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Ride to Serve - Charity Ride 2026.
Ride around Johor in four days.
Ulu Tiram - Desaru - Mersing - Batu Pahat -Johor Bahru
Yet another ride. Maybe, trying to justify our early morning diabolical activities, we found a group doing it for a noble cause. The Sikh Welfare Council of Singapore organised a charity ride from their nation-state to and around the State of Johor in Malaysia. The plan was like this. The cyclists would do their thing, i.e. cycling, while the deep-pocketed would dig deep to scoop out some sponsorship, knowing pretty well that their contributions would add some brownie points to add a few more days of life on Earth.
The cyclists had a perfect excuse to do what they do best: the wealthy can splurge, whilst the needy can be helped. It was a perfect win-win situation. The ride was between the 27th and the 30th of March 2026, starting in Ulu Tiram, near Johor Bahru, and covering the four corners of the State of Johor: Desaru, Mersing, Batu Pahat, and back to Johor Bahru. The total distance covered was 518km, from Singapore and back. Four regular cyclists on our team, who would represent Malaysia at the event, decided to take part in the ride.
Even before the word 'go', we got the vibe that it probably was not the best time to get entangled in long-distance cycling, as the northern states were already experiencing a heatwave, with temperatures soaring to 40 °C. But things had been planned long ago. Like a drunkard who has a thousand and one reasons to start drinking, a heatwave is not going to stop the cyclists.
Day 1 - Ulu Tiram to Desaru.
The first leg of the ride started smoothly with close to 60 riders. Using the outer roads around Johor Bahru, the group avoided many busy highways. The terrain was mainly flat. The larger town we went through on this route was Kota Tinggi. Even though I had passed through this town before in the course of work, one can never appreciate a place like when one is cycling. I had never known that there were at least three museums there.
The first one was the Kota Tinggi museum, which was situated right in the heart of town. Then along the route, I also passed by Muzium Nelayan (Fisherman's Museum), quite far from town. There was a site labelled as the old state capital, Kota Johor Lama. If my secondary school history memory does not fail me, this fort was where the defeated Malaccan Sultanate took shelter to regroup and plan counterattacks against the Portuguese in the 16th century.
After a 71km ride, about 3hours later, the entourage completed the first day's ride at Desaru. Desaru is the only destination in Malaysia to make Time magazine's 2021 World's Greatest Places list. An artificial township carved out to attract foreign funds into the State, it is a hub for extreme sports enthusiasts.
Day 2 - Desaru to Mersing
The day started at 7 am on a journey which would prove to be the most gruelling among the four days. Not only did the cyclists have to cover a mindboggling distance of 137km, but there were also many undulating hills giving a total elevation of 1,080m.
Cruising through the Malaysian beachside, one may expect to smell sea products, the fresh smell of cut grass, or simply fresh air. No. On that day, because of the preceding hot spells, all we smelled was burnt grass and shrubs along the way, as there must have been a small bushfire of some sort the preceding day.
This stretch of land was also Malaysia's success story of the 1960s and 70s when the country opened up land for explorers to develop plantations. Many commercial crops, like pandan coconut varieties and ostrich farms, were scattered here.
Cruising along the coastal road, out of the blue, an idyllic beach appeared, its long coastline lined with sleepy Casuarina trees, complementing the calm waters of the South China Sea. That was the popular Tanjung Sedili Beach, a sight for sore eyes.
With so much fauna and flora all around here and being the gateway to the national park, Taman Negara, it was only natural that we spotted a wooden building along with the signage, 'National Arboretum'.Not many Malaysians realise that, in this area, during World War 2, the British Army was deeply engaged in the Battle of Endau. Mersing served as a base for the British Royal Army at the time. It was a trying time for the Allied Forces, as they had to fend off ground forces here as well as in the Gulf of Siam. We know how all that turned out.
Talking about Endau, I remember an old working colleague who was posted here as a young medical officer. Running the medical services with the bare minimum, he was some kind of a male version of 'Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman'. He described the area as the Siberia of Malaysia. It was a punishment posting.
A gruelling day with unending rolling hills, with cyclists dispersed far away from each other, it was a trip on 'The Long and Winding Road' that finally led us to the doors of the next stop in Mesmerising Mersing, as the townsfolk named themselves, some seven and a half hours later.
Day 3 - Mersing to Batu Pahat
This was the longest ride in the four-day event. We covered a distance of 141km. The journey could be divided into two parts. The first one, starting from Mersing all through the roads lining oil palm estates to Kluang, which was littered with rolling hills. In fact, there were so many rolling hills that they gave us a crash course in conquering them. One should speed down the hill to gain momentum to cover almost half of the following ascent. What goes down must come up is a wise adage. Of course, care must be given to speeding vehicles and lorries, especially. A whiff of wind from a massive twenty-tonne lorry, which commonly plies this route, is enough to push a cyclist off the road even without direct contact.
The second half of the route, after Kluang, leading to Batu Pahat, was flat all the way. Pedalling along this flat stretch also teaches a lesson or two about facts of life. Following a peloton is much like being in the company of the wealthy. Money begets money, and the wealthy stay wealthy no matter how big a black swan event they encounter. Like that, if a cyclist wants to ride fast, he needs to stay with fast riders. He should follow a peloton that matches his speed, try to stick close to them, and end up not only going fast but also conserving energy. Lag and find it a Herculean task to catch up. Losing your coffers and being an outcast are the same life analogy.
One is reminded of a scene in the film 'Finding Nemo' (2003), where a clownfish found the fastest way to travel in the vast ocean was to follow the great current, followed by the migratory sea animals. Remember how she got sucked into the current and got dragged into the migratory wave. In the same vein, the cyclists in a peloton (the longer, the better) spend less energy pedalling as they are aided by the drag of the air displaced by the faster cyclists.
The town of Kluang needs a little mention here. In its heyday, when the national highway traversed the town and the trains stopped at its junction, it was a happening town. The Kluang Rail Coffee shop was such a hit with its homegrown coffee and signature toast that it is now a national franchise. Kluang was a hub for rubber and oil palm. It earned itself the moniker 'the happiest town in Malaysia'.
The weather was kind to us the whole day. The Sun took a break that day. In fact, the weather was mild throughout our trip, so much for the Meteorological Department and their credibility. Before our trip to Johor, the most viralled reel was the one where the Northeners were frying eggs in the open field without burners.
Our group finished the 141km path to Batu Pahat with 760m of elevation in 8 hours and 20 minutes, after multiple stoppages along the way.
Day 4 - Batu Pahat to Pekan Nanas
All good things must end. On the last day, the cycling group, which by now had built ties and camaraderie, felt the honeymoon was over and had to get back to life and back to reality. No more the loop of eat, cycle and sleep to fill the days. Again, the route on the final day was flat all the way.
Over the days, the cyclists have separated into four major groups based on their endurance and speed. Even within each group, subgroups began to emerge, based on their competitiveness. Some thought it was just a fun ride, while others felt the urge to go faster and faster.
At the outset, everyone agreed that the speed limit should be capped. The inner human desire, however, cannot be suppressed. Pretty soon, everybody started pedalling faster and even faster. The innate lust to be better and faster never failed humankind. It kept reemerging again and again. Same in the peloton: all the preset conditions go out the window once they get the thrill of speed and the feel of the gush of wind that dashed them by.
The last ride of the tour covered 88km, at least for the Malaysian contingent. We completed our ride at a small town after Pontian, called Pekan Nanas. The rest of them, who were Singaporeans, continued cycling across the Causeway back to Singapore.
Conclusion
We were pleasantly surprised to be able to cycle daily for 4 days in a row, and on top of that, pedal a total of about 440km in the tropical weather. We would have covered 518km if we had started and cycled back to Singapore. We are happy to report that no one suffered heatstroke or had to discontinue their endeavour due to extreme weather conditions. In Malaysia, everyone cast doubts on the weather reports. There is a reason why the weather is forecasted, and it cannot be accepted as something cast in stone.
Farouk Gulsara (asokansham@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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