Oh, what was it in the crazies inside me that thought something called Steroid Hill was a fun challenge for a Saturday morning?
Since I was last home, @ bit the cycling bug and bought a mountain bike, which meant two things. Uno, buying gifts for her birthday has gotten a lot easier. Dos, another item on the holiday to-do list for Summer 2009. As far as cycling went, you may know that I have become a keen cyclist over the past year or so, but when it comes to classifying the sport, I am more into road biking. How much different was mountain biking? Probably not much, I thought. What could be so difficult? Get on bike, pedal, move. Brake, stop. I’d been doing it for years…
Like most Malaysians of my generation, the bicycle was actually a plausible means of transport to and from school. Most of them were clunky metal contraptions that weighed slightly more than the kid riding on it, and some models even had a basket in front, lest said poor kid had to shoulder a very heavy book bag. And dear me, was it heavy in those days or was it heavy! But school buses were mainly for the rich (or urban) kids, and just as sunlight began to kiss the treetops of Bangi, a flurry of kids in white, blue and green would whizz from home to school, grabbing (and paying for!) a nasi lemak on the way. But that was then… these days either the kids of Bangi have grown more affluent, or there are just too many cars on the road to make cycling to school a reasonable mode of transport.
And of course that paragraph there had nothing to do with Steroid Hill.
We managed to slot in the Steroid Hill excursion for Saturday the 18th, about a week post-quarantine and I had had enough of the little tyke to want to do something totally for myself for a change. Of course we didn’t set out on doing Steroid Hill until we got to FRIM, but it was a band of 5 merry girls who set off to Kepong that morning: Me, @, N, M and A. It was an early start, but I promised myself a plate of Bangsar’s best banana leaf rice as my reward – with or without the others! @ had kindly managed to get a bike on loan from her regular bike guy, and the others had bikes of their own.
I hadn’t been on a mountain bike in years – after my primary school bike, all other two wheeled contraptions that I owned were racers – and the first thing that struck me about it was it was heavy. Oo er.. how does one speed along in one of these, I wondered? The answer? One doesn’t. The mountain faction of cycling is very different from its cousin road, as I discovered. It wasn’t about speed, it was more about pacing, and there were techical aspects of hill climbing that you had to master to get the most out of things. My first speedy ascent of Rover Hill quickly came to a grinding halt as the lactic acid in my legs decided it would be a fine time to make an appearance.
As far as Steroid Hill went, though, we were still pretty undecided until we bumped into a group of three blokes catching their breath. A competitive streak flashed in me, despite these guys being the most perfect of gentlemen (sadly, all taken, too) and when the words Steroid Hill came up, I was quick to affirm my interest in the ascent. By this time our entourage of 5 had turned to 4, and by the time we got halfway up Steroid Hill, it turned to 3. N, being the fittest of us, went on ahead and forged a steady lead. I trailed behind @ quite a good distance back, and it wasn’t long before I said, sod it, I will get to the top of that hill by hook or by crook – and by crook meant getting off the bike and pushing it.
But as all keen mountain bikers have told me, the descent is worth every lactic acid-filled step you take on the way up. And true to form, once you got to the top, the ride down is an adrenaline-filled ride which gave me enough of a rush to want to do it all over again. Except maybe this second time, with a gel seat. Oh, how my arse hurt for days after that…
My regrets? Not taking a picture at the top (my phone was on low battery) to prove I’d conquered Steroid Hill first time up; and on a stomach filled with two cups of coffee, at that. The banana leaf spread afterwards was more than a welcome reward! Next post will have pictures, I promise.
