Crazy2Tri: How was Batam ride?

Date : 30 April 2007
Place : Batam, 160-164km (depending on whose speedometer), good description of terrain here
Weather : Fine, misty rain in morning, burning hot in afternoon
Who : Koh Ching Hong, Ivan Sim, David Tan, Michael Tan, Joe Chua, Koh Kok Aun, Andrew Leong, Roger Chow, Jeffrey Foo, Mark Chang, Terence Ng
Bikes : 5 x Cervelo, 4 x Argon, Orbea, David?

Post ride reviews :

Hot,hilly n long(160km)but beautiful scenary.Some say much tougher than Langkawi.Can't count how many hills we have climbed...but definately an ideal place to train for Ironman!! - Joe

The ride course (82km from ferry at Sekupang to Galang Bahru) is great ... the first 15km is rather dangerous as the roads are very busy and there are no traffic orders (you can have a car, bus, taxi just swerve in front of you and passengers alighting from right, left, and even from the back .... the buses swing out doors from the back !!).

So, total course ride is 164km (back and forth). after the major city areas, from 15km afterwards, the road clears up and in fact the last 50km there are hardly any cars - roads are paved and smooth ... with some stores dispersed thru the whole course (so you can buy drinks).

The sceneries are great ....lots of islands, water, hills to look down from ..... and some stretches of road, you can see just rolling hills continuously upwards !!!

It is relatively FLAT .... just many hills to climb and many hills to roll-down on .... so, overall it is flat ..... Langkawi's bike course is EASY compared to what we have in Batam .... even Desaru can be considered easy. It was tough for many of us as we have mostly laid off after langkawi .... and the 164km was abit too long.

It is one of the better rides we had, and one that we could do more often. The ferry ride is comfortable, and cost is not expensive (S$ 38 include bike charge). And the great thing about it, is that we chartered a taxi who followed us all the way back and forth. We put our bags, and lots of water into the taxi .... and a couple of us even took the taxi

back. It is like riding in Tour de France with a car following you (hazard lights on). In Desaru, we are all left alone .... especially between Desaru and Sedili - no stores in sight. - chinghong

Next time we will bring a bike rack so more of us can take turns to relax in the taxi. We should also bring along an ice box so that we can have unlimited supply of ice. - Andrew

riding thru the town was definitely a challenge! when joe n i were riding back to sekupang, we dare not even look

back as we're afraid we'll swerve out into the single lane heavy traffic

perhaps we could get beni (taxi driver) to get us a lorry to ferry us to and back from the starting point of the highway, so that we could avoid the hazardous town area. i rather pay S$5-10 for 2 way truck ferry rather than risk my life cycling thru town. if you worry about making up the total 30k of town miles, just turn around and go back up the h'way again lor...

and yes! its a great place for IM training....you get lobster fried rice at the turn around pt (80km) with beatiful scenery, and having nice looking waitresses serving us ice cold coke...they even have live seafood except we din have time to eat lah...

the course is definitely FLAT and very enjoyable to do....average speed 28km/h, max speed 60km/h haha

if you're lucky...you get to draft cute looking local girls :)

last but not least...i suggest we bring a decent first aid kit on our next overseas ride, just in case for bite (as in joe's case where the bee doesnt like him too much cos he was biking faster than the bee!)

so our next trip we should take the 1st ferry and return on the 5.45pm slot. else kana bar forever on visa cos cannot determine return ferry time haha

btw mark & mike had the best of all....relac at one corner on the 1st bridge and admire both scenery and people! i think they were the smartest among us!! - Jeffrey

Yes.. I totally agreed with Jeff.. the town's traffic was just too chaotic....

However, once we pass that .. the road shall I say is good and smooth amist some large pot holes. I was mostly riding alone when I couldn't catch up with Jeff whom I was drafting.. (his speed in consistant but

fast)...I just couldn't carry on.... Finally when I reach the kelong... I was relieved..

Coming back was 'Siong" for me.. I developed cramps just about 3 km on the journey back. luckily.. David was with me.. (thanks for that)..I managed to 'shack' off the cramps but not for long when I start to climb.. In total myself and David struggled for about 30 odd km before giving in.. the taxi driver was diligently following us till we felt so 'pai seh'..... next is the challenge when we stop at the road side... how to squeeze in two bikes plus 2 people in the car...??

We trial and error until finally we managed to get it in including ourselves... we were amazed how far away we were from the pack.. You guys are real fast.... all "cheongsters" .... think got to do some training on the Roller like a Hamster in order to keep up next time round hee hee....

Finally we meet at a 'half way house' were we all had some drinks before heading back to the ferry terminal...

If you were to ask me... I enjoyed the ride although I DNF ... - Ivan

I had great time, Thanks to ChingHong for dropping back and pushing me up to the halfway house... that was the best pocari and ice water I have ever tasted...It was

very hot on the way back, and I really bonked out about 20km after we started to cycle back. I agree with Andrew, an icebox with cold water will help alot. We should reload the ice and water at the kelong. definitely a good place to ride. Maybe we should hire a van or a pick up truck? more bikes and people can take turns to rest... - Kok Aun

The route was one of the most scenic one I have come across. The road was flat mostly. The food was great especially the lobster(great value for money)-should consider driving there for seafood next time. There was even sprinkle of water from mother nature to cool us down on the southward direction. During the ride, there were many supporters by the roadside and some on motor bikes cheering and encouraging us to push on.
And I remember there were photographers there, from which publications huh? And when they going to publish our ride. I enjoyed this tremendously even though the last leg from town to Ferry terminal seems to be endless. It was a race between my Quad muscle and the ferry terminal on who will prevail. - Roger

This is one of those ride that either tempt you to do an (or another) Ironman or convince you that enough is enough. When we were 5km from the turn-around point (at 80km), we thought (or tried to convince ourselves) that we have reached the end and that we should make a U-turn. I am glad we pushed on till there is no more tar and

had our reward - the seafood fried rice and coke. After lunch, we had 3.5hr left to catch the ferry and we were skeptical. But, we made it! - Terence

Thanks to Ivan for organizing this trip....

At 80km, where the tar road meets the dirt. From here, we cycled off-road for a hundred meters or so to get to the seafood restaurant. Once in the "restaurant", we were treated with a serene view of clear blue water and a distance island.