Malaysia - Heading North; The Basikal

Talk with me people, back me up.

I've had to write this blog post three times due to malities over the Internet. Tell me there is nothing more frustrating than sculpting a sentence only to have it wash away like so many etch-a-sketch shakings. Disappointing, frustrating, but the writing must go on.

The journey of the cycling anthropologist continues. 

Up, through Malacca and port Klang to the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital city. We could have trained the ride back up north (a good idea considering the 500PSI haze) but there is something romantic in the practice of continuing my travels completely via bicycle. No planes, no, trains, and no buses. 

Finally, after a week and a half of riding back up, we're now making forward progress again. Time is no longer redundant in relation to direction. 

The Basikal, a start up bicycle and coffee shop on the University of Malaysia campus (UPM), it is your best bet in the state to overhaul that rickety bike. The shop has also been our home for three nights.

This is Akmal, the founder and manager of the Basikal. Besides running the show, he's a grad student at UPM, a family man, and great adopter of stray cats. More on that in a moment. He is also an inconspicuously fast cyclist. 

An army of fold up bikes! You may recal from one of my first blog posts just how popular the fold up style bikes are in Asia. Really, they are everywhere. Akmal even tours on one.

Ahhhh, memories. Chris on his first fold up bike. Ever. 

Now when it comes to bike shops, there are hundreds of thousands - and each one is different, each one has it's reasons for coming back. In the case of Basikal, it's the multiplicity of adopted cats roaming around, inquiring on your mechanical repairs, wondering when you'll take a brake and pull some yarn down a tiled hallway - thats what makes this place stand apart in a very homey kind of way. Determining just how many cats there are is difficult because, yes, there are so many of them but also due to the apparent fact that almost all are kin, and look so alike.

And then there is the forlorn story of Lefty the cat. Lefty, it is assumed, had its paw run over by a car. Attached but hardly in working order, the vetenarian said the appendage must be amputated. After a second visit, the arm is doing better as you can sort of see. Still, I have to laugh. The bandage is bigger than he is! You can imagine small little Lefty walking down the shop dragging this large physical burden behind him.

As the line of tools mounted on the wall behind Lefty suggests, the Basikal shop is really well equipped. A complete set of Park tools and more, I was finally able to perfectly align my derailleur hanger and rear fork (you'll remember my accident back on Sumatra).

In servicing by bike, I called for help in removing the bolt covering my bottom bracket. Quick lesson, the bb is the mechanism that the pedals revolve around; the axis. Removing the damn thing took an hour an a half, two and a half men plus a cheater bar. When we finally wrenched the bb open, we understood why. The componant was thoroughly rusted shut; its condition warranted its own replacement. 

Upon closer inspection. You can see along the sides where the bolt began to strip. Against a striped bolt and a rusted bb, cycling would have been unfavorable and hazardous to continue ignored. 

And on a seperate but similar tangent, look at what my sister found when she serviced a bb back in the States!

And while I was at replacing my bb, I asked Akmal if there were any spare rims I might use. I had been unfortunatly riding on an unfixable front wheel hop since a pot hole came up unexpectedly all the way back on the island of Java. He poked around the shop for a bit, and as we kept putting things on and taking thkngs off to clean, my replacement list grew. New rims (that upgraded me to a thirty-six spoke wall from a thirty-two; also providing the option for a four weave spoke pattern,which I took, upgrading me from a three weave), new set of hubs, new spokes and nipples, and tires. 

A new wheel set, a clean and polished frame, calibrated brakes, and used but new to me rear cassette (I was begging for larger gear ratios to give extra cadence to those hill climbs on the nastier side) gave me no excuse but to start riding my bike with attitude and confidence. Three days on the shoulder high bike stand, she was dying to ride. 

And where better to ride than to all the different food options! Here are my favorites (before leaving UPM campus to visit my friend Steve, who has been visiting family and such, in Kuala Lumpur proper).

 

Indian Muslims, or Mamaks as they are referred to, run joints like this. Grab some rice and load up on all the curry, meat and vegitables you can eat! They charge by number of samples, not quantity of samples - so stock up!!

Always room for dessert. These are a specialty favorite of everyone. Coconut milkshakes with scopes of icecerem on top. At eighty cents per, you can't just have one.

A variety of ice cream flavors to enjoy. One of my favorites pictured here: thin mint.

What's that you say? Why be normal? You're right. Give me an off-the-menu mango milkshake and forgo the plain vanilla for caramel, yam, and mint flavored ice cream. Yeah...let me put it like this. Or, rather, my ex girlfriend. She used to tease me with saying, "there are two types of people in this world. People who love chocolate and people who love flavors. Face it babe, you're just a flavors guy!" Color me conceded.

That's garlic and cheese nan, man. Good for the body, better for the soul.

And we even cooked at the shop. Theee days of stripping, cleaning, lining, lubing, reattaching, more cleaning, movie break, adjusting, playing with cats and testing our bikes - so the home cooked food interruptions were well welcomed. 

(Thank goodness they had a real coffee machine). It's a real problem for if I had something I complain about. All, all of the coffee here is instant; not that great, could be worse.

All done for now. Another big thank you to Akmal and sister, best to Lefty. 

We depart UPM campus to ride North into the conjested, crowded, bike unfriendly Kuala Lumpur; the last place we would accompany our good friend Steve for a good while, perhaps (but hopefully not) ever.

-A