Dirt bike tour, a new way to experience Sabah
KOTA KINABALU: A group of riders will be working with state government to offer another tourism product in Sabah dubbed as International Borneo Adventure Touring. Penampang Enduro Dirt Bikers (Penduro) Club members had recently completed a 19-day tour covering about 6,125 kilometres ride around the Borneo island. The tour manager Alldem Chia said there was potential to develop the bike tour around Borneo island product as there were demands from visitors who look for hard-core type of trip. “The trip can be equalled to annual Climbathon event in Sabah which it is thrilling but doable. “However, our planning is to have several options on how far tourists could go and arrange flight for them at the end points,” he said, adding there participants would also get certificate based on travelled distance. As of now, the club of 100 members are still fine-tuning on the tour details but have received sponsorships and assistance from several parties. Meanwhile, the tour around Borneo island, which began on June 2, had covered 19 areas in Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Kalimantan. The route also included four points of the island which are Sabah’s Tip of Borneo in Kudat, Kalimantan’s Equator Monument in Pontianak and Bontang, as well as Kalimantan’s Southern Tip in Banjarmasin. Unlike Chia’s previous road trips in Thailand, China, US, England among others, he described the tour around Borneo island as “road less travelled”. “Internet in Kalimantan is good and has wide coverage but most information on places there are not available in the net. “Our riders had to rely on locals and riders from there to provide us information and directions,” he said, adding such approach enabled the group of seven people to know better of the places of Interest, the locals’ culture, economic, and languages in Kalimantan. On Saturday, State Tourism, Culture and Environment assistant minister Datuk Pang Yuk Ming presented mock Malaysia Book of Records of “Longest Distance Travelled on Borneo Roads using Motorcycle(Srambler) 2015” to the group.
Source: New Straits Times
