As for the ride, we had Andrew Ng with his wife Hui Min, Patric Yee, an old kaki including Master TT Siang and his wife Angela.
All in, we had seven riders including Ah Pan and a 14-year-old kid.
The alarm clock blared at 05:00am.
I woke up and immediately packed my thermarest sleeping pad.
After a breakfast meeting with the rest of the exploration team, we set up our bikes.
This was also my first ride with the Ay-Up headlights which worked very well.
Felda Sertik which is situated some 9km from Sin Poh Farm is a nice place to ride.
The road was quiet with the occasional traffic from vehicles plying this route from Lanchang to Karak.
We re-group at the entrance to this Felda scheme and took some photos.
As we slowly rode towards the kampung, Ah Pan and the kid had sped off.
There was a BHP Petrol station here where one of the team members had made a toilet call.
We waited for a short while before moving along.
Sertik, as it seems, is a small self-sustained township linked by route C138 to the outside world..
Life on the slow lane
We had the opportunity to witness the slower pace in life as we rode past Kg Sertik.
Traffic was low here as we soaked in the beautiful rural scene with rubber plantations around us.
As we slowly moved to rejoin the Federal Road towards Felda Lakum, the terrain began to show its shapely contour.
This was no easy ride and definitely not for beginners.
From my Garmin EDGE800 GPS, I can see the constant 3 -5% gradient along the way.
Some parts of the route is long and steep while a short stretch was a downhill roll.
We made our way to a rest stop af Felda Lakum and had nasi lemak for breakfast.
At this point of the ride, we had progressed some 3 hours on the road and had ridden some 23km.
The nasi lemak was something we had looked forward to and lucky for me, the stall I picked turned out to be really good.
While we were parking our bikes, a shopkeeper had scolded Patric for taking pictures of her petrol kiosk. I don't know why the
woman had gone ballistic, but her neighbour, a lady who served us the nasi lemak was really nice.
Breakfast came up to RM32 for the entire group with drinks.
Continuing with the climb
After a good fill, we worked our way to Bukit Damar.
The contour of the road here can be clearly seen from a distance.
We worked on our cadence and slowly climbed the hills with gradients of 5%
Bukit Damar was in the horizon as we slowly rode into the Felda scheme.
It was a straight-forward ride as we cleared this satellite township and made our way out towards another slope.
So far, we have endured a lot of hills and the junction towards Kg Bolok, where the Kuala Gandah Elephant sanctuary is
located.
A decision
I discussed with the team on the prospect of doing another 10km of climbing and descent towards the Kuala Gandah Elephant
sanctuary.
Most had agreed as we proceeded to crank and crunch our gear on this hilly nature and wildlife sanctuary.
Our bikes were perfect for the road conditions.
At 06:30am sharp, we rode out towards a rubber plantation and made our way towards a fruit orchard some 1.5km away.
The coarse and loose gravel road had proven to be really tough as the tires couldn't get a good grip.
At certain sections, we had to push the bikes as it was next to impossible riding up the loose gravel.
Puncture was also a main concern, but most of the bikes were using a 20" Schwalbe Marathon Supreme tires.
The only small bike in the ride was Angela with her Curve SL.