A text message woke me up from my much needed slumber  at around 5.15am this morning.  What did this “nutcase" want on this ungodly hour?  Slowly I got up from bed still to check on the phone. It was Zack, checking if I’d ride today. I guess he’s one of those very early or odd hours people, the kind like Batman who fought crime mostly at night...

Anyway, I had problem pinching the alphabets on the touch screen due to my semi-aware state with only 1/4th of my eyelids opened.  Eventually I had to send a second reply when I realised the 1st one was gibberish.

Sourced from VeloNews

We're just few days in 2011, well technically we still are, and news of the new racing team, LEOPARD-TREK is definitely going to spice up this year's Tour de France!


The new new professional road bicycle racing team from Luxembourg led by the brothersAndy Schleck and Fränk Schleck, with Brian Nygaard and Kim Andersen as team managers. Looking from the team's line up, the goals are nothing short of domination in the classics and the Tour de France during the 2011 season.

 Here it is folks, the LTdL 2011 is happening on 23rd Jan - 1st Feb. The race is scheduled to last for 10 days instead of 7 in the previous years. In 2010,  Anuar Manan marked his name in the history to be the 1st Malaysian to win a stage and the 1st Asian rider to win the Overall Sprint Jersey in 15 years since its inception in 1996. 

First of, Happy New Year to all. 2010 was just like a blink of an eye and now we’re in 2011.   As usual this is the part where most people come out with new resolutions. I think I’ll skip this topic as it’s doesn’t really matter.

I have to admit that last year’s cycling activities were not not as diversified as 2009.  Most of the route were along the line of SILK highway, a little bit of LEKAS and Putrajaya. Lets make something new this year. May be we can start with new routes, revisit Sg Long old route (thorough the Kajang Perdana Dragon back). The suggestion box is officially opened so please feel free to chip in your ideas.

The monsoon season is definitely back. We had to cancel Saturday morning ride due to rain and I could say this is going to be the trend at least until March 2011. This will definitely make it hard to plan for long distance rides. It ain’t fun riding in the rain, not with the slick tires.  Not to mention the bikes need to be bathed and scrubbed  especially the drive-train systems.

My new hobby: lomo"nization"

Hmmm... It has been a roller coaster December for me. I've missed few weeks of ride thus far for a number of reasons. There's only so much that can be going right in one's personal life at one time.

As you might imagine, there's a lot to juggle, give attention to, and hope goes well from work, family and self indulgence stand point. Inevitable, not everything can be going well at once. On most year-ends, this is how it tends to go:

• Personal: long school break - vacation, weddings, monsoon season, social visits, going back to hometowns etc
• Work: Next year's business plan and budget preps, finance closure - clearing payments, claims, year end reports, more offsite meetings and the list goes on and on...

It looks like I'm going to have to switch back to YouTube from Vimeo. I noticed that the videos uploaded were not in HD even though their source files had been transcoded into high-end MP4 HD format. There's no doubt that, in my own personal opinion, Vimeo has faster video transcoding rate and slightly better video quality especially in HD.

I gotta wait...on Vimeo

As it turned out, all the limitations of being on a free account became apparent recently such as limited one HD video a week and the waiting line for video transcoding (I find this very "amusing").  I don't know what other limitations will soon appear if I keep using Vimeo's free account. But one thing for sure, ride videos will take longer time to be published and this is not going to work for my plans to share our ride experiences.

I'll need some time to figure out the right decision, drop either one or have a mix of both.
Anyway, I've digressed. Here are the videos:

Date: Saturday, November 13th 2010
Route: Sungai Long
Rider: Zaha, Suhaimi, Farizal and Faizol


Saturday morning, dark clouds loomed over the horizon. There’s and old saying in Malay, “Langit yang mendung tak semestinya hujan” or the direct English translation would sound like “An overcast sky might not necessarily mean rain”.  The ride was on, hope for the best prepare for the worst.

Zaha informed me that the Suhaimi would be joining the ride. After waited for about 20 minutes I decided to start riding my two wheels and hoping that Suhaimi would catch up later at the 2nd RV near the Kajang Perdana's clover leaf. The traffic was a bit busy with the emission polluting the early  morning fresh air.

At the Sungai Long's Toll Plaza

Darn, this HD video making is tedious. It's nice to have but a bit complicated to produce.

Riding and video recoding at the same time is a challenging task. The technique however is still a "trade secret". The biggest problem has always been managing the level of vibration, in other word how to keep a steady shot.  The camera setting has to be right before the ride.

Splitting the video has an impact on the page-view and time spent on page. I'd prefer to have all the content in one go but due to the video transcoding and time-consuming uploding process, the video posting will have to come in later. 

Anyway here are the videos taken during the ride. You're going to have to click on the "read more" link to view the video list. For some strange reason the jump-break function does not allow embedded video to be viewed on the landing page.

Here are the videos in sequential order.

UPDATE: I've created an alternative channel on Vimeo for the HD videos. Here's the link:http://vimeo.com/channels/cyclingaddicts

Date: October 31st 2010
Route: Putrajaya-Cyberjaya
Distance: 53.38KM
Time on wheels: 2H10m
Riders: Najib, Zack, Zam (Kechik), Farizal, Suhaimi (MieTador), Romzi and Faizol
Bailed: Zaha, Saipol

We're supposed to do Sungai Merab-Putrajaya but unfortunately it was a torrential downpour on Saturday. Still hopeful I waited for the rain to subside but it kept on pouring until about 9.30am. The monsoon season  is back and so does long list of wedding invitations. Yes, the long school break is just around the corner. The plus side however, for some strange reason, the traffic will be less congested.

Since the ride has been cancelled, I decided to check out Rodalink outlet at Precinct Diplomatik, Putrajaya. I think it's a pretty smart idea to open a branch here. The city has the mass and almost everyday you can see people riding bikes especially at night and on weekends.