CRUISIN'
Ride review
Ipoh: An electric rail experience
The Malaysian Foldies and My Bicycle Shop's outing in Ipoh demonstrates the mobility of a folding bike in out of town excursions..
I was asked by Johnny Ng of My Bicycle Shop to organize a follow-up on their successful outing to Ipoh last year.
The shop arranged for 20 cyclists from KL to travel to Ipoh where the town's own foldies had led a ride around the historical area.
That said, I worked with my buddy Eddie to arrange for a group discount for ETS tickets from KL Sentral to Ipoh.
We managed to get 25% off the Gold Class ETS tickets and the number of people traveling via train to Ipoh was 10.
This was a manageable number and in terms of logistics, the plan was to meet at KL Sentral and board the ETS on Platform
A in the station.
I had Uncle John Pah to thank for booking us a night's stay at the Fair Park hotel.
This place is about 15-minutes ride away from the Ipoh train station and is very near the Indera Mulia Stadium.
We booked about 10 rooms, narrowed down to eight after four fellas decided to drop out from the trip.
This is usually expected when people came up with plans of their own.
That said, I rode out towards KL on the morning of the event. It rained, so, I diverted to the Subang Jaya KTM Komuter station
instead.
It took me about 25-minutes to arrive in KL Sentral where the group was already waiting.
They had an early lunch at McDonalds, a place that I would usually wait for my riding buddies on my tours to Southern
Thailand.
I handed over the train tickets and went up to the departure area.
There, I met Yun, a fellow bikepacker who was already waiting with his bike.
We had lunch at KFCs and prior to departure, I met up with Siti Ayu, a KTMB staff who arranged for the tickets.
She explained about the boarding procedures which I am too familiar with and I assured her about the publicity that will
follow-up after the ride.