On the 12 of May 2012 we were extremely excited to join a mountain bike race in Kep. There were 131 participants in total and four that joined from the Soksabike team – Untac, Phearun, Phalla, and Pheap. And we had another one more person from Battambang as well who joined in our group as well – Kevin.

All these guys joined the race and Katie, Justin and Mel were our cheerleaders.  Three of us completed the whole race circuit. The program was named Flying Bike, and they have different classes such as:
A1 experts younger than 35 year-old
A2 experts older than 35 year-old
B1 average expertise younger than 35
B2 average expertise older than 35 year-old C1 beginners younger than 35 year-old
C2 beginners older than 35 year-old
K kids class
W for women

Flying Bike Race was our first time to see and to do bike race with other group of people who have come from all over Cambodia and the world. We could meet more people, both Khmer and foreigners, who are the bike experts. It was  a really amazing and incredible event. We have never ever seen it before at all. To us, we felt completely different from what we thought. And it was a greatest experiences for us to see and join that race. We felt like the bike bike race in Kep was also completely different from Soksabike bicycle tour and the experience we get from that. Because in our tour we have only flat road and we don’t have uphill and downhill road.  This experience gave us the strong energy to become a patient person.

First time when I saw the race field, I felt I want to quit the race, but my friend encouraged me to race – even though I decided to race, my result wasn’t good. But I come a person who loves bicycling more and more.Before I joined, I thought the bike race was very hard, but after I joined it, I thought it’s not the most difficult thing in my life.  It helped me a lot to know more about different cycling techniques. And I started to use the gears more effectively than before. And I felt like riding around 20 to 30 kms isn’t a problem for me at all. I rode from downhill to the uphill on the mountain and it wasn’t an easy road to ride. The majority of the bike race was off road.
I hope some of you who have never seen or known that before can see and race to get the experience. For me even though I didn’t win, I still felt like it was my first experience and a fun activity for me as well. This trip was sponsored and supported by a friend Mikey Sarbaugh, he come from US. He is the best person and we really honor and appreciate him. (Thanks Mikey!)By Sopheap Moth – Soksabike tour guide and team leaderFor more photos you can look here