Kuala Lumpur : Royal Royal Royal Ride

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Kuala Lumpur : Royal Royal Royal Ride

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Kuala Lumpur : Royal Royal Royal Ride

My Cyclist Friends @ The Royal Selangor Pewter

Kuala Lumpur : 1st June 2013

Medium Group Ride : Royal Selangor Club>Big Trees @ Tasik Titiwangsa>Royal Selangor Pewter>Setapak Teochew Restaurant>Royal Selangor Club

Distance covered : 33.46 km.
Time : 7:45 am - 12:55 pm
Time Taken : 4:05 hrs. (including stops for photos at Titiwangsa Lake a visit to the Royal Selangor Pewter Showroom and lunch).
Route Recommendations :
1. The Titiwangsa area is a nice place to ride, with walkways to cycle on. But do be considerate of other users.
2. Good photo opportunities at Titiwangsa Lake Park, and the Titiwangsa Golf Course.
3. Eating under The Big Trees is an experience, where else can one find a jungle-like setting right in the middle of the city.
4. Do visit the Royal Selangor Pewter showroom and work-shop. It is an experience.
5. Riding at Jalan Tun Razak, one has to take extra care and be alert as the traffic there is heavy.

PRE-RIDE

What's this? A Royal Royal Royal ride?
No... I am not stuttering. Yes this is a 3 times Royal ride, a fact interestingly pointed out by our co-rider Irene Cho. So who or what are the Royals?

Giant banner on building wishing HRH the Agong "Daulat Tuanku" on His Majesty's birthday.

The first Royal is His Majesty the Agong (King) of Malaysia; it is His Majesty's birthday today.

The second Royal is the Royal Selangor Club, the start point of our ride.

And the third Royal is the Royal Selangor Pewter. We will be visiting their showroom today.

THE RIDE

Tailim (of the hApPy HaPpY blogs), the organizer of this ride had called it the "KL Discovery by Bicycles on Agong s Birthday". For some who had not rode this route before, it was indeed a discovery ride. For those who had (like me), part of the route was new and it was a discovery too!
His original route was :
Dataran Merdeka>Lake Titiwangsa>Royal Selangor Pewter>Klang Gates>Kemensah Waterfalls>Kg. Baru>Dataran Merdeka
Due to circurmstances, we could not complete the original route and missed out Klang Gates & Kemensah Waterfalls. But these were happy circumstances... so no loss there and we can do those places another day.

The Royal Royal Royal Ride Map (click for Map Link)

So the route we actually rode was :
Dataran Merdeka>Lake Titiwangsa>Royal Selangor Pewter>Dataran Merdeka.

We met at the rear of the Royal Selangor Club building.
I was glad to see Christian Blessing there, it's been a while since he has rode with us. The last time was during the Veemer Charity Ride (see blog). And he will be riding his new recumbent bicycle.

Happily, we took a group photo at the Dataran Merdeka The turn out was good there were thirty-one of us; seems like many are keen to discover more of Kuala Lumpur on bicycles.

We started off riding down Jalan Raja Chulan.

Even on a Sunday, Jalan Raja Chulan was quite busy, so I would not recommend riding here on weekdays.

Further on, we turned to the parallel Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, surprisingly the traffic here was lighter.

A few turns here & there, and we were at our first destination - BREAKFAST!
Tailim calls this place "Under The Big Trees" as there are indeed many big trees here. We had eaten here before during one of my earlier rides - the Setiawangsa Ride (... see blog); then we called it Sin's Secret Hole (Sin is Tailim's surname).

The food here was nothing to shout about, it's okay but not that fantastic.
But it's the atmosphere here that is something to shout about.
Where else can one find eating in a almost jungle like setting right in the middle of the city.
Did I just hear Tarzan shouting "Orrrrr, Eeeeeee..... OR!".

Meals over, we rode over to the nearby Taman Tasik Titiwangsa.

At the small promontory in the lake we took another group photo. This place is always good for photos as the background comes out superbly.

With good pedestrian/cycling lanes, the park is a great place to ride in, there are even wooden bridge for crossing over streams.

Crossing the wooden bridges with a lovely view of the Petronas Twin Towers.

We rode on heading for the Titiwangsa Golf Course.
Here's Steven giving the thumbs up for this nice place. He was one of the ride marshals, and he did a great job ensuring the flock stayed together.

Another one for the album. Kium Michael & Kookkeong lying sexily infront, trying to outshine the girls.

Well time to leave this lovely park, there are other destinations to head for.

Riding down Jalan Temerluh...

... cutting through a Petronas petrol station at Jalan Fletcher ...

... and we found ourselves riding along the busy Jalan Tun Razak; have to be careful here though traffic is quiet heavy.

With a left turn into Jalan Semarak, we seems to be riding in an almost rural kampong area but are still within the city.

Further on, below the DUKE Highway overpass, we stopped for a quick regrouping and a short rest. It was easy for Christian, just pop his leg down, lean back and he was resting.

10:15 am : Arriving at the Royal Selangor Pewter Factory in Setapak, we parked our bikes and got ready for an exciting tour of the factory.

Oh dear! The factory was closed as it was a public holiday.

Fortunately, the showroom & demo sections are opened even on public holidays.

In the showroom, there were many fine pewter pieces on display, like the tankards above...

... beautiful pieces of polished pewter animals.

At the demo section, their staff gave demonstrations on some of the pewter production processes.

We were even allowed to try our hand on producing pewter pieces.
Here's Lilliana trying her best to hammer patterns onto a pewter tankard, it's no easy task. (...see more on Royal Selangor Pewter)

Three tin miners with their bonded maid (L-R: Suit, me, Wong & Michael)

There's one corner with a coffee shop table, long Chinese benches and a large photo of a tin dredge as a background - which is very suitable for posing.
Fun guys that we are, we posed as three tin miners, sitting ala mining days style with their bonded maid.

We took a group photo here too - all of us looking so happy, our troubles all far, far behind us.

11:20 am : Having left Royal Selangor Pewter we are now on Jalan Genting Klang; having to ride carefully as traffic was heavy here. And it was getting HOT too.

Our destination Setapak Teochew Restaurant, for an early lunch. Here's Melody & Norman looking like they are in Hong Kong.

This place has very good food - one of their signature dish, white fried beehon (vermicelli).

Another signature dish - fish ball soup. They make the fish balls themselves (... see more at Setapak Teochew Restaurant).

The food is finished and despite the hot weather, we are all smiles again.

Returning to our parked bikes, we are ready to set off again.

It was really getting very HOT, and the consensus among the riders were to abhort going to Klang Gates & Kemensah Waterfalls. After all we already had much chilled under the BIG TREES, visited a ROYAL place, had a good lunch and took lots of nice photos. Let's leave the other two places for another.