The day before Good Friday

In my research, I stumbled across an article entitled Mountain Men (and Lady) written by Nick Swallow on 3 September 2002. It was close to what I was looking for - the article detailed Nick's experience up Genting Highlands with 5 of Singapore's national cyclists - and if you read closely enough, the descriptions provided valuable "intel".

Extracts from the article:

For those who have never been to Genting, imagine riding from Orchard Road to Woodlands and going up and up the whole time! There are almost no flat stretches . The first 12km is a never-ending slog up through the trees until you reach the cable car station and a short, flat part which is blessed relief. It doesn't last long though.

The short, flat patch mentioned is Awana (resort and horse riding range) and cable car station refers to the Genting Skyway (Awana Station).

After a left turn the road kicks up again. The nature of the climb changes here. It becomes a series of steep sections divided by vicious switch-backs. The gradient is very tough and it's just a matter of slogging away. The final 5km are the hardest, the speed dropped as low as 8kmph or 9kmph! If you look up, you see the road zig -zagging into the distance above you, it's best to look down.

My favourite part of Nick's article (reminds me of a certain Warrant Ben back in BMT):

The only thing that keeps you going is a stubborn pride in your head telling you to keep pushing, one pedal stroke at a time. Slowly, very slowly the metres tick by - "I love the pain! I love the pain!"

Of the 10 riders who started the climb, 8 made it to the top.

That is a pretty high success rate! =P I can't wait to get there =)

By the way, Genting is rated as the 5th hardest climb in the world by the Pro Cycling magazine.