Audax Malaysia BRM200 & randonneuring (1 of 2)

Part 1

The history of recorded long distance cycling goes as far back as 1897. Until 1904 Henri Desgrange wrote the first Audax rules on his newspaper titled Auto. Other places in the world have also started long distance cycling at the time, just too many to mention here. You can check it out in Wikipedia for more info:-

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randonneuring

Audax or randonneuring is relatively new in Malaysia and not official yet with Audax committee or ACP (Audax Club Parisien). To my knowledge this is still in progress.


The BRM200 (Brevets des Randonneurs Malaysia) was the first ever organised by Audax Malaysia. However they are not the first club to organise long distance cycling in Malaysia. To my knowledge there are also Megabike's interstate, CFAL tristate and also PCC Interstate. As Audax is a self supported ride, organizers need not arrange accommodation or support vehicles for the riders. So a small part of me was expecting a rather challenging route, at least in terms of elevation. 

The route plotted by the Audax committee starts from KFC Jalan Kapar. The first checkpoint is at McDonald's Sg Besar @ km80 and following that is BHP petrol station located in Felda Kg Soeharto @ km130. Audax riders are required to stamp their brevet card, which entails a total of 4 stamps / checkpoints over the 225km course. 

On that morning, I started late around 5.30am thanks to my GPS which showed another KFC in Klang. As I had to rush off to catch up with the rest, I had little breakfast and by km33 I was already hungry for some solid food so I stopped to eat. That was my only stop prior to reaching McDonald's Sg Besar which was around 10am. My pace was rather slow (most of the time I was below 30km/h). After refueling at the Petronas next to McD Sg Besar I continued and I was quite fortunate to have met LACC peloton (Lesen Agung Cycling Club) which kept me company during my journey to Felda Kg Soeharto. Somewhere along the way, I had to drop from the peloton as I could not keep up with their speed. They were cruising at 35km/h on the flats and I didn't train myself to maintain that kind of speed and cadence. 

The very least, I covered more than half of the silent road heading to Felda Kg Soeharto. It was hot due that time (after leaving Sg Besar the sun was already up, and I could feel the heat even with my long sleeve shirt under my bbcc jersey.

By the time I reached BHP petrol station in Kg Soeharto my watch was already indicating it was 1pm. The group that I planned to ride with - Janice, Cky, Denny, Ricky and Danny - were already done with lunch and was about to head out.

Little that I knew that Faye, Edy and Nixon were not far behind me. They arrived a few minutes after me and all I had to do was to wait for them to finish up with lunch and after that we rode together until we reached pekan Kapar (Kapar has a 2nd town, located north from Kapar town).

Actually Faye sustained some minor injuries as she was hit by another rider, who was hit by a car. Lucky she was wearing long pants, else her injuries could have been worse. At some point on the road heading to Kapar I was mentally exhausted (km190) and figured if I don't pick up my pace, not only will I exceed the time limit - I would also be very hungry and there is no more time for a meal break.

I broke away from Faye, Edy and Nixon in the last 25km and was alone again, until I caught up with Danny somewhere near Jalan Kapar (the last stretch to reach KFC).

I arrived KFC Jalan Kapar around 6.15pm. My total time was 12 hours and 45 minutes. I have to admit that that the single-state ride was tough because of the heat. Lucky for me by 530pm it wasn't so hot, which allowed me to grind my gears in the last 10km.

It's tough if you are alone, and that's what self supported ride means. There will be opportunities for you to make the ride much more bearable, like cycling in a peloton or going faster on the downhill sections.

I also noticed a lot of riders whom had punctures. Some had twice or perhaps even more. In some ways it was inevitable, since there were plenty of sharp rocks and debris on the emergency lane due to construction. Some parts of the road from Puncak Alam was under construction, which meant riding on uneven tarmac and jagged terrain.

It was undoubtedly a good experience, but could have been better. The only time where the road was quiet ie no cars was when we were passing by the Felda route (Felda Kg Soeharto and Felda Sg Tengi). Other than that, there were plenty of lorries and cars almost the entire time. I'm actually fine by that, but noticing that there were some ladies amongst the riders it still is a point to be concerned about (as a fellow cyclist).