Kyle Ralston and Jayden Fong went to Malaysia earlier this year and filmed a vid from the trip. I hit up Jayden with some questions about it, read em, watch the vid, get stoked and plan a riding trip with a mate! You won't regret it.
Jayden Fong
How did the trip come about?
Jayden - This trip came together pretty quickly, I had booked the three days off
in between easter and anzac long weekends in April So I had 10 days to
make something happen!
So I started looking into places in Asia because of fellow team rider
Mir (@mir116 ). He did a full Asian tour last year and some of the
places looked unreal to ride. I was originally thinking Singapore but
the more research I did it sounded like it was a bust for street riding
and flights were pretty pricey.
I did some googling and ended up landing on Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Flights and accomodation were cheap and it looked like they had a heap
of stuff to ride and the locals got around it too. I was watching a
tonne of bmx and skate videos from KL and it looked super fun. I was
thinking of going solo but thought I would put the feelers out there to
see if anyone was keen....dead silence....except for one,
Cockyboingboing himself AKA (@Kylston) AKA Kinross skatepark AKA Closing
time #1 fanboy AKA Kyle Ralston!
Kyle Ralston getting that caffeine fix.
Kyle was living in Newcastle NSW at this point as he had been travelling in
his van around Aus and set up in Newy. So we ended up putting it all
together and I flew out from Perth and Kyle flew from Sydney.
We ended up getting some details from Mir of some local riders that
would be keen to show us around. Rafiq (@Rafiqhashimi) had shown Mir
around when he was over, unfortunately Rafiq was getting that paper
throughout the weekdays so he mentioned "Min" (@themuhaiminmzln) to
show us around on the weekdays.
Min could be a BMX tour guide if he wanted to, he gave us the full
Malaysian tour. Eating local food like Nasi Kandar & Nasi Ayam. He
showed us the all the local skateparks and spots and he ended up driving
us to Penang and back which was dope cause we didn't even have that
planned at the start of the trip. We ended up meeting so many local
riders and made some great friends along the way.
Ash (@Ash_bm_x) ended up coming for a weekend trip from Singapore. He
booked a charter bus and crashed at our place for a few nights in KL. Good times.
Best moment on and off the bike?
Jayden - Best moment on the bike would just have to be the whole riding
experience in general. I had busted my thumb up again a few months
before so I was strapping the hell out of it to even be able to ride.
But being in a different country with your friends riding some unreal
places and just enjoying every moment that would have to be the
highlight!
Favourite clip would be the icepick grind along the quarter. We were
riding in Penang all day at this playground spot. Clipping up! Anyway we
ended up riding all the way through Penang to this jungle, after riding
up this huge hill there's this mega skatepark. Think Jurassic park X
SMP skatepark haha, It was huge. There was this perfect quarter pipe with
the steepest coping. I ended up playing around for a lil bit and said to
Kyle hey grab the camera I might try and icepick it.
About four try's in I lock into the best icepick I'll probably ever
do. I was shocked that it happened lol, you can see by my reaction.
Jurassic park aka Penang skatepark.
Best moment off the bike would be seeing the community that they have in
Malaysia. They really like being with each other and spending quality
time together.
I remember we were riding all day and ended up heading back to KL. Kyle
and I were pretty toast from riding but the Malaysian boys were keen to
keep hanging out. We roll into vans skatepark in KL around 11pm at
night. Lights are still on, music going, families everywhere, kids
riding flatland BMX, it was so cool to see! I said to Min "In Aus
it's light out around 10pm, It would be pitch black and you could hear
the crickets"
"He responds in Malaysian with a phrase" I say "What does that
mean"? Min "The night is still young". It wasn't just this
instance either, we were hanging out at skateparks till like 1am most
nights, no drinking, just chilling with the boys.
Park hangs with the boys.
How was it dealing with the humidity? Some of the clips looked pretty
sweaty.
I didn't start looking at the weather till the trip was getting
closer, I seen from the vans dragon tour that it was hot but I thought
cause they were Americans they were just exaggerating... they were not.
It was around 30-35 degrees everyday with 80-100% humidity, It was hot
and sweaty.
I tried to prepare as much as I could, had some sodii hydration,liquid
chalk and board shorts.
Pretty much as soon as you would start riding you were sweating, you
kind of get used to it after a few days though. You know what you are in
for.
Sweatfest.
We probably could've planned our days out a bit better like ride early
in the morning then ride at night. Instead we opted for riding around
lunchtime onwards and hit the peak heat around 2pm lol.
It was a good challenge though trying to film while there's sweat
coming from every part of your body, athletes!
Cheers Jayden!
Thanks to Mir for connecting them with the locals, Min and Rafiq for the spot tours, Ash for the hangs, Eclat for keeping Kyle rolling, WTP for keeping Jayden rolling and BMX International for the support! Now watch the vid!