Wednesday, February 3, 2010

January 2010

January 2010 was really busy month for Balikpapan bicycle communities.
The first event was folding bike ride right on the new year day,
and then a ride across the bay to Penajam on 10 January.
At the end of the month, there were also bike ride,
B&C fun ride with custom officers on Saturday 30 Jan,
and then Ambalat ride with our group folder on Sunday 31 Jan.

But the biggest event was Bike Jamboree ride that was organized by Le
Grandeur, one of the main hotel in Balikpapan.
This event took the whole weekend days on 23-24 Jan. On Saturday
afternoon, right after the rain stopped, we were cycling across the
town for show-off ride.



There were about 50 riders, and 16 of us were there with our folding
bikes. There was a coverage about this ride on our local newspaper.



And then next morning, Sunday 24 Jan, on the Jamboree main event,
there were about 600 riders there, ready to follow the 26km of cross
country track.

The ride started at about 07:10, and less than 2 hours later some
strong riders showed up already on the finish line.



The weather was sunny on that Sunday morning, but parts of the track were still wet
from the heavy rain on Saturday morning. A lot of begineers could not
finish the ride, but the military rescue team taking care of them
right away.

I used my MTB for this ride, but two of my riding buddies were crazy
enough to push their folding bike passing those offroad trail till the
finish line. Other folding riders were making short cut, so they were
not following the offroad session.



As usual in every bike event, after reaching finish we were welcomed
by fresh drinks. And during the doorprize drawing session, the band
from Le Grandeur pub entertaining us till lunch time. In this drawing
session, 2 of our team won the prize, one was voucher to go to
Starbuck Coffe, and the other was DVD player.

After lunch we went going home happily. One thing that impressed me
was the hard works and the professialism of the committe.
Even the track itself was not too hard, with so much participants of
various ages, various skill levels and using various bicycle types,
there were always big potential of having problems.
Luckily, the committee was very well prepared. They prepared
everything, from simple aerobic and stretching session before the
ride, little snack, stop points with ample supplies of free drinks and
fresh fruits, medic and rescue team from military, and also policemen
on every intersection with main traffic.
On the finish area they also provided mobile toilet and several water
hoses to clean up our bicycles.
For me this was a really top class Jamboree, those people who run 4
stars hotel definetely know how to organize bicycle Jamboree.
Kudos for the committee, and thanks for many friends, Pak Muttaqin mactaqin@gmail.com, Alex apurwoto@yahoo.com, Qardian, and others for your contributions in this posting.

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