Where have I been? Malaysian MotoGP

I've been slack, real slack but I have my reasons. I only had 7 posts all year last year my most lackluster effort to date. Last year wasn't a great year for me personally with dad passing away back in April, that kinda took the wind out of my sails. I started a new job about a month after that happened and Flyboy and I were busy with cleaning out dad's house from a collection of 54 years worth of er..... how would you say it "crap". Yeah that's what it was. Between the new job and preparations' to sell the house there wasn't a lot of time for much and my enthusiasm to do anything was at an all time low and probably the least amount of riding I've done for some time.

So in July 2023 when I was visiting my brother he asked what I was going to do for my 50th birthday which I'd missed earlier for the above reasons. Dave suggested something a bit more extravagant than the usual pissup, "How about we do the Malaysian MotoGP at Sepang?"

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Wait, what?

"Oh Hell yeah, this is going to be epic". Wait.........the missus won't want to go to Malaysia. Go without her was his response. I told Kate what I wanted to do. I got that sceptical look, raised eyebrows and eye rolling but she didn't say no straight up like she normally does so I'm taking it as a yes. When I showed her the accommodation she caved and it was a real yes, so strike while the iron is hot and we booked the flights and accomodation straight away before she could change her mind.

Done, and we didn't even bother to look at anything to do there until the night before we flew out. It's going to be relaxing and MotoGP, I don't care if we don't do anything else. Next thing you know we we getting some cheap liquor and were on the plane pronto. It was one of Singapore Airlines A380's. That plane is massive and it didn't feel like you were even flying.

We had to change flights at Singapore for a connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur. 1 Hour should be enough time between flights right? Yeah won't do that again. 15 minutes to get off the plane and it was a mad dash to find the next flight in a huge airport I've never been in before. We made it to the gate with about 5 minutes to spare. Flyboy and his missus were there waiting for us and we were the last 4 to board the flight.

Also couldn't believe how big KL airport was compared with Sydney's little airport. It was about a 40 min trip from KL airport to our accommodation, we checked in after 10pm had some diner then went to bed as we were completely knackered from doing nothing all day.

Next morning we wandered down to get some breakfast before taking a walk around to check out the lay of the land. We stayed at the Avani Gold Coast resort, one of the places recommended on the MotoGP website. It wasn't the cheapest place nor was it the 5 star resort advertised, more like 4 stars but was quite pleasant none the the less.

A big storm was brewing today, we wandered around the nearby beach and local shops. Other than the handful of shop there's nothing much here. You need a vehicle to drive around.

Holy heck everything is written in freaky deaky dutch and we can't read anything. Makes for ordering meals interesting. But whatever those meals were it was cheap. $2 Aus for lunch of rice and some animal bits with assorted bone fragments. I wasn't hungry so waited, then we wandered back to the resort and had some afternoon drinks.

Many, many drinks later  back in our room things became a bit messy and a bit blurry just like the photography. We had a cracking diner at the resorts chinese restaurant. Our waitress was chilled and funny and made for a great night and the food was excellent.

Bit hung over on Friday so we didn't go to the track today, but relaxed and had a swim and a high tea with the girls before having a few more beers later in the afternoon. Beautiful mornings here in Malaysia.

I was pretty impressed with the high tea, the small cakes and pastries were delicious however the coffee was a little ordinary though, it was very bitter.

Relaxing by the pool having beers, such a hard life

Saturday morning and we were up early for breakfast so we could get on the resort shuttle to the track which was picking us up at 7am. On the way to breakfast we were greeted with a swift sunrise.

It was an interesting trip to the track, it was clear to see that Malaysia was a third world country with many rambling shacks, farming fields, palm fields and the like. It only took about 35m to the track.

We got dropped at the track entrance and told we will pick you up at 5pm from the same spot. Ok sounds good, so we entered and it was a spectacle for sure. Unlike anything I've ever seen at Phillip Island. 

Funny travelling through the countryside and thinking how 3rd world Malaysia is and then getting to the Sepang circuit and looking at how modern and big the facility's are. I thought what a contrast and how third world the facility's at Phillip Island are, ironic.

Entering the front gates straight into trade alley. The trade stand at PI is a small tent about 100m long. The trade stands at Sepang are 500m long and line both sides of the entrance so at least a kilometre of trade stands. So much stuff to look at, merch, bikes, accessories, girls, beer, wheelie machines and more merch. I had to buy my daughters some merch and got myself a new hat. The old Casey Stoner hat was getting a bit manky.

Flyboy and the Hostess

We had purchased roving grandstand tickets which meant we didn't have a dedicated seat as such but we could sit where-ever  we wanted in any of the grandstands'. Sounds great to me and it was.

We entered the circuit and head down between the main grandstands' and took at look around. The grandstands at Sepang are HUGE. The main stand must be 700m long and lines the back straight and main straight, that's 1400m of grandstand. The area in-between the two stands is the mall area which contains all the food vendors and toilet facilities. The toilet facilities were impeccably clean. There was a guy mopping the floors around your feet at the urinals. Beats Phillip island mud soaked over flowing portaloos.

There's the K1 & K2 grandstand also around at turn 1-3 and grandstand F at turn 7. To get to the F Grandstand you catch an air-conditioned coach from the front of the circuit and it you can hop off at several points including the hill grandstands, which are roofed grass areas.

We sat in the Pit side grandstand for a while and watched the goings on. Acosta went flying past the soon to be world champion.

Simon Crafar was also flying by in pit lane from interview to interview. No wonder he is so slim.

Fabio wandered up pit lane waving to fans.

Our riding mate Rick was here at the track with his son on vacation. They were in the F grandstand so we decided to catch the bus around there and say g'day and watch qualifying. It was starting to get really hot and the humidity was through the roof. The air conditioned bus was a god send. It was great to catch up with Rick again if only briefly.

Not so good for photography here at Sepang as the fences around the circuit are really high and get in the way of the shots especially F stand. Oh well. 

F Grandstand

Looking back at the circuit from F stand you could capture the scale of the stands here. At least we had sun cover so we wouldn't get burnt to a crisp. Phillip Island really need to step up their game and provide proper facilities, I don't think I can go back there now after experiencing this.

Main Grandstand and pitlane

Qualifying was interesting to say the least. Marquez didn't look at home on that Honda and it showed, he hit the deck right in front of us at T7.

After qualy was over we headed back around to the main stands to get some lunch and decide where we were going to watch the Sprint race from. So good to be on that air conditioned bus again, I jokingly said let's do another lap of the circuit just to stay cool.

I must say I was quite impressed with the food options here. I thought it was going to be some dodgy looking food and only rice dishes that was going to make us sick for a week but there was a huge variety of food on offer at great prices too. We were sucking down bottles of water it was so hot and humid.

We sat in the K2 grandstand at turn 2-3 to watch the sprint race and had lunch there with Kwoky. 

K2 Grandstand

The views from the K2 stand was great and you could see the end of straight through to turn 4.

The bike parking out the back of the K1 stand was filled with all sorts of bikes. I was surprised to see R1's, Ducati Panigale etc as I believed that asian country's only were allowed scooters. I guess I was wrong there.

Sprint Race Lap 1

We got a heavy tropical rainstorm about 15minutes after the race. Great it cooled us down and hearded us into the beer tent. I was surprised a beer only cost 18 Ringgit, which is Aus $5.80 for a Singha beer. That costs $14 at Phillip Island.

We got picked up on time at 5pm and got back to the resort about 50 minutes later. 

Sunday morning another early start and we arrive back at the circuit again so we take a look at the merch stands again. I'm under strict instructions to get daughter#2 some merch otherwise don't bother coming home. I pondered this statement for sometime.....

The Yamaha stand was full of motogp goodness, with a El Diablo and Morbidelli bikes on display.

The Suzuki stand was also good, great air conditioning, nice bikes excellent girls we hung around in here just because it was air conditioned, honest....

We chose to sit in the back straight grandstand for the Sunday race schedule. There was a large TV screen on the other side of the track, and we could see half the circuit from here. Did I mention it was hot.

The riders did a parade lap in the top of an open bus which was pretty cool.

We saw the crowning of a new world champion in Pedro Acosta. Lets see how he does next year.

The racing was over all too soon and everyone was piling out of the stands. We got the bus back to the resort, the police were directing all traffic around the airport, which was the long way. It took over 1.5 hours just to go around the airport to get to the road we we needed which was about 200m from the circuit entry and it was another hour from there, 2.5hr trip.😥

Needless to say we headed straight for some beers when we got back and then grabbed some more of that fabulous chinese we had the night before for diner. It was Dave's final night here as he was heading for Singapore after this for a week, but we stayed on for one more night to wind down our holiday.

With the sun setting in the background behind the cloud we had some spectacular views over the ocean. What a great week away, motogp included and it cost less than taking the kids to Narooma on the south coast for a week earlier this year.

My final thoughts and would I do it again. Yes, yes I would it was fantastic. The Sepang circuit has fantastic facilities, clean toilets, great food, excellent covered grandstand seating and prices are great. If I was going to do it again I think I would get the corporate ticket inside with air-conditioning and cold beer as it was so hot and humid. But otherwise this was bloody fantastic. Instead of coming back to this race again Dave and I agreed we would probably try Motegi in Japan for the next race just for something different then maybe Magello the next year. We shall see what happens.

For a gallery of images from Sepang click the link. I've also added MotoGP photos to the tabs at the top of the home page. I didn't take as many photos as usual, I was taking a break and was enjoying the racing instead.

Thanks for reading.

Southern Highlands Ride

Geoff suggested a quick road ride to the Southern Highlands. Count me in, so we met at the Servo on the M4 at 10am and set off soon afterwards. We took the back roads to the Oaks and down to Mittagong avoiding the highway via Thirlmere,

We took the range road out the back of Mittagong, the road has recently been resurfaced and was in good shape. It's an awesomely scenic ride through rolling hillsides with hedge & tree alleys and rockwall fences.

Range Road

At the end we took a left turn instead of the usual right and went further along on the tourist road which comes out at the top of Macquarie Pass. We turned left at Robertson Pie shop and headed down Jamberoo Mountain Road, which was a good scenic bit of road.

Top of Macquarie Pass

We went through Albion Park which was going to be the lunch stop but I said to Geoff I know a nice little pub up past Robinson, he said "lead the way". So we tuned back up Macquarie Pass. There are a lot of new housing estates built out the road to MP.  We got a great run up the pass with almost a car free run. It's fantastic surface hot mixed all the way. The new AX41 tyre was handling this very well, tipping in quickly and effortlessly and easily held the line. 

We took the road into Burrawang and stopped at the Burrawang Hotel. Not the cheapest place but quite nice, they have a beautiful outdoor beer garden area but it was quite cool out today at 18°C so we ate indoors. They do an awesome hamburger, which was washed down with an ice cold beer.

Read this next bit in a David Attenborough voice. 

"Here we have a rare photo of the crimson nosed beer guzzler in his native habitat".

We returned back home via the same roads through Thirlmere, we stopped in for a quick beer at the Wallacia Hotel. A short but enjoyable ride out with the boys. Good ending to my holidays.

Bridgestone AX41

After the last Adventure Ride my front tyre was pretty well shot so I went to Tyres for Bikes for a new one. What to choose however?

Initially I was after the Pirelli Rally front but looking at it, it was to aggressive for what I do I felt.

So I looked at the Bridgestone AX41 both endorsed by Stuey and my older bro. I could put another Karoo4 on but thought I'd go with the AX41 to try something a little different. There was nothing wrong with the Karoo, it did everything I wanted it to do and got I around 8K or so. 

Interested to see if I get the same performance and km's out of this tyre.

Bridgestone AX41

The Dusty Cooma Ride

I was invited on a group adventure ride the weekend before Christmas. The ride was from Callala Bay to Cooma via all dirt roads with the exception of a short highway stint to get us down the coast to start of the adventure ride proper.

This was going to be my first proper adventure ride, as all the others were only short stints of dirt road between tar sections. To say I was feeling apprehensive would be an understatement. I don't really have any dirt bike riding back ground and I was going along with some pretty experienced guys that have done a lot of off road dirt biking. They were also on smaller lighter bikes KTM690, DR650, XT250, Husky701, T7 and Stu on his brand new Tuareg660. I've got the biggest heaviest bike and the least off road experience. Hey what could possibly go wrong?

We started early on saturday morning with Brett leading from Callala Beach through Jervis Bay National Park forest straight into some sandy trail with mud puddles erosion mounds etc. I was thinking, shit what have I got myself into, I've never ridden sand before. We were only 2 km's into the ride and I was already stressing.

We met up with Dave and Ross, Dave on the 701 was our tour leader with a GPS which would be critical in this ride. We continued down the highway to Milton for a bite at the Bakery before turning inland and heading into the ranges and hitting the dirt roads.

It was only about 15m into the ride before the first road closed sign and our fearless leader had to reroute with the gps over some new unridden roads. This made me real nervous as he was now riding routes he's not been on and who knows what we are going to come up against.

We followed the Clyde river for some time and came to a large concrete river crossing. To my surprise there was a girl in a bikini swimming on the other side. Sure made for a pleasant crossing.

Stu checking out the bikini girl - Photo by Dave S

Me - Photo by Dave S

After this we popped out on the Kings Hwy at Nelligen. We keep going as it was still early and went further south into the mountains crossing the Buckenbowra River at Runnyford.

Runnyford Bridge

The experienced guys were running a cornerman system, the leader halted the first person at a corner who pointed everyone in the right direction and had to wait until the sweep rider came along. It worked great out in butt fuck nowhere until Dave M stuffed it up and we got lost, but only for 5 minutes luckily. We also managed to do the same mud hole 3 or 4 times here going back and forwards.

We got to another creek crossing on the buckenbowra river near where the 2019 Transmoto 12 Hour was held.

Photo by Dave S

Quart Pot Road - Buckenbowra River - Photo by Dave S

We stopped at the next intersection as Dave S wasn't sure which way to go so consulted the GPS whilst we had a rest. I needed a break we'd been riding for several hours and it was getting quite warm 26°C. I noticed I had phone signal and looked where we were and was surprised we were only out the back of Batemans Bay, still a long way to go.  We also sucked in a ton of dust today, as there was little wind and no rain to keep the dust levels down.

Brett and his brother Kojak

I parked in the middle of the road cause it was hot and I didn't give a rats ass. We haven't seen anyone on the road for hours which was great. To my dismay Dave S said the road we are taking is back up the steep hill, Gollaribee Mountain Rd. It was little more than a single lane firetrail both steep and rocky in places with steep drops off the side of the mountain. There were no tyre tracks of either bike or car along here at all, I don't think anyone has been through here in months. I thought I had a flat front tyre along here but Brett said it looks good. It was getting near replacement so wasn't steering properly on the downhill descents.

We got to the bottom of the trail and waited at Knowles Creek on the Araluen Rd, Brett had to go back up the Mtn as Margo had a small incident and needed some tools to sort it out. All was good however and we were soon in Moruya for lunch at the waterfront hotel just after 1pm.

A short road stint to Bodalla where we headed back inland through Nerrigundah. The road here was wide and sweeping mountainous scenery more my style of adventure riding gravel superhighway in the mountains.

Dave S - Tour captain extraordinaire

We soon stopped on the Belimbla Bridge for a quick break and regroup. The roads today were very dusty and we got a little spread out here. 

Following the Belowra Rd we went through some beautiful farmland in the valleys. The road surface looked brilliant crushed granite, but it was actually as slippery as fuck. Dave M went into one bend a little too fast and ended up in the ditch. Luckily he was ok and just a sore wrist.

Marjo getting a lolly sugar rush

I had a moment on one right hander locking the rear but it invertedly put me back inline with the road and I continued along without running off like Dave had just done. Pfew.

But the next moment we ascended a steep mountain range still on the slippery granite. I had a major moment where I lost the front wheel in a rut on a steep sharp uphill right hander dabbed my right leg to keep it upright, gassed it lost the rear in the same rut and speared me off to the inside of the corner where I stopped upright. Completely shat myself and Brett had a first hand view from behind. He must have been pissing himself laughing. We managed it out to the outside of the corner where it was flat and I could continue on. Luckily it was the last of the steep uphill corners because my confidence took a beating on that one.

Another road closed sign on the way and we turned down some other minor lane which was a bit dodgy before we came out at Numeralla. Stu's front tyre was flat and had to be pumped up. We discovered he dented the front rim and it was tubeless and kept leaking. It was only 20 minutes to Cooma and our accommodation for the night at the Alpine Hotel. We got into our rooms after 7pm. Fantastic place to stay and only $60 for the night.

The meals were fantastic, they were so big none of us could finish them. We were so tired after diner we only had about 3 beers before hitting the sack.

Alpine Hotel Single Room

DAY 2

Breakfast done at the 123 Coffee house and we fueled up and filled Stu's tyre again. His plan was to keep filling up every 30m so this was going to be a long day. We had a wrong turn out of town and had to double back, but eventually made our way onto Chakola Rd which lead to Chakola Firetrail.

This Chakola Firetrail was my 'Holy Fuck' moment. Initially it started easy but went straight to level 9, with steep uphill and downhill rocky terrain, rutted, blind hills and curves with a few creek crossings thrown in. Several times I was shitting myself. This was beyond anything I've ever done. I was seriously questioning my choice of motorcycle here. This is no doubt Husaberg territory not Africa Twin territory.

Dave S trip report shows that first technical section was 12.7kms, it took us 48 minutes to cover that distance. Yeah that's 15.88km per hour. Did I mention how tough it was and I was shitting myself?

We stopped at the top of a hill so Stu could pump up his tyre. Thank fuck, I needed a break I was puffing away. It was hard, hot work in this forest.

I asked "Is there much more of this?"

Dave S "It opens up to more flowing road over the next hill"

Thank fuck I thought. He lied, it just continued and we went a few hundred meters of steep terrain in the wrong direction and had to turn around. D'Oh. The next 10.3km took us 25 minutes, averaging 24.7kmh.

After about 5kms the road did open up slightly. Brett said to swap him for his KTM690. I think he may have felt I was struggling and would do better on a lighter bike. He wasn't fucking wrong. It wasn't exactly easy on his KTM690 but by fuck it was so much easier than the AT. I actually started to enjoy riding the KTM, just don't bin it on him. Brett gave me plenty of good advice on riding this terrain, which was really helpful. Thanks mate, really appreciate it.

The road opened up through some farm land where I thought it should be easy from here but turned into some rutted out hills and more of the same until we made it onto the main road that leads to Captains Flat.

The Captains Flat pub was closed so we rode into Braidwood for lunch at Trappers Bakery. Always a good pie there and it's not a real ride if there's not a bakery involved.

From Braidwood we took the Charleys Forest Road, which was quite an easy ride along gravel roads with some very interesting scenery, nothing to difficult and then the Nerriga road back up to Callala Beach.

Pump that tyre Stuey

A thoroughly enjoyable weekend away with the boys even though I was shitting myself on many occasions throughout the trip. Think I need to do an Adventure bike riding training course.

Now for the Nundle 20 Creek crossings ride..........

Thanks for a great weekend away gents, till next time.