Recently, I went up to Desaru for a day trip to visit the Desaru International Bike Week. I went on a short day trip alone, just to see what’s there. My friends couldn’t make it, so I made the trip alone.
I went through Woodlands checkpoint — till today, I still favour Tuas checkpoint because there are lesser humps. But… My NC750X has quite low ground clearance though, so if I am not careful, I hit one of the Tuas humps after the Malaysian checkpoint.
The ride to Desaru was pretty uneventful. It did rain a little bit along the way, put on raincoat but soon stopped.
I was a little bit dumb for not inspecting the event map further — turns out, the bike week was happening in two places at once. There was the Tanjung Balau side and the Desaru Public Beach side.
I wasn’t entirely sure where I was heading, so I followed most of the bikes, which turned out to be the kapchais/cubs who headed towards Tanjung Balau. There were food stalls, a dirt biking activity, cosmetic bike accessories and a tentage area for competitive bike display. I chilled by the beach while having keropok lekor and Thai Green Milk Tea.
Being alone got a bit boring, so I tried to chat with a group that settled next to me. But they weren’t that friendly so… I left to explore the booths. Got myself an official merch (long-sleeved T-shirt) for 80RM, which I thought was quite pricey. The staff told me that there was another side to the Desaru Bike Week, which was on the Public Beach side.
Since there wasn’t much to do, I rode off to the other side, which was only a 10-minute ride away. The roads were quite narrow, since it was single lane two-way roads. The parking area for cars were situated between the two event sites, so at some point, there were pedestrians walking on the road.
I happened to slot myself into a Malaysian biker group, and they told me to join them. Quite a surprise, really! Two of them turned out to be policemen, one worked in construction, another worked in the army… etc. Felt safe with them.
There were booths from Harley Davidson, Triumph, CFMoto, Moto Guzzi and more. Super interesting! You can also sit on the bikes for a photo op. I didn’t — I was too shy haha. Anyway, see my TikTok video below as a summary haha.
@knchrmia story of how a malaysian rider grp adopted a solo sg rider into their grp during desaru bike week 😭 tysm malaysia #desarubikeweek2023 #bikergirl #nc750x #sgrider #myrider #malaysia #ridertok ♬ Beautiful Day – U2
I stayed on with one of the riders (the construction guy). He honestly didn’t have to, I felt quite shy and awkward haha. We sat to listen to the live band, explored the booths (food booths), and then decided to leave before it got too dark. The roads from Desaru to the main highway was not well lit, so I wanted to get out safely.
The rider (Izan) stayed somewhere in Gelang Patah, so both of us decided to head the same way together. Considering he had a Kawasaki z900, I felt super paiseh that he had to ride at my pace (which was a maximum 140km/h). He could easily ride off at 180km/h!
Pumped petrol at Layang R&R.. well he did. It just so happened that all the RON95 pumps and above were not functioning. I prayed so hard that my 2 bar petrol could last till Gelang Patah R&R. Anyway, the sunset was really beautiful — wished I had my Insta360 switched on to capture that moment.
I think I had some odd 20km before I ran out of petrol. Luckily we reached Gelang Patah R&R safely.
Honestly, the bike week itself was just meh. The fun part was meeting this group of Malaysians, and also seeing tons of biker groups from Malaysia and beyond gather!
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