Dirt biking in sabah

A few photo's of places to really hack it out in sabah..short and long rides through the back roads and track dirt biking just for fun.

A DEAD END RIDE

No sunny days for the last 6 month's it rain much in the morning as it does in the evenings some days its just poures with rain and heavy winds. Not a good day for any rides but when there is a window of opportunity i ll take it anyway it comes just for that few hours of no rain. Before it started to rain again and with no food ration and tent just incase we get stuck in the middle of nowhere we decided to ride out through the same route. Since we still had time we hit the track for some fun.

A one day ride that turn to a 2 days agony in the jungle. What suppose to be a fun dirt road that fitures hill side padi field, Village houses with bambo walls and thatch roofs and children running and being curiouse of the riders with full face and colourfull outfit with noisy machine turn to one adventure not soon to be forget.

Borneo is a dents jungles with unforgiving terrain much of our ride we have to depand on small trails or logging roads. some parts are trekking trails but becouse of the density of the forest it is imposible to ride trhough without snaging a thorny vine on your face or body. another problem with trying to ride in a denst forest is the terrain fitures with 150metres drop off's at some point. This can be a scary experiance and pushing the bike acrros is sometimes the best thing to do rather than riding in on a diddle size trail. On our ride parts of this is what we wanted to avoid but at some streatches we just had to ride it out.

By noon we where at a river bank..one of the guys went to check how deep the river was and this couse a problem after we found out that it is west deep with rock boulders the size of a 100kg back pack. This will be a problem to cross without taking a plunge in the river with the bikes. we diceded to carry the bikes acrros the river..it took us 2hours to carry and cross the river with 6 bikes. after going through this aginizing experiance we thout there is a few more KM to go up hill. The dirt road looks good from a distance and this will be a peace of cake we thought.

all pump up and raving like we where on a racing competition we ascended the "what looks like a good dirt road" than it happend..this was no ordinary dirt road...it was what we call a river of stones the size of fists. they where loos and slippery as the rain started to get heavy all we could do was push the bikes up and up and up...falling off was a common site. once we reach the top a sigh of releave from every ones face. we continue the ride up and after a tremandouse amout of our anergy of traversing the uneven and slipery trail we find ourselves riding on a small stream of water which was a trail and with rocks. on our left is a 150mtr drop of to a revine.

as we thumperd along bobbing on the trail of roacks spinning wheels with flying debries and rocks was flying all over at the rear...the gusy was shouting out to slow down to much debries flyinf all over and hiting them. than another obstecle..a land slide...aaaaahhhhhhh,...in my mind..naked and beaten up by the ride we set down and thought it trhough. In 2 hours it will be dark and we will not be able to see a thing in the dark. we decided to turn back through all the hell we went through. as we aproach the river it was totaly flooded..ah,,,,...the guysshouted.

Option one- cross the river and may be be lucky not to be swept away..the bike is definitly a problem to carry acros.

Option two- waite out the river to go down....

we decided to waite out the river..2 hours atleast it will be low enough to cross. seing that hunger was already started to crapt in,..the guys went in to the bush to see what they can fine. when they got back they where carying what look like muddy and dirty roots..one of them shouted." UBI KAYU" tapiyoca. we smiled atleast we will have roots for dinner tnight.

12hours later under the heavy rain, soacking wet and cold we where still on the other side of the river waiting for the water level to go down. at 5 in the morning it was safe to cross the river and so we did carrying the bikes acros.

Once we reach the main road 1st we did was look for a local shope for food,.we had 2 pax of noddles each person.

What the guys say..."it was one hell of adventure,..got to do it again"

Ride Borneo (Expedition) 23 Days.

Transborneo motorcycle tour 2010.

(2 country's, 11 guys and a good time.)






Our ride started of on a sunny sunday morning 11 guys on a dirt bike heading for an adventure of 22 days roughing it out on logging roads, muddy trails and river crossings in the heart of Borneo. On this ride i had good company's from natherlands and 1 guy from belgium nice bunch and really adventourouse.

for the next 2 days the weather was good until, half way out of brunei we had some really heavy rain experiance i could not see the road up ahead. The guys was realying on my taillight to navigate through the blistering rain. Once we enter the dirt road we knew that if it rain for the next 2 days we will be in one hell of an adventure..thoughts flesh through my mind of slipery logging road, falling off the bike and getting stuck in the middle of god knows where. when finaly we arrive mulu it was a great feeling of joy. no more blistering back side for the next 2 days...at least for the next 2 days. Mulu was great, we visited the caves, watch the bats, eat smoked wildboare and swim in the clear water river.

On the day we where departing there was heavy rain the night before,..it was flooding everywhere and we got our boat and headed out for our next destination. Due to the nature of the flood we had to get our bike on the boat and cruise out of this location...but thats another story to be told.

Ride Green

Sabah has in many ways developed its infrastructure in road ways mainly to towns along the coastal area. And most would go to road side junction conservation or park area within a close distance to the towns area. I have travel in Sabah logging area and crisscrossing village within the interior of sabah before. But on my last ride this route has changed so much that i was thinking of how many open logging sites is there. There is awareness of conservation but just out side of this conservation area you find palm oil estate. I dont think our rain forest will last very long with the logging going on. As we enter a palm oil plantation, it took us about 2 hours than we find a gate belongs to the sabah foundation a conservation area. the dirt road was fantastic if it rain well i guess it would be really though and slippery but we where lucky the weather was good. We rode for about 12 hours until we arrive a village and took a rest and had dinner. we talk to the head man about where to camp for the night and he informed us of a small water fall just about a kilometer away. After dinner we went up to this water fall since it was dark and only the bike lights to show us the way we got a little lost as the water fall was slightly further in by the road side. We where like hooligans riding around up and down and going around the village looking for the water fall. About 30 min latter we found it and put up camp, took a bath in the small stream and had a short chit chat before going to bed.


On day 2 we geared up and mad our way to telupid we where told it would take an hour but it actually took 2 hours of dirt road and going through conservation areas and palm oil plantations. Than i thought just at the fringes of the rain forest you find the oil palm...you need to go right smack in the middle to see the rain forest. This route is also used for transporting logs and also as an alternative route crisscrossing from tawau to ranau and keningau..it is right in the middle of sabah. we didn't manage to achieve our goal but we will be back to find that illusive Luasong dirt road to tawau.

HELL'S GATE TO BORNEO

It was a clear blue sky and bright sunny day, there where no clouds it was a perfect morning to start of on our 2 day adventure heading for what we called the gates of Hell to borneo. We try to ride through this hursh and thick jungle terrain last year but never mad it but this time we where well prepared for the worst situation we can encounter during the 2 day ride. We started out at 0830hrs on a 2 hours ride on tarmac and stop at a small town to have lunch and pack a few items and caned food for the night. the only thing i had with me was a tent a book of bread 3 cane food and a 5 liter fuel. No other clothing i thought i would just sleep in my pants for the night. The dirt road was really dusty and you couldnt see 5 mtr infron of you when other riders was up front, i had to slow down to see where i was going it was like riding in a clouds. At one point the road took a sharp benned i almost went strait over the ridge....i stop at the road side took a breather than took a piss thinking got to be more carefull.

The other was making good time making dust clouds behind it looked like the dakar race i thought. The road started to get smaller and smaller until there was no road except trails that the locals use to get to market area to sell there jungle products. as the road run out we started to climb steep hills with huge poth holes and boulders. We cross rivers only one guy fall off his bike the others was doing well. we stop for the night put up our camp and cooked some went to the river to take a deep. the guys was having fun although they new it was going to be a rough night sleeping on the ground with rocks and tree branches as there beds.

The next morning it was bright and cool towards the evening it got blistering hot and humid i was running out of water and sweating really heard. In desparation i went down the river and use the river water since it was clean. The ride went from bad to worse as the hill climb was getting more steeper and slipery. there was almost no traction on my rear wheels to the point i was going no where while the tyre was spinning. The other guys was at the same state as i was tired bushed out and hungry. by the evening at 1630 we reach the top point of took a long rest and lough most of the time about the ride up. Our ride out was fast and enjoyable we stoped at a small village crossing a river and arrive kota kinabalu at 2230hrs after a big dinner.

Route 44

Time flies when your having fun, we took one fine sunny sunday to recce our old routes to fool around with our trail bike and see what has changed to up date our riders. Well...we really found out the easy way the old route where we use to have fun has been tarmec all the way up to the highest point in Kota Kinabalu “No more Dirt trail”. Thinking it would b a boring ride to my surprise it was not..as the trees has been trim down at the side of the road you get a batter veiw of Kota Kinabalu and the island around it. I lost count of how many times we stopped to enjoy the breath taking views. The really fun thing about it is the winding smooth tarmac all the way up that mad the ride fun mostly accompanied with the view. Our exit from this route was a small road that descended about 45 degrees...just enough for a small car to pas through. Dont try to pass through this route if your not a season rider as the road consist of sharp bends, gravel andsteep descends. We stop at the MARI-MARI cultural village for a breather which something you can add in to your biking itinerary with having lunch at the same time..just next door is the kionsom water fall. This is a good route for riders who want to enjoy views,culture and just to check out the part of Kota Kinabalu that your average tourist do not visit.

Distance - Total KM 51

Good for half day rides

Elevation about 700mrs