Maiden Voyage..Georgetown to Taiping Malaysia

[Stinky]

I did the maiden voyage today with Mrs. Stinky on our new 2019 Tracer GT. Mrs. Stinky named it "Belle" (as in Blue Belle). We left our home in Georgetown, Malaysia and took the bridge over to the mainland. A little background. I retired early here to Penang, Malaysia from Charlotte, NC.

I was always a dirt bike guy, but Mrs. Stinky got the touring bug after we did a few motorcycle day trips in Vietnam. There is a HUGE on road and off road biking community here in Malaysia. I ride with guys and gals from Malaysia, Hong Kong, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Thailand, and South Africa. The roads and highways here in Malaysia are very good....equal to what we ride on the US.

One of the biggest perks of riding here...there are virtually NO (I mean none) police on the highways writing speeding tickets. The freeway speeds are 110 km/hr. But we got passed by a group of guys on sport bikes doing 200 km/hr+. Here in Malaysia, if you want to kill yourself by speeding on a motorcycle, have at it.

Ok....I digress. 

Mrs. Stinky and I headed out from Georgetown at about 10:15 am. Our destination was a cool little old tin mining town called Taiping. The route was major roads all the way to the 15km bridge that connects the island of Penang to the mainland of Malaysia. Then it was about 120km on the main north/south expressway in Malaysia the E1. We pulled into Taiping and Mrs. Stinky found a great restaurant off her portable Google machine. 

Lunch was fantastic. A huge chicken burger with bacon and egg on it, a great grilled pork dish on mashed potatoes for Mrs Stinky, an apple/celery fruit drink, and an ice tea. Tax and out the door was 46 ringett (about $11.50 US dollars).

We did a quick bathroom hop and back to Georgetown. Rain was in the forecast so we had to hurry home. 140km/hr on the expressway back home and we beat the rain by about 5 minutes!!!

Both the Tracer and Mrs. Stinky did great. This was my first trip on a bike with cruise control. I wish I had more than two thumbs to give it. We averaged about 22 km/liter on petrol. Could have done better but as mentioned before I didn't "spare the horses" on the way home.

Malaysia and South East Asia is a great place to ride. We must have seen 200 touring bikes on the road today. More than half were tandems. A friend of mine always said: "Play together....stay together."

I'll post up more  pictures on our next ride.

[wordsmith]

I recall a drive up from the border with S'pore to Melucca (?spp?) - fantastic trip, great highway, etc etc!   You, sir, are a lucky man!

Edited August 25, 2019 by wordsmith