Swordie Bloggie

Sometime last week, Disney told me about the Borneo Downhill Challenge 2009… a cycling challenge event. The challenge was held on 16 & 17 May 2009 at Taman Tun Fuad Stephen, Bukit Padang… the hill behind the jogging park.

Since it was a rare opportunity, we decided to go for it… but we only went for the final day, Sunday. As far as I know, both of us never attended any fast event photo shootout like downhill cycling. I did help a friend for a woods ball (paint ball) game last moth, but it was not that fast coz it was held in a huge area and I was shooting from a distance.

So, on last Sunday, we met at the parking area of the jogging park around 8.15 am. We saw a couple of photographer but we don’t see any cyclists or bicycles… so we were like blur blur… wondering if the game is really at the park… further more I don’t know the exact program of the challenge… I was relying what ever Disney knows 😛

Then Disney ask me about water… shoot, I did not bring any but luckily I have a large 100 Plus Lemon Lime in my car… I bought two days ago which I have consumed some and kept in my car. But I don’t want to carry that big bottle since my camera bag is just enough for my gears. Lucky second time, I have a small empty mineral water bottle in the car… I transferred the drink into the smaller bottle 😉

Still not sure what’s going on, we decided to walk around the park. After walking like 1 KM plus… which was good for warming us up… we ask a jogger how to go over the hill… mind you, both of us never climb the Bukit Padang Hill, so both of us don’t know what to expect from the hill!!! The jogger pointed to us the path to the hill… we actually pass over it but we thought there is another path.

We back track for a short distance… but decided to take a shortcut by climbing a low steep path. My sling bag starting getting heavy 😮 damm… I’ve not done any climbing for like 15 years?!!!

Then when I saw the steep steps… holly cow!!!… it’s like highway to heaven… endless…

The path we have taken so far…

Almost reaching at the end of the steps, we saw an old man… not really old… going down… with the MARSHAL tag… we ask him where the event is… he said up there, not very far… I ask if it over already… coz he was going down the steps… he said no, he just want to warm up… WARMING UP!!! We were like dying climbing and this old man is going down and up the steps like walking on a flat land ground…

We reach the last steps and saw the track… halleluiah, we finally reached heaven!!!

We also saw a few people with tag… MARSHAL and PARAMEDIC. Then Disney told me he felt dizzy… I said, o shoot… if he faint, I can’t carry him down… but luckily he recovered after a while… and I also manage to get back my strength.

I took out my camera then snap the surrounding… but few of the young marshal look at me like one kind only… then the old marshal told us that we cannot take photo without MEDIA pass… we just sit there to decide if we want to be just a spectator, go home or try to be a paparazi.

When the old marshal came near us again, we ask him when, where and how is media pass issued… he was so helpful… he told us that we can go down to the bottom of the hill by following the race track… of course not in the track… along the track… mo minta langar basikal kah? LOL… He said we don’t have to pay for the pass… in fact he was encouraging us to get the media pass… to legalize and allow us to snap photos… we said… OK, tats cool, let’s go down… 😉

So we trail down along the track. We saw many photographers along the way. Then we saw a group of ‘illegal photographers’… we talk to them and they told us that we need to sign an agreement which is so hard to follow… like u have to surrender your RAW photos or something like that… WOW tats so strict!!!… but after standing and talking with them for a while, we felt like an ‘illegal immigrants’… so we decided to continue our journey downhill.

We reach at the camps at the foot of the hill… asked the officer at one of the camp where to get the media pass… it is at the first camp… went there and registered ourselves… and ask about the rules and regulation… gave us a piece of paper with the rules… read it… turn out the rules are simple to follow… nothing about surrendering any RAW thingy… 😛

When we were about to leave the camps, one of the PARAMEDIC stopped us and asks if we are going up the hill… of course we said yes lah… they ask if we can help them to bring some food to their paramedic friends at the top of the hill… which turn out to be the place we rested earlier. Their medic friends have not eaten breakfast… they could be suffering up there LOL… The foods are inside two plastic bags, but we asked them to put it into one bag… we scared we might eat it instead of delivering it 😉 and luckily Disney has some lace like net on his camelback.

We climbed the hill and stopped at every nice spot for action… places where we think cyclists will tumble or jump… or do some stunts… but when the first few riders pass us… it was more like they doing joy riding… coz they are the master category… 35 years old and above if not mistaken.

The pace of the race gets better and faster when the open category started. We were lucky coz when we reach the top of the hill, we got the chance to watch the last 5 or more riders with their fast and good action. Overall, don’t expect to see excitement like what you’ve seen on AXN… I guess we have a long way to go to that level but with many competitions like this held here… yes, right at this Bukit Padang Hill… I’m sure we can produce talents on par with what we’ve seen on AXN.

One thing I notice was, the event was not widely publicized… I think only Sabah Times covered it… there was no news in the Daily Express… I’m sure many photographers (noobs like us) and bloggers are able to help in publicizing the events without difficulties if we know about it earlier.

I really hope more exciting event like this will be held here… in fact I just had a chit chat with one of the Sabah contingent committees for the National Youth Sports held in Malacca last week. He said the event was a bit in a mess… badly organized… I’m sure Sabah can do better coz I’ve involved with the SUKMA 2002 here and we did it very well… one of the best SUKMA organized I think 😀

The Jabatan Bomba Dan Penyelamat (Fire and Rescue Department) was called too… probably to look into the beehives…