I am still alive! Didn't post anything for the past month, well because I didn't do much except changing to a new set of Pirelli Diablo Supercorsas. More about tyres in another post. So today, the gang minus Edwin took a day trip to Malacca. Here's the route we took to Malacca, reverse that for our route back to Singapore. Google Maps calculated a distance of 229km up and the same 229km back to Singapore.
The day started off with everyone waking up late and we left my place at 8.30am, 30 minutes late. Then I missed the entrance onto the expressway to Singapore Customs haha. After an eventful start, the trip was pretty much peaceful until breakfast. Went to Old Town White Coffee again because we were lazy and didn't want to think where to go for breakfast. I think they changed the menu or is this the breakfast menu?
Got myself a Nasi Lemak with Fried Chicken, coupled with a cup of hot black coffee.
Okay, I admit I took a few bites out of it before I remembered to take a photo. Not particularly cheap for a Malaysian meal but heck, it was still cheaper than Singapore prices. Tummies filled and we were all ready for the 229km trip ahead of us.
If you see the picture of the route, our route is mostly on the North-South highway until we eventually exit for Malacca. Oh by the way, there are 2 ways to spell the city's name. Melaka is the Malaysian name, whereas Malacca is the English name. Okay, back to the ride. The traffic was smooth with occasional slowing down due to idiots who move into our lane and maintain their slow-ass speeds. It got a little tiring after about 100km at highway speeds, my hands were going numb. It was as if I was holding on to 2 vibrating dildos. Eric was apparently fatigued too, even in his comfortable car with air conditioning. Why? His new tyres were producing too much noise haha. Mid-trip, we exited the highway and stopped at an R&R stop for drinks.
15 minutes later, we were back on the highway. This second leg of the trip up was pretty fun. Firstly, our gang of 3 bikes increased to 4 when a Malaysian biker on an R1 with no number plates decided to join us and he stayed with our convoy formation for a while before he decided we were too slow for him. Judging from his big duffel bag, I reckon he had his leather suit inside and he was heading for Sepang Circuit, or maybe he just likes big duffel bags.
Another 100 odd kilometres or so, and we finally exited the highway after seeing the sign that read 'Melaka'. That brought us to a toll gate and once again, it's free for bikes yay! Seeing the change in landscape, I figured we were just outside Malacca and signalled the convoy to stop for photos.
After taking those photos, Eric walked over and said the 'Welcome to Melaka' sign is just up ahead. Oh well, at least I remembered to take photos! So we donned our gears and went in search of our photo-worthy sign. 2 minutes later...
The red lights in Malacca are horrendously long, we were literally cooked to well done perfection under the scorching sun. It took us 45 minutes just to traverse 9km in the city, crazy! There were a lot of people and tourists, and the streets were packed with cars, probably due to the Hari Raya week. There was no space to park near this chicken rice ball stall we wanted to try, we gave up searching for a parking space and settled at this small stall by the river.
Best to keep your cars and motorcycles in your view at all times in Malaysia. The short time we were there having our food, a lot of passers-by stopped to look at our second wifes. Well maybe because they admired them, but we were not taking any chances, too many friends of mine lost their bikes in Malaysia. After the light and late lunch, we decided to head back to Singapore. It was about 3pm, after a final fill up at the nearby Shell station, we set off for the road home at about 3.30pm.
The only eventful thing that happened was during our mid-way stop at an R&R stop. I accidentally entered the female toilet without knowing and I was changing my top. The lady manning the toilets did not say anything but just stood outside watching me change. Until a woman came out from one of the cubicles, then did I realise what happened. Geez!
About 2 hours of hard acceleration and braking, we finally reached our favourite petrol kiosk. The Second Link Shell station!
Full fuel tanks, a short rest for drinks and we headed back to Singapore. Good ride! That's all for this post and stay tuned for my next post. Ride safe!
I recently ordered a set of brake reservoir socks with embroidered Yamaha logos. Went to a lot of places, from motorcycle shops to clothing shops, looking for the perfect pair of socks. I had no luck in the search until Eric pointed out to me that I forgot about the biggest shop in the world, eBay.
It didn't take me long to figure out that they were called brake reservoir socks. At first, I thought they were called wristbands. With my new-found knowledge, I got very good search results and in no time, I found the perfect pair of socks. In case you are wondering why I keep saying pair, it's because I'm referring to both front and rear brake reservoir socks.
My purchase arrived about 2 days ago.
Lovely, isn't it. And don't be silly, of course I removed my address. Wouldn't want fans to appear at my door every day.
And the contents.
It came with free ear plugs! Though I wouldn't use them, they are okay for the less choosy I suppose.
There was one thing that really gave me a good surprise. The front brake reservoir sock is also a small zip pouch! And I currently use it to store my ear plugs. Such ingenuity and convenience!
The embroidery is high quality for an eBay product, not that I'm condemning eBay. But it exceeded my expectations, especially after a few disappointments in the past.
So comes the important question. How much was it? It was £9.99 GBP for the socks and £2.50 GBP for shipping from the UK. That equates to about SGD$24. Not very cheap, but considering the fact that it's almost impossible to find it here in Singapore, I say the price is pretty reasonable.
Here are pictures of the socks on my bike. Beautiful embroidery!
If you would like to know who this seller is on eBay, please leave a comment and I'll get back to you.
2 things happened to me, or rather my R6, 2 weeks ago. One of which was so bizarre, that until today, I still have no idea what happened and how.
2 Sundays ago, I started my bike and rode out of the car park. As I approached the minor road exiting the car park, I flipped my signal light switch to the right. Looked down at my dashboard and there was no indicator showing that my right signal light was on. I leaned forward to the right of my fuel tank and indeed, my right signal light was not blinking.
Flipped my signal light to the left and again nothing. The strange thing was that my neutral gear indicator was working. My speedometer and tachometer were all working fine. I was running late, so I ignored that and assumed that one of my signal light bulbs died. As I was merging into the highway, a thought came to my mind. There was still one indicator light on my dashboard that I had not tested, my gear shift light.
First gear at 50km/h, I opened my throttle. Hard. As the RPMs rose to my preset gear shift at 14k RPMs, the indicator started blinking. Yay! Then, all of my sudden, my RPMs dropped! I was losing speed fast! I looked down at my dashboard and it gave me the shock of my life. All the lights went out, as if there was some sort of power failure. I quickly counter steered by pushing my left clip-on and veered the bike to the road shoulder. Just as I entered the road shoulder, a delivery van zoomed past on my right. If I didn't enter the road shoulder, the van would have ran over me. Some drivers are just idiots.
I slowly braked my bike to a halt. Lifted up my visor, stared at my dashboard and noticed something you wouldn't believe. My key was in the OFF position. How the hell??? I turned the key to the ON position and cranked the starter. The R6 roared back to life and my hazard lights came on. This time, my signal light indicators were working. Checked the indicators by flipping the signal light switch to the left and right, and the indicators were working fine.
I gave it much thought (all 27 seconds of it) and attributed the bizarre occurrence to either of the following 3 explanations:
1. I somehow managed to start the bike with the key in the OFF position. (Tried that a couple of times after but didn't get it to start)
2. I started the bike with the key in the ON position but then somehow, the vibrations from the monstrous 599cc engine shook the key to the OFF position. (Ridiculous but I like this explanation)
3. The key was in between the OFF and ON position when I started the bike and once again, the monstrous 599cc engine shook the key to the OFF position. (Didn't try this, anyone care to try it and confirm?)
The last explanation is probably the most plausible. I would assume that the electrical circuits are half active with the key in between the ON and OFF position. That would explain me being able to start the engine but not have the signal lights working.
If you have any inkling as to what happened, please leave a comment.
As for the second unlucky incident that happened to me. Well, a picture speaks a thousand words.
This paragraph was just added because Eric commented below why I didn't mention him haha. The tyre was too deflated to be ridden. Eric, my knight in shining red armour dropped by and helped to inflate it with his electronic air pump before I could go ride it as fast as I could to the nearest repair shop.
Fixed that at a nearby motorcycle repair shop with a tyre plug for SGD$5, heh.
Oh, and that first incident happened again this week. This time, I noticed the key in the OFF position and quickly switched it to ON, with the engine running. Weird indeed.
That's all for this post. Review on my recent brake reservoir sock purchase coming up!
Finally, our next touring trip arrived. This time, we decided to spare a little thought for Eric's toll fees. Cars do not enjoy free tolls on the highway as compared to motorcycles haha. The route we took was twisty and pretty fun, that is if you don't get stuck behind trucks. In our case, we consistently got stuck behind trucks and got caught in a thunderstorm.
This is the route we took.
We were supposed to meet at 7.30am last Saturday, but Rafie dreamt that it was raining and overslept so we met at 8am instead. Can't really blame him, it has been raining almost everyday for the past 2 weeks. Met up at 8am at my place, passed my rain pants to Eric as I wore the rain jacket and off we went, heading to the Woodlands checkpoint.
Nothing dramatic on the ride towards the checkpoint. But while riding on the causeway towards the Johor Customs, I managed to see Eric's car stuck in the massive traffic jam haha. Rafie and I cleared the Johor Customs and parked our bikes by the side. I texted Eric to text back when he was 5 minutes away from clearing the Customs, our plan was to meet about 500m after clearing the Customs. Not long after, he replied, we hopped back onto our bikes and met up at our designated meeting point.
Rode for about 2km before reaching a Shell petrol kiosk, filled our babies with full tanks of Malaysian petrol and got back onto the road. That was not before I passed Eric the rain jacket I was wearing, it was so hot I was dripping sweat out of my sleeves.
We stopped by an Old Town White Coffee outlet just 10 minutes from the petrol kiosk for breakfast.
Filled our tummies and we were ready for the trip that lied ahead of us. Very twisty roads with the occasional straight for a quick handful of throttle. The traffic was not in our favour most of the time, the road was actually rather packed for a Saturday morning. With just one lane wide in each direction, we often found ourselves stuck behind slower vehicles. Since Eric was with us, we had to make sure that he was able to overtake safely before we followed suit. The roads actually reminded me of this famous place called The Snake, in Mulholland, California. Watch riders carving up The Snake in this video.
To help you visualize the route we took to Mersing, add some slow cars, trucks and longer straights. Oh and also, you'll probably be the only ones riding bikes above 400cc, the majority of local riders in this part of Malaysia favour scooters. Nevertheless, it was still a pretty fun road to ride on, especially when there was no traffic. Eric would often pull ahead of us in the corners, and I have two excuses for that. One, the road was not very rider friendly, I would not recommend riding at a fast pace, you have to watch out for potholes and bumps. Two, we were only wearing jeans, not exactly the kind of material I want to be touching the tarmac haha.
From the petrol kiosk to Mersing, my odometer clocked about 105km. It was about 12pm when we got there, not too shabby, despite the unexpected traffic. And the first place we went to? The beach of course! How can a road trip be a road trip without a stop at a beach haha!
Eric has been to Mersing before and he went to a nice seafood restaurant the last time. Sadly, we did not have the fortune of going there because he forgot how to go there, argh! So, we settled for the next best option we had, Kentucky Fried Chicken! When we stepped into the KFC outlet, we knew something was amiss, the outlet was suffering from a power outage, doh! Everything was not working, the air conditioning, the lights, the soft drink dispenser... blah blah. We found ourselves a nice cozy corner where we could see our vehicles and I went to see what they could still sell. Since everyone wasn't that hungry, I bought some orange juice for everyone. Thank god, they still had ice.
It was about 1.30pm and we decided to leave. Stepped outside, wore our helmets and it started to pour. Plan B, back to KFC. We spent the next hour sitting inside the KFC outlet, playing Logos Quiz. Just imagine, 3 grown men, staring at an iPhone, debating what that logo could be.
2.30pm and the skies were clearing up. The rain stopped and once again, we got back on the road. Not before refuelling, of course.
Just moments after we set off, the rain came pouring down. Hard. Sucked it up and wore my rain jacket, decided not to wear the rain pants because it was too troublesome with my riding boots on.
We took a longer route back, but the next 2 hours of riding was not exactly enjoyable. The rain was so heavy, I could barely see Rafie's tail lights in front of me. I was last in the convoy, Eric was leading the way as usual. Throughout most of the journey, we kept to about 70km/h. After about 80km of riding, we got out from under the gigantic rain cloud and my jeans started to dry. Our pace picked up and we started overtaking every vehicle.
That luxury did not last though. Another 30km later, our route brought us back under the rain cloud, and my jeans got wet again damn it. This time, even though it was still pouring, we carried on overtaking vehicles. It was dangerous but I found out that Pirelli Diablo Supercorsas are actually pretty decent under hard braking on flooded roads haha. That experience substantially improved my confidence in the tyres in wet conditions.
Finally, we reached the outskirts of Kluang. We stopped at a petrol kiosk because Rafie earlier signalled that he needed to pee haha. Weather was dry and good but our sport bikes became dirt bikes, literally. Our rides were covered with mud and rain stains, argh!
Rafie's riding boots were close to disintegration at this point. It was a miracle the boots held up for so long in that atrocious condition haha. Quickly snapped a photo before we headed for the final leg of the trip; the spirited blast down the North South highway to the Second Link rest stop.
Not much happening in Kluang except horrendously heavy traffic and long waiting times for traffic lights to change.
I missed the motorcycle path at the tolls before the NSH and went to the car toll gate. Rafie had no choice but to follow haha. The barrier was up so my plan was to ride past the toll gate since motorcycles did not have to pay for that toll anyway. But Rafie suddenly stopped his bike and I nearly rammed into him, phew. And the reason he stopped? He wanted to top up his Touch 'n Go card, but I did not know that until much later at our rest stop. All this while, I was stopped beside him wondering what he was trying to do.
During this time, a police patrol car came up behind us and said something to Rafie. At first he thought the police officer wanted to talk to us for going into the wrong toll gate, so we rode to the road shoulder and parked there. The police officer then drove past us and entered the NSH. I was puzzled and we later figured that maybe the police officer was telling him not to stop at the toll gate and stop at the road shoulder if we wanted to continue our conversation haha.
Whatever haha. We carried on onto NSH and went WOT. That stands for wide open throttle! I did not want to overtake Eric who was navigating so I stayed behind him. For his engine capacity, that little car can go pretty fast. I clocked a maximum of 215km/h behind him, which I supposed was his top speed. Rafie who somehow got left behind, had to catch up and he went almost flat out at 261km/h!
Very soon later, we reached our destination. Decided to leave our helmets, jackets and bags in Eric's boot before going to KFC for dinner. It was about 5pm then. Rafie and I went to wash our hands, then suddenly he realized that his wallet was not with him. Panicked and went back to Eric's car to check. He ransacked the boot and his bag but didn't find it. I suggested that perhaps he forgot his wallet at the hand washing area, seeing that he was busy ransacking the car, I ran back to KFC to look for it but to no avail.
It finally dawned on Rafie that he lost his wallet. Luckily he only had cash, his driving license and credit card in it. He promptly called the bank to cancel the credit card and I offered to buy him dinner. While Eric and I were queuing up to order our food, Rafie decided to go back to the car to have one last check. Guess what, he found the wallet blocked from view by a ledge in Eric's boot. What a klutz haha! Too bad he had already cancelled his credit card haha! And no free dinner for the klutz!
During dinner, Rafie was fooling around with his riding boots and he broke a piece of it from this right boot haha.
After dinner, we went to Shell to fill up one last full tank of Malaysian petrol and made our way back to Singapore. Oh and guess what, it rained again in Singapore. Gah!
I've had a series of unlucky events that happened last week, details in my next post. That's all for Mersing, ride safe!
Finally heeded the voices in my head and took a trip to Chiap Lee yesterday. Chiap Lee is the local distributor for Arai helmets. They have 2 showrooms, 590 Serangoon Road and 109 Jalan Besar. I went to the Jalan Besar showroom and found that that they have relocated. Well, they just moved across the road, to be beside Regina now. So, scratch that, it's not 109 Jalan Besar as stated on their website, it should be 159 Jalan Besar.
It was about 11am when I got there. I spent about 5 minutes in Regina first, looking at the AGV GP-Tech Elements helmet.
Was quoted SGD$880 for it. Personally, I like Rossi's helmet designs; very complicated and loud. So why didn't I get the AGV GP-Tech? I did some research online and discovered that, like my AGV K3, the GP-Tech's neckroll cannot be removed for washing. Trust me, after some mileage on helmets, that thing is gonna stink. The neckroll is the piece of lining that wraps around your neck, it's the first of the the helmet's lining that your head touches when you put on the helmet.
And there is this issue with AGV helmets at full tuck. During a full tuck posture, when you're peering through the top of the visor, a ridge at the top of the helmet's opening blocks the top half of your vision, which is extremely annoying and dangerous if you're a track amateur.
Okay, enough about the GP-Tech. I was about to cross the road to the old Chiap Lee showroom when I saw that they have moved over to the slot just beside Regina. Perfect! Walked in and went to the Arai helmets section, looking at all the available RX-7 RR5 designs. The Arai RX-7 RR5 is the same exact helmet as the European RX-7 GP and the North American Corsair V, just different marketing for the different regions.
I did my homework before this and measure my head's diameter. It's 57cm and that translates to a size M. There were only 2 staff in the shop, a middle aged man and a middle aged woman who I presumed was his wife. I vaguely remember the man's name to be something like Ying Leong, somewhere along the initials YL. The man attended to me and brought me a size M helmet for fitting. God, like all the online reviews say, it is pretty difficult to put on an Arai helmet. The neckroll is really tight but once you put on the helmet, it fits like a glove. Very comfortable and snug. I asked to try on a size L. It was easier to put on the larger helmet but it wasn't as comfortable. I recommend that you measure your head diameter before buying any helmets.
So it was down to choice of designs. I was stuck between choosing the Cal Crutchlow and the Nakano Sakura design.
The helmet retails for SGD$980 but because the Cal Crutchlow design uses the copyrighted Monster Energy logo, it costs an additional SGD$50, making it SGD$1030. To help me with my decision, I employed the help of Rafie and Eric through our Whatsapp chat group. To summarize, the Crutchlow design looks better but the Nakano design complements my bike and track suit. On top of that, Rafie already owns a HJC RPS-10 Ben Spies Monster helmet, I figured that our riding group has only enough space for 1 Monster Energy helmet haha. Which means, I bought the Arai RX-7 RR5 Nakano Sakura heh.
After I made my decision, the man called the Serangoon branch to bring over a brand new helmet. I was pretty excited when the dispatch rider delivered the Arai box. Inside the box, other than the helmet, you get an Arai helmet bag, some user manuals and an Arai sticker. The user manuals aren't too useful, because they are printed in Japanese but the detailed step-by-step instructional pictures should be sufficient.
I rode home with the new helmet and I discovered something very pleasing. The RX-7 RR5 is very quiet and the ventilation is top-notch. With all the vents opened, I could actually feel cool air circulating around my head. With great money, comes great products!
Here are some more photos of the helmet.
Allow me to show you something really cool. The Arai RX-7 RR5 has an adjustable spoiler at the back of the helmet! You would want it to be down when you're at full tuck and all the way up (4 clicks) when you doing straight up riding like on a super motard. I leave mine at 2 clicks up. The spoiler is supposed to help put down force onto your head, preventing your head from being dragged around by wind resistance.
Here's the spoiler at the highest position.
And at the lowest position.
Overall, I am very satisfied with this purchase. There are more features of the helmet that I have not described in my review. Do see the video review by Revzilla below.
Next task would be to see how the RX-7 RR5 performs on a race track. Till then, ride safe!
