake is a popular place for race canoeing(?). Not sure what it's called but it's one of those long, slender canoes with 3 or 4 people that row in unison.
The black and gold gixxer is my ride.
This is Sandra, Dave's wife. Between the two of them, they have 12 bikes - Gixxer 600, Gixxer 750, Gixer 1000, 848 Evo, Diavel, Hayabusa... and I can't remember the rest. Anyway, they've invited me up to Paris for an 8 day ride into former Yugoslavia, Italy, Switzerland and France this coming September. Keep a look out for that ride report.
We continued that morning and stopped for breakfast at Genting Highlands. I come up here every weekend without fail for breakfast.
After breakfast, we visited this waterfall...
We had lunch nearby and continued on our way to Cameron Highlands when....
I'm not quite sure how it really happened. I've done this route so many times I actually know where all the bumps and holes are. I know that this bend is very bumpy so I started hitting the front brakes, like I always do as I approach the bend. Next thing I know, I feel the front slipping and then I felt as if some big giant hand violently wrenched me from the bike and threw me on the ground. I also hear a big crunching sound which I knew was my friend's bike hitting asphalt. So I'm uncontrollably tumbling down the road for what seemed like forever, and then slid - face down - for a bit. And before I even came to a stop, I'm thinking, "f*ck!. Can't believe I just let that happen - and I'm supposed to be the tour guide....". And then the next thought that crossed my mind made my heart sink - this was my friend's bike and I promised him earlier I would take care of it. And then I thought, wait - I'm still alive. So I rolled over on my back and inspected myself. All seemed ok except my left pinky was numb.
I got up and tried to figure out what caused me to lose the front. Took off my helmet, gloves and jacket and saw blood dripping on my left hand and right wrist....
Shut off the bike, stood it up and looked at the damage.
Walked back about a hundred feet, following the black scrape mark from the frame slider and found this...
What was really peculiar was that this was a very hot and dry day. About 4pm. You'd expect the road to be dry, but here's this puddle, all of a sudden.
By this time, there were some locals (aborigines) that stopped to ask if I was ok. One particular guy stopped his scooter beside me, looked at the broken bike, my bleeding hand, and then asked, "Did you fall?" Didn't know whether to laugh or throw my helmet at him.
Anyway, because I was riding last, Ian who was about 2 car lengths ahead didn't see me go down and continued without stopping. They did stop a few miles up the road and came back for me.
I managed to start the bike without any problems and it seemed mechanically ok, except the front brake did not grab as strong as before. So we continued the ride to Cameron Highlands.
As always, we stop for a breather by the sprawling tea plantation
Checked into the hotel at about 7pm. Called the wife to tell her about the accident before going for dinner...
Day 2
We headed back to Kuala Lumpur to meet up with 2 more guys joining us for final 2 days. This stretch of road, about 45 km, is the best riding road in the country.
At this point, I didn't take too many pictures as I wasn't sure if my cameras were working. I had 2 camera's on me - a 5D Mark II and a Panasonic LX5, and both were in my tank bag when I had my off. And the tank bag was flung quite some ways from the bike. Anyway, it also 'rained cows and elephants' the rest of the day, so pics were not possible. It turned out that, just like the rider, both cameras survived the crash without any damage.
Day 3
The third day, we were joined by two more guys, Derrick from London and Dave from South Africa. Here are pics from the morning of the 3rd day.
By lunch, we were in Malacca, along the coast.
While waiting for our food, Derrick re-traced the route we'd taken in the morning on his map...
The other Dave, the softspoken South African
We had awesome seafood for dinner that evening. Calamari, Baramundi, Muscles, Crab, plus some other stuff that I can't remember. However, Larry decided not to join us as he had pressing emails to respond to. I jokingly told Derrick that I bet he'd be looking for a pair of pretty girls while we had dinner..
After dinner, we headed back into town looking to look around. As it was a weekend, and Malacca being steeped in history as well as a world heritage site, there is always lots of festivities going on...
We were walking around, looking for a bar to get some drinks and ran into Larry accompanied by a pair of pretty girls. So we gave him a hard time..
Day 4
We headed back to KL bright and early the next day. Here are pics from the final day.
We stopped here for some traditional Malaysian food.
Glutinous rice cooked in bamboo..
We made a few other stops for breaks but I did not take any interesting shots. Made it back to KL at about 4 and said our goodbyes.
As always, thanks for looking.
Here are some pictures from the ride. Hope you like them.
Chrissie (left) and Sandra inspect the bikes.
Being close friends, I let Chrissie and her husband Ian use my FJR for this trip. In the red shirt is Dave. For this outing, I rode a friend's GSX-R 1000.
This is Larry from Scotland. We've stopped here at a man made lake along the way up to Genting Highlands. The lake is a popular place for race canoeing(?). Not sure what it's called but it's one of those long, slender canoes with 3 or 4 people that row in unison.
The black and gold gixxer is my ride.
This is Sandra, Dave's wife. Between the two of them, they have 12 bikes - Gixxer 600, Gixxer 750, Gixer 1000, 848 Evo, Diavel, Hayabusa... and I can't remember the rest. Anyway, they've invited me up to Paris for an 8 day ride into former Yugoslavia, Italy, Switzerland and France this coming September. Keep a look out for that ride report.
We continued that morning and stopped for breakfast at Genting Highlands. I come up here every weekend without fail for breakfast.
After breakfast, we visited this waterfall...
We had lunch nearby and continued on our way to Cameron Highlands when....
I'm not quite sure how it really happened. I've done this route so many times I actually know where all the bumps and holes are. I know that this bend is very bumpy so I started hitting the front brakes, like I always do as I approach the bend. Next thing I know, I feel the front slipping and then I felt as if some big giant hand violently wrenched me from the bike and threw me on the ground. I also hear a big crunching sound which I knew was my friend's bike hitting asphalt. So I'm uncontrollably tumbling down the road for what seemed like forever, and then slid - face down - for a bit. And before I even came to a stop, I'm thinking, "f*ck!. Can't believe I just let that happen - and I'm supposed to be the tour guide....". And then the next thought that crossed my mind made my heart sink - this was my friend's bike and I promised him earlier I would take care of it. And then I thought, wait - I'm still alive. So I rolled over on my back and inspected myself. All seemed ok except my left pinky was numb.
I got up and tried to figure out what caused me to lose the front. Took off my helmet, gloves and jacket and saw blood dripping on my left hand and right wrist....
Shut off the bike, stood it up and looked at the damage.
Walked back about a hundred feet, following the black scrape mark from the frame slider and found this...
What was really peculiar was that this was a very hot and dry day. About 4pm. You'd expect the road to be dry, but here's this puddle, all of a sudden.
By this time, there were some locals (aborigines) that stopped to ask if I was ok. One particular guy stopped his scooter beside me, looked at the broken bike, my bleeding hand, and then asked, "Did you fall?" Didn't know whether to laugh or throw my helmet at him.
Anyway, because I was riding last, Ian who was about 2 car lengths ahead didn't see me go down and continued without stopping. They did stop a few miles up the road and came back for me.
I managed to start the bike without any problems and it seemed mechanically ok, except the front brake did not grab as strong as before. So we continued the ride to Cameron Highlands.
As always, we stop for a breather by the sprawling tea plantation
Checked into the hotel at about 7pm. Called the wife to tell her about the accident before going for dinner...
Day 2
We headed back to Kuala Lumpur to meet up with 2 more guys joining us for final 2 days. This stretch of road, about 45 km, is the best riding road in the country.
At this point, I didn't take too many pictures as I wasn't sure if my cameras were working. I had 2 camera's on me - a 5D Mark II and a Panasonic LX5, and both were in my tank bag when I had my off. And the tank bag was flung quite some ways from the bike. Anyway, it also 'rained cows and elephants' the rest of the day, so pics were not possible. It turned out that, just like the rider, both cameras survived the crash without any damage.
Day 3
The third day, we were joined by two more guys, Derrick from London and Dave from South Africa. Here are pics from the morning of the 3rd day.
By lunch, we were in Malacca, along the coast.
While waiting for our food, Derrick re-traced the route we'd taken in the morning on his map...
The other Dave, the softspoken South African
We had awesome seafood for dinner that evening. Calamari, Baramundi, Muscles, Crab, plus some other stuff that I can't remember. However, Larry decided not to join us as he had pressing emails to respond to. I jokingly told Derrick that I bet he'd be looking for a pair of pretty girls while we had dinner..
After dinner, we headed back into town looking to look around. As it was a weekend, and Malacca being steeped in history as well as a world heritage site, there is always lots of festivities going on...
We were walking around, looking for a bar to get some drinks and ran into Larry accompanied by a pair of pretty girls. So we gave him a hard time..
Day 4
We headed back to KL bright and early the next day. Here are pics from the final day.
We stopped here for some traditional Malaysian food.
Glutinous rice cooked in bamboo..
We made a few other stops for breaks but I did not take any interesting shots. Made it back to KL at about 4 and said our goodbyes.
As always, thanks for looking.
