The ride segment on Strava from Genting Sempah starts from Hospital Orang Asli Gombak to Overhead Bridge, which covers a 15.7 kilometre climb with 542 meter elevation and averagely 3.3% gradient.
Laos born professional rider Ariya Phounsavath from Thailand Continental Cycling Team still holds the number one Genting Sempah KOM during Stage 4, 2014 Le Tour de Langkawi. He clocked 29 minutes and 41 seconds with averagely 285 watts and 31.8km/h speed.
If you plan to break the record for 28 minutes, you need to hold averagely 423 watts and 33km/h speed for a rider weighed 70kg and with a bicycle weighted around 7.3kg based on bikecalculator.com, and 28 minutes should be yours!
Advanced technology is increasingly evident in cycling. Back in the days, the reason why riders were using low profile wheelset because they didn’t have the option to play with gear ratio. For instance, the smallest chainring that they used to have was only 39T for 11-28/25 speed. So, they had to play around with low profile wheelset to give them the advantage on climbing.
In today’s cycling world, the latest technology available in the market is the aero frameset which weighs lesser than the climbing frameset. A rear cassette can go up to 11-34T with the lowest chainring 50-34T called the compact chainring. It is an advantage for the riders to use a high profile wheelset.
The best climbing bike should be weighed around 7.5kg to 6.9kg. With the technology nowadays, it should not be a problem for the riders to use a high profile wheelset to climb up the hill, especially hills in Malaysia like Genting Sempah.
Wheelset profile categories by three-level – Low (25-35mm), Mid (35-45mm), and High Profile (45-60mm). Most entry to intermediate level wheels will feature aluminium rims of varying quality, while high-level wheels will typically feature rims made of carbon fiber, which reduces the weight while increasing stiffness.
Stage 4, 2014 Le Tour de Langkawi, from Subang to Genting Highland was a climbing stage through the Genting Sempah route. The winner of the stage Samad Pourseyedi from Tabriz Petrochemical Team was using a high profile wheelset – 48mm!
