My 2016 Cycling Diary

Am I still blogging my last years blog list? Haha, indeed! Despite having an abroad cycling and sight seeing trip earlier last year, I did 3 more state trips and event. Did signed up some in town event, but many I didn't turn up. *shy*

1. Campaign for a Lane (CFAL-8) - Round Penang Island 80+KM

• All trips must be accompanied by food trips, a local village or new discovered place to visit
• Along the way, we stopped breakfast at Gopeng Market food court, stopped by Ipoh for biscuit and muruku shopping
• Detoured to Kuala Kurau, continued shopping for salted eggs

瓜拉古樓對面港西亞煎

• Kinda missed the fried prawn cake a.k.a 煎餅, ice kacang

Kedai Kopi Kean Seng Lee（建成利茶室）

• Then we discovered some nice and fresh chilli assam fried crab 蟹爪, right behind this coffee shop where we sat
• Though it was spicy (for me), it was really good and tasty!! Finger licking good!

Fried prawn cake

Ice Kacang

Chilli Crab

• CFAL8 - the ride... I was slightly prepared this time (did I mentioned I gave up the ride last year even though I am a registered rider) haha!
• Yeah, I was more prepared this time as I've got my new bike... just a month before this event
• I was rather nervous, as I had never rode on a road bike before.... [if you can imagine how nervous I am... I couldn't start pedal for the first 30min when I was on it]
• I was glad to chose a KOM bike, plus this experience with CFAL8.. guess I will continue to choose a KOM bike [if I have a choice again next time]
• I almost cried when I completed the ride!
• We started pretty late that morning, as the flag off location wasn't clear to most participants, by the time we passed through the flag off banner, most official were off... made the road pretty empty... it was nice, until the very last part at Batu Ferringgi, the sun was extremely hot and traffic were bad, anyway... I managed to finish the whole journey, arrived back with my participation medal
• Weather that morning - drizzle rain and heavy rain right after we arrived at the finisher
• To do list - checked!! 
• My legs were badly hurt, due to my badly design cycling pants .. with blisters and scar up till today [that was sad] :(

CFAL 8 Route

My blister

Medan Selera Taman Free School (大英义园小贩中心)

• We stayed near Taman Free School, hence our late lunch was nearby
• Quite a good variety of food, and it was easy to get seat that Sunday, as compared to other famous food center
• Fried Chicken, Lobak and a fat noodle dish

Late lunch

Thean Sean Food Court

• Dinner we rejoined the group
• Good variety but nothing to shout for the food

Dinner

• We walked back to Taman Free School market the next morning, had breakfast at their market stalls instead
• very nice discovery.... Apam Balik with corn and peanut crush was really nice, local said a good apam must have "honey comb" view from the side profile
• Penang Hokkien Mee a.k.a. prawn mee and duck noodle was good too

Breakfast

Kedai Makanan Lidiana

• Lastly, before we leave the island, a local friend introduced us Malay chap-fun (mixed rice)
• Very special and nice to have a different food variety [reminded me of those lunch days with my colleagues at BSN ikan bakar at least 15 years ago]

Tasty mixed rice

Scenic Penang island - Balik Pulau

2. Melaka International Century Ride (MiCR) - ever famous event where the organiser went missing 5 days before the event :D

• Our car journey began 7am, straight till Muar for breakfast
• Hang around the small town, for coffee, food street, spices shopping and famous otak-otak [a.k.a. steamed fish paste] shopping, before heading to another small town of Johor, namely Tangkak
• We stayed there for a night... even though the century ride was not on... we headed the smaller route on our own, all till the 'supposed' race kit collection location and return

Sai Kee Kopi 434

• Yes! Breakfast with Muar local coffee
• Supposed to eat light, but we all ordered just too much
• Tried their otak-otak nasi lemak - nothing to shout actually

Muar Coffee

Otak - Otak Nasi Lemak

 Glutton Street

• Since we were all stuffed, we walked around and ended up at a food street
• Lots of food, where some hawkers had their stall along the road
• We bought some street foods to share - O-chien [a.k.a Egg Oysters], duck meat, Chinese cup cake 

Many eggs

O-Chien

麻坡阿梅乌打 Cheng Boi Otak - Otak

• It was the highlight of Muar - Otak-Otak
• We packed some for our tea time, and got those frozen type for our 'food souvenir' back home

Otak otak shop

Tangkak Beef Noodles (Kuang Fei)

• Upon checking in our 4 rooms homestay (right above shop lot), we walked just across the street for tea-time
• Famous Tangkak beef noodle, main a.k.a. HQ shop manned by the owner (or family) himself
• Indeed very tasty but the price can be at a high side

Tangkak Beef noodle

Full of beef than noodle

yi long bakery & confectionary

• Right next to the beef noodle shop, there was a very famous biscuit shop... in which we initially tried to queue up for their biscuit, but gave up after 20min
• Went to another competitor shop next door, tried their famous winter melon biscuit, apparently it wasn't bad too
• The freshly baked biscuit taste like pineapple tart.. crust filled with not-too-sweet winter melon

Winter melon biscuit

上海滩海鲜酒楼

• With google's help, apparently there was only 2 decent Chinese restaurants in Tangkak
• We choose the one which is further, and best part was - we decided to walk all the way about 1KM for our dinner; as we were unprepared for the ever busy main road of Tangkak (apparently was only on a Saturday)
• Small town foods always taste good... we all like the dishes, as they were quite special [but I can't remember the taste now :)]

Our dinner

Vietnam Delight

• As we cycled from Tangkak, Johor to Jasin, Melaka... our destination was the race kit collection point
• Upon reaching the destination, we stumbled around for breakfast, found this Vietnamese noodle place just 100m away from the community hall
• Curry laksa was superb! Vietnamese coffee was nice too 

Gunung Ledang

• A place which I had heard a lot since school days - puteri Gunung Ledang
• We passed by a sight overlooking the hill
• The place was scenic, and due to Sunday, traffic was extremely good, we met only 1 lorry and handful of cars
• We made a loop from Tangkak to Jasin and return, it was a short 36KM ride

My ride

Tangka - Jasin

Autumn Homestay

• I found this place from AirBnB, to be exact - we rented the whole house consist of 6 rooms a bangalow; it was a blessing that the owner has a smaller unit with 4 rooms, since half the group gave a pass for our scenic and food lover trip after the cancellation announcement for MiCR
• 4 couples, just nice for 4 rooms and a huge common area, nice and clean complete kitchen; particularly like the stay except for the inconvenient of carrying our bikes up to the stay, and having to wear slippers around the house [open aired home = dusty floor]

Nice stay

东海海鲜酒楼

• Last before we left home, a friend met his old school friend for lunch, invited us all too
• Such a nice man and his daughter.. allowed us to try both Chinese restaurant in Tangkak
• Dishes were nice too

Lunch

3. Active Cycle Penang Ride (APCR) - Penang InLand round trip 80+KM

• The trip was just 2 of us, no other friends signed up
• I booked a room just near Juru [via airBnB], near Auto City which was the flag off point
• The stay was just alright, we had the home by ourselves and another Thai gal housemate; unfortunately the room and house wasn't tidy and clean, anyway, it was just a short night stay
• As usual, our journey will bring us stopped somewhere, we choose Ipoh for lunch

Icy watering dessert

Design Village

• Visited newly opened an outdoor Outlet Mall, Design Village about 20KM away from Juru
• Shopping was alright, I was happy to get myself a SuperDry Tee

Nice tutu train

Met snow man

Scenic night

佳香饭店

• We drove another 30min inclusive traffic for this crab rice
• The wait was extremely long for this dish... though it was good, but we almost gave up considering our tiredness and plan to call the day slightly earlier that night
• Nevertheless, we still completed the meal, those we noticed the crab + rice doesn't really cooked in the claypot itself :P

Crab rice

Auto-City Concept Hall

• Collected this medal as the closing event ride for 2016
• Overall Howei organise had done good job, we liked both Penang events organised by them
• We almost gave up the ride, as it was raining since that very early morning... till 630 we decided to make it for flag off, geee :D [lazy butt]
• I didn't expect any elevation climb, but there was!! and was around the grave yards
• Along the way, we saw lots of paddy fields

My finisher medal

The concept Hall

My RideSync capture

Limau Tambun Niu Kee

• On the way home, we decided to stop by Tambun, which is near the highway instead of heading in Ipoh town city
• At the same time hunt for fresh and cheaper pamelo - ta da!! discovered a new place which served good coffee and taufufa

Shopping

Pasar Awam Ampang Baru

• Before heading out to the highway, we discovered another place where local goes for afternoon tea or late lunch
• An auntie started business around 3pm, at the market hawker stall selling fried rice cake Kueh-Kak, it was exceptionally tasty.. [the taste of char-wok]

Delicious Kueh-Kak

End of trips report.. I wonder if I will have any different town to visit in coming year 2017.
Looking forward for a fruitful year ahead...