It has been a while since we last ride with Cikgu Sham. We recently met him at a mamak restaurant at Precinct 14 when we did "The 38°C Putrajaya Ride" last Sunday. If there's anyone with the latest and rare bicycle gadgets,  it would be him. From odd looking portable bicycle stand to shoe cleat's cover, he'd have them first.

Cikgu Sham joined us on our Saturday ride. Zack, Dr. Azlan and me rendezvous with him at the Sungai Ramal's RnR area en route to Sungai Ramal's toll plaza.  We rode casually on the SILK highway all the way to the 2nd RV point at the Kajang Perdana's clover leaf.

It was a sunny Sunday morning and the condition was perfect. One thing for sure, it would get hotter during mid day. The plan was to finish the ride by 11am.  The original route was SKVE, Putrajaya's Persiaran Selatan, Bukit Malang, PICC, Precinct 14, Uniten and  back to Sungai Ramal where we broke off.

Usually on a good day, plan will always change with detours and new routes. That makes Sunday ride always interesting, the unpredictability that is. Instead of the original ride plan, we added Taman Cabaran and PICC on the menu, in other words, lots of climbing.

We had a rather huge ride party today. It could have been 11 riders but unfortunately Zack had to do Sungai Long while Dr. Azlan made a cameo appearance at the LLM's Petronas station because he was on-call. After meeting us at the RV he went straight back, Kajang bound.

Sunday Putrajaya ride crews were Zaha,  Joe, Najib, Azmie, Romzi, Suhaimi, Sham, Zam and I. It's always fun to have big ride party. Personally it provides me a sense of security and confidence especially on busy roads.

I took loads of pictures and few videos during the ride. Normally the pictures are placed on the last part of the blog. Due to the large collection, I'm changing the order based on timeline.

Jacky and Liu

It's 7.30am and there's nobody at the Sungai Balak RV. Yes, another solo ride through the SILK highway. It was a cloudy morning and slightly breezy.  Weather like this, most people would just pull their blankets and continue to lie on their beds.  For cycling addicts, this is a perfect weather to ride, especially when you live in a country that is generally hot and humid.

So many things happened in the last couple of weeks. Its interesting to see some new "hupgrades" in the family. It started with Azmi from his Cervello to TREK 2.1. Quite recently Zam Besar had had his Raleigh frame "hupgraded" to half carbon Specialized fame. Yesterday I saw a Giant with a brand new Spinergy Stealth Wheelsets at the a workshop. Little bird told me it's going to be another half-carbon Specialized too.

Okay, I had an upgrade too. I traded my TREK 5900 USPS for a brand new TREK Madone 5.2. I've been dreaming and saving for this bike for quite a while and now I am riding one.

Personally this is the best price point for performance level bike. You'll get Shimano Ultegra groupsets, good frame and a get crappy good Bontrager Race wheels. They are lower level sub one thousand MYR wheels but suprisingly, they still provide great performance. Some suggested that I change the Dura Ace C24 on the TREK 5900 to the new Madone. While it might be not such a bad idea, I'd prefer to ride the Madone as it is. I just want to savor the "smell of a new book".

Both Saturday and Sunday were blessed with sunny morning. Even though there were clusters of moving white clouds hovering above the city, the sky was bright and blue, radiated by the golden-rich light of the sun. Too bad we're still on recovery plan. It would have been nice if did a long distance ride.

It felt great to get back in the saddle after a long break. Last week we only managed to cycle on  Sunday since Saturday was a no show due to the rain.

Friday, September 16th is a public holiday commemorating the establishment of the Malaysian federation, a sovereign nation. Happy Malaysia Day everyone!

Group Photo @ 2nd RV

We missed Saturday ride due to the rain and the weather didn't get any better on Sunday either.

It was gloomy Sunday morning. The road was slightly wet because of the rain in wee hours just before dawn.

You don’t see a lot of movies about cycling races made, perhaps cycling it is  not such a popular genre or less appealing compared other high grossing movies.

The list below is my  all time best cycling movies.

Alhamdulillah, soon Muslims across the world will be celebrating Aidilfitri (Eid Ul Fitri), marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.  CA's and I, would like to seek forgiveness for any offense that might have be done unconsciously through this blog, or when replying to comments.

We wish all of you a meaningful celebration with friends, family and loved ones. For those who are travelling back to hometowns, please be careful and watch out your diet!

We're coming to the last week of the holy month Ramadan and soon we'll be celebrating the Eid Mubarak. During the previous years we used to have night rides on Friday and/or Saturday nights to satiate the addiction to cycling.  This year however we seemed to have chosen to hanged our bikes for a good 4 weeks. That is a one costly long break.

To start back cycling is going to be really tough. The reason being is that when you stop exercising, you are going to lose your muscle, regardless of the amount of hard work and long hours spent on the wheels beforehand. This a one of the common situations that any cycling addicts or enthusiasts pass through at some point in their lives.

While the reasons for long breaks varies and could be due to accidents, domestic problems or just taking a break (while trying to figure out new hobbies), I'm just going to share my thoughts about getting back on bikes after the Ramadan break.

One of the worst thing that could happened during any recovery program is you're hit by another injury while in process of getting back into shape. That happened to me when I participated in the office games,  last Friday, during a tug of war match.

The Sunday’s ride route was Putrajaya. The original ride plan was to ride on the SKVE towards Cyberjaya through the B15 road up until the Putrajaya exit. From here we were supposed to ride through the Persiaran Selatan’s road passing through Desa Pinggiran Putra, climbing the Bukit Wawasan (nickname "The Dreaded Hill" - Bukit Malang) until the Lebuh Perdana Timur exit, heading towards the Diplomatic Precinct.

Since some of us need to get home before 11am, we had to revised the plan to the “Chicken Route”. Instead of cycling to the B15, we cut it short by taking the Putrajaya’s Persiaran Utara and on to the Persiaran Timur, PICC, Dataran Putra and the final destination was the Diplomatic Precinct.