The Malaysian Foldie issue 16, December 2014 | Page 4

CRUISIN'

Ride review

Foldie's open day

Ipoh's folding bike community organizes a get-together, ride and training session at their home base..

FELLOWSHIP OF FOLDIES: The cyclists posing in front of Ipoh's Railway station.

The Ipoh Foldies are a group of highly-disciplined folding bike enthusiasts.

There are more than 50 people in the group consisting two smaller sub-groups.

They've merged to co-exist as a larger cycling peer group and is experiencing rapid growth in terms of membership.

I worked with their defactor leader Mohd Azam Azimi on conducting a workshop and ride in order to get the good folks of Ipoh to understand more about folding bikes. We have a three-session talk on folding bikes. First-off, folding bike for beginners where I would lead off with a slide show and lecture.

This is followed by an experience-sharing session by my cycling buddy Mohd Radzi Md Nor and the last session is by Master Mechanic Johnny Ng of My Bicycle Shop. His practical session is about bike-tuning.

Azam spear-headed the programme by enlisting some of the Ipoh Foldies members who are staff with the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

We've secured a lecture room at the KBS centre near the Indera Mulia Stadium in Ipoh, which is roughly about a 5km ride from the train station.

To get things going, I booked the train tickets for my team of four, and hotel in Fair Park, with some help from Uncle John Cheong, a cycling buddy of ours.

Unfortunately, due to personal commitments, Uncle John couldn't join us for the ride.