You're not welcome if you come and stay with us and sit in your room with the Wi-Fi password and ignore us (unless you're super tired!). We expect you to open the fridge, cook using our oven (if you can work out how to use it), eat with us if our stomachs coincide, and engage with Leo. We expect you to wander in and out when you want and to be comfortable in our house, to sit on the sofa, to put on the TV, to ask us stuff. We don't want to feel like we're in your way, or awkward in our home, we're super chilled and friendly, so if you're not, maybe try a hotel! 

We're not interested if you're not interested.

Public Transport

Not really an option, unless you just want to go with your bike box to the centre of town, and don’t mind manually carrying your bike box through the train stations. We did it once because there was a huge traffic jam on the way to the airport and the experience wasn’t nice!

Cycling from the airport

Just don’t. It would be the worst possible way to start your journey, it’s unpleasant. There are possible routes, but it’s 75 km away and along major highways, and it is no fun. If you insist on doing it, then it’s best to take a couple of days, head out west, away from KL, then go North then come in from the West. You’ll see nothing interesting on your journey and spend more money on food and accommodation than you would on a taxi straight to our house.

Getting a taxi

To get a taxi you’ll need to have the Grab app (Asian Uber) and if you are ever going to need to book a taxi at a particular time then you should get the AirAsia Move app. The Air Asia booking works really well and is reliable even at 4am. 

• 1 bike: Almost any Grab will do - RM 80 will be the rough cost to get to Desa ParkCity

• 2 bikes: To get from the airport with 2 bikes in boxes, use Grab. Select a 6-seater. You can add a note to say that you need a Toyota Innova or a Peradua Alza which are the only 6 seaters guaranteed to fit. It will cost you about RM105 for a 70km / 45-min+ journey. 

• If you need things for your bike, just order them online (Shopee or Lazada) and get them sent to our house. 

• 28" inner tubes with Presta valves are hard to find anywhere in a shop, so go online to find them. 

• You can actually get the holes in your rims drilled out so that you can always use Schrader valves, which are more commonly available.

• Schwalbe Marathon tyres are almost impossible to find in Malaysia, order online if you need them.

• If you are touring Asia, and especially China or anywhere far from big cities, then you will never find 28" tubes or tyres, so come prepared. 

• Something else worth noting is that in 32°C constant heat and much higher in the sun, glue doesn't stick very well if you are mending punctures. We always replace the tube and go to a motorbike place and ask them to repair it for you. They will use better glue and do a good job.

• Wear thin clothes

• Wear a broad hat when cycling

• Use insulated bottles

• Don’t wear black clothes or black hats

• Get up early, cycle early (this also means you avoid the late afternoon rain)

• It starts to get very hot mid-afternoon, so be smart!

• Salt is very important - so make sure you have plenty - your body will tell you, if for some reason you seem to love salty food then you’re not having enough

• Buy or ask for ice instead of water - just add enough water to then fill your bottles, it’ll last an hour, and you’ll be so much happier - you can get it almost anywhere in bags

• Get 'sudocrem' from chemists and if you get a sweat rash, use it at night, you’ll be fine the next day

• You can get very cheap water from machines by the road, they’re hard to spot, but once you see one, you’ll start to notice them everywhere

You can’t really ride in the afternoon rain. It’s often hard to see 5m in front of you. Just get to shelter and wait. Your waterproofs will rarely help. You can be completely soaked in 10 seconds. If you are really stuck in it away from a shelter, just strip off and put swimming stuff on. If it’s earlier in the day, you can sometimes ignore it because you will be dry half an hour after it stops.

You cannot expect to navigate KL or any big city in Malaysia pleasantly without knowledge. If you use a phone, please don’t naively think that you can just use Google Maps. It’s useless for cycling, although great for finding homestays etc. If you ever make a route yourself with any app through a city, you need to go and check all the junctions in Street View to make sure it really is possible! Your basic instinct should be to mistrust all routing where it looks complicated!

Make sure you are using Open Street Maps in one of its many forms: 

• OSMAnd - my favourite, but you have to pay to get more than a few country maps

• MapsMe - capable and free

• Komoot - People use it, but I never have needed to, some features are paid

• Locus Maps - the best maps I’ve ever found

• Garmin Connect - surprisingly good because it shows purple heat maps for where people have cycled. It also routes really well on a phone.

• Strava - a subscription allows routing and shows the places that people have cycled

The best thing to do in KL is to get a route from me (use the menus) and then DO NOT use any routing functions. Just follow the line. Cycling through KL is easy if you know to go up the one way street or, to follow the muddy path that cuts through a building site. You can ignore traffic lights and road flow suggestions, just go where the line goes. Often, following a routing suggestion can involve a detour of 5km when all you have to do is cross a road in a ‘non-approved’ way.

East Coast Islands season

The only ‘season’ worth knowing about is the surfing season. From late November to early March, the East coast has waves. This means that access to the East Coast islands such as the Perhentians isn’t really possible (or there are restricted ferries) because the sea is too rough. The weather will be beautifully windy, cloudy more often and cooler to cycle in, it will rain a little more often, but it is still pretty much irrelevant. Do not avoid the East Coast because of anything anybody tells you about the bad weather, it’s just badly informed nonsense. Remind yourself that only a cyclist like you will know when the weather is poor, so only listen to cyclists, not people you meet who already think you're crazy going outside riding a bike. 

Rainy season

Do not believe absolutely anyone who tells you that it's 'rainy season' in the east. Rainy season can mean it rains 18 days a month compared to 15 days a month, so it is irrelevant. Your problem is that most people don’t actually know. I have been told by many Malaysians that the weather will be awful to the East of the Cameron Highlands, I have been told this many times, and it is just not true! I don’t think I’ve ever been rained on, on any tour apart from perhaps an hour, once! Another game I like to play is to ask people when they think the rainy season is? Everybody will give you a different answer, which says a lot!

The most beautiful side of Malaysia with access to really incredible islands is the East side, although the islands are harder to get to because the sea is rough in the east from November to February. It always amazes me that anyone rides along the west coast, Langkawi and Penang are good, but they don't really compare for beauty with anywhere in the east.

One thing to note is that Malaysia isn't poor, so the tourist industry doesn't really care about you that much, apart from in a few selective places. You could easily discover that the person with the guest house has gone on holiday, or the restaurant owner couldn't be bothered to open that day. Be chilled and look elsewhere. All will be good.

If you want ideas for great places to go, then just ask. We like a journey that goes somewhere, we aim for the mountains if we can, and the wilder and more remote it is the better. If you can wild camp by a river, then it's perfect.