A day at Putrajaya

Last Sunday, went to Putrajaya again to cycle. Really desperate for cycling training nowadays. Was enjoying it. Weather was nice, my legs felt good, my cyclometer was working again. But right before reaching 20km, the dreaded puncture!

It was the rear tyre. And due to the cheap Panaracer tyre, it took me like 1/2 hour to change the tube. Wayyyy too long. If it was a race, the race would've been over already for me.

But I managed to change it anyway, not without very, very sore thumbs. Completed 47km averaging circa 31km/h, not bad considering the hilly terrain. Have to find solution for the problem. May need to buy new tyres or maybe re-tape the wheels.



Luckily the saving grace after that, discovered an Autocross event in Putrajaya. Spent another hour or so watching the event. Now I know where those small modified cars do their stuff. It's in Autocross event where big cars are not really suitable for. No wonder I seldom see them at Sepang track.

I took some video using my phone, but the quality was very bad, they're not worth to upload.

Training update - Powerman 09

Powerman Malaysia is less than a month away and my training is still in haywire.

Last week, only did a total of 18km of running. Shorter than the distance I have to do on race day! And then last Sunday, finally managed to drag myself out of bed and drive to Putrajaya to cycle. But the moment I reached Putrajaya, this awaits me:


Dark cloud all over. In the end, had to 1 1/2 hours before it started to slow down to a drizzle. But it was worth it. Have no idea of the distance since my cyclometer died. But covered quite a number of climbs.

Last week also bought this:




A new pair of running shoes since the last 2 years or so. It's a Nike Pegasus 25, to commemorate Pegasus' 25 years history.

BTW, a tip to buy running shoes, especially Nike. Never buy current year models. Last year, the shoe above was priced at RM349. But now, it's only RM210 after 40% discount. This is how I buy all my shoes. Always buy last years model, at steep discount. Not that there's a lot of improvement with the new model anyway.

Hopefully, the shoe will see the start line on 8 November!

Miscellaneous 1

From now on, there'll be more this type of posts since sometimes I have things to post, but just a bit too busy to do so. So I'll just compile things into short summaries

1. Raging earth
The rage continues. After Ketsana, Parma & Padang quake, Melor recently pounded Japan and a few more minor quakes rattled this part of the world. Pray to God that nothing really bad happens, like the 1999 tsunami. BTW, for those wondering why the name sounds Malay-ish, because it is. Search "typhoon name" to know it's given.

2. Astro = football channel?
Astro just been awarded rights to continue airing English Premier League for the next 3 years. And reportedly they're going to fork out 30% more than they originally expected. It's also reported that rights to EPL makes up 1/3 of all of Astro's content costs! Fine. But what I'm worried off is, they will then increase subscription price for their sports channel and that already happened this year.

Great for the footbal fans, but for me who normally watch anything OTHER than football, it's not going to be a good news. In the same sense, I love it during the football season break during which I can watch the more exotic sports event e.g. air race, downhill skiing, triathlon, log cutting (!), etc.. etc..

Astro, not every single male in Malaysia is an ardent footbal fan! I would rather watch Discovery than watch football.

The news: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/10/7/business/20091007131033&sec=business

3. Manager interview
Didn't get the post, but it didn't bother me much. I'm more or less happy with my job at the moment. Moving up will have it's pros, but it also have it's cons. I'll just KIV it to another year maybe.

Not your average Sunday - Sep 09

Again went to track on 27/9. A short entry just a record of what happened during the day.

Suspension geometry - camber front -2.0, rear -0.5 degrees. Zero toe all round

1st outing - car handled really badly on high tyre pressure

2nd outing - changed tyre pressure to front 250kPa, rear 220kPa hot. Almost zero grip. Was pressured by Edrin, driving Fahrein's car, like mad. In the end overshot T7 and went straight to the run off area. Car was oversteering. Edmund said it was like a rear wheel drive car. But at least I was containing the oversteers. DCCD at 2nd setting from below

3rd outing - reduced tyre pressure yet again. Still not good

4th outing - final pressure 240kPa front, 200kPa rear, hot. Best settings. DCCD at 3rd setting from bottom. Better control. Slight oversteer but bad understeer at T1. Best time was 2:48. But I went off at T13, straight into run-off area. Took it easy along the back straight, topping at 160-170km/h only instead of usual 200km/h. Took it easy again round T14 and the front straight, but still got 2:48!! I guess without the off, 2:45 or lower would be on the cards. But the session already ended.


Overall was happy. Car was better. Was also practising late corner entry which I picked up from an online forum. It worked really well around most corners in Sepang. Was really happy that I can manage to contain oversteer at many times. It gives me more confidence to go faster around corners.

Caca merba

1. Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir Batin
Hopefully it's still not too late to wish everybody Selamat Hari Raya & Maaf Zahir Batin

2. KL shook
On Wednesday, KL experienced the tremors from Sumatra earthquake. Not the first time for KL, but the first for me. I have read reports about building shaking, however never experienced myself. It was not that bad actually. Just slight vibrations in my chair, as if there's a lot of people running around. But it was still quite worrying, so immediately all of us left the building. Some people actually reported buildings swaying, how true is that, I'm not sure. It could be exaggerated.

3. Tsunami
My thoughts with Samoan tsunami victims. Just watched the movie tsunami the night before, then the next morning read in the news about the Samoan tsunami. So ironic. The movie itself? Not so worth watching. Too much love story and not enough real tsunami action. 60 minutes of love story and just 30 minutes of tsunami.

4. Typhoon in Philipines
The earth on this side of the world is on a rage at the moment it seems. Another destructive disaster in the vicinity. Again, my thoughts go with them

Not your average Sunday - Aug 09

Puasa or not, tracking still goes on! Went there on Saturday, 30th August, with my track buddy, Fahrein and James, another Subaru owner.

Luckily the weather was nice and not so hot. But since it's fasting month, there were not many attendees. Just nice number of cars. Probably around 50-60 cars only and for some reason, the most were Subaru Imprezas.

First outing, took it easy. Just warming up the tyres. But during this session met a TRD-liveried Vios on the track, on stock wheels but with a pair of serious looking racing shells. This car was obviously down on power, but was going round the corners so well. Doing 4 wheel drifts around T12 & T13. And impossibly late braking to T1. Impressive! My salute to the driver. Maybe a pro driver. Fahrein agreed with me.

After about 4-5 laps, went in to rest. I noticed that I was unable to really concentrate. Maybe due to puasa.

Then 2nd session, went out alone. Track clear with many other Subarus behind me who have left the pits at about the same time. Track was clear. I was watching this Myvi duelling with a Satria Neo around T2, with the Myvi's rear left wheel hanging in the air!

But when I was about to go round the off-camber T2, still going rather slowly, suddenly, BANG! And my car was sent into a 180 degree spin. I was hit from behind! During sighting lap!? All the cars went around me while I was facing the wrong way! Luckily it was a slow corner. Then slowly went back to the pits, expecting the worse, broken bumpers maybe? Broken diffusers? Bent mufflers?

Erk! I'm facing the wrong way!

Back in the pits, quickly checked my rear bumper. Nothing? Went round and then noticed a big dent above the rear left wheelarch. Mmmm... not so bad. That plus some scratches on the rear left wheel. Then went to find the group of cars behind me just now. Since we're sharing the same pit, so no problem. Surprisingly, his was much worse! Badly dented fender, cracked headlight, damaged bumper and torn wheel well cover. That'll be a few thousands ringgit to fix. Ouch!

The big dent on my car

His car was much worse! That's a limited editon Impreza S204 by the way

We however did not discuss about compensation or whose fault it was. It is an unwritten rule that one should not confront another party to claim for damages, unless willingly offered by the 'offender'. In this case, he was the offender since I was clearly in front, but he placed his car in my racing line, which at that time, I was already right up to the left kerb. Both of us were cool about it, exchange pats on the back and shook hands.

That incident more or less ruined my mood for the rest of the session. Subsequently, just made some more laps as practice session only. Didn't even bother to time myself. That was after Edmund helped me to pull out the hard wheel arch so it won't then ruin my tyres.

Now have to find time to fix this. *sigh* but tracking still goes on!

A quiz

Stumbled upon this quiz that was given to me quite some time ago. But it is still quite puzzling and not many people can solve this. If you miss one point, you'll mess up the entire thing. It tests your analytical ability.

There's 25 variables, 24 are given below. On average, 98% people failed to solve this.

Try it!

1. There are FIVE houses.
2. Each House has it's own Unique Color.
3. They all have different Pets.
4. They all drink different Drinks.
5. They all smoke different Cigarettes.
6. The Englishman lives in the Red House.
7. The Swede has a Dog.
8. The Dane drinks Tea.
9. The Green House is on the left side of the White House.
10. In the Green House they drink Coffee.
11. The man who smokes Pall Mall have Birds.
12. In the Yellow House they smoke Dunhill.
13. In the Middle House they drink Milk.
14. The Norwegian lives in the First House.
15. The man who smokes Blend, lives in the House next to th House with Cats.
16. In the House next to the House where they have Horse, they smoke Dunhill.
17. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks Beer.
18. The German smokes Prince.
19. The Norwegian lives next to the Blue House.
20. They drink water in the House that lays next to the House where they smokes
Blend.

The question is: Who owns the ZEBRA?