BMW rider hopes to do Malaysia proud

By topgear ,

1 mohd faizal sukree

Many bikers like to say they live to ride, but Mohd Faizal Sukree practically lives on his ride.

Since 2013, Faizal has been touring the world on his BMW F 800 GS. Home for him is usually the tent he carries on the bike, along with 100kg of gear and personal belongings: a water tank, butane stove, spare parts, camera gear... the tools of an adventurer.

He was bitten by the travel bug, like so many world travelers are, after buying an adventure bike. “My first BMW bike was in 2007, an R 1200 GS. I started to travel around Indochina,” he says. “In 2012 I sent my bike to Turkey. From there I rode to England for the Olympics.”

A year later he set off with friends on his round-the-world journey, starting from Kuala Lumpur and heading north all the way through China, Mongolia, Siberia, Central Asia and then to England.

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From there, Faizal shipped the bike to Argentina. He made his way to Ushuaia, the city at the southern tip that is nicknamed the End Of The World, then rode north through the entire length of the Americas, all the way to Alaska.

By this time, the other bikers on the trip had started to drop out. “At first we had five, then four, then three… and then I started solo in Vancouver,” he grins. “I wanted to see the Arctic.”

Faizal whips his phone out and shows me pictures. The landscape is straight out of History Channel’s Ice Road Truckers, a frozen expanse of white that must be slippery enough to make a banana skin feel like sandpaper in comparison.

So far he’s covered 157,000km — nearly four times the circumference of the Earth — over 58 countries, which means he has 39 to go before he’ll call it a day and wrap up a trip that most bikers can only envy.

But Faizal has called a temporary halt on his globe-trotting to ride for a larger purpose: at the end of February, he represents Malaysia in the GS Trophy, a seven-day competition among some of the best off-road riders from around the world.

It’s open to customers of BMW’s GS range of adventure bikes, and requires fine riding skills, an attitude that any obstacle can be overcome and above all, an intrepid spirit.

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“If you look at a world which is getting smaller and smaller, more and more busy, I believe that an event like the GS Trophy is that last true adventure. And the customers who are using a bike like the GS can identify with this,” says Tomm Wolf, the chief marshall of the event. “And with this bike you can do all the adventures that you can imagine — as it is, straight from the factory.”

This year, 19 teams from around the world will compete in daily stages and special challenges along the way. Heave a bike over a pile of boulders or remove the rear wheel from an R 1200 GS as quickly as possible? Faizal and his teammates will face challenges like these, and all against the stopwatch.

For the first time, a team from Southeast Asia is taking part, and Faizal is flying the Malaysian flag together with Peerapat Woratham from Thailand and Tommy Lee, another Malaysian but one who is representing Singapore, as a permanent resident of the city state.

To clinch a place on the team, Faizal first had to win a qualifying competition held in Bangkok last November. “I knew I had a chance. I knew all the riders (from Malaysia). Everyone was equal, everyone had a chance,” he says. “The thing is, everyone made mistakes in the qualifier, but I made fewer mistakes!”

Even getting to Bangkok for the qualifier was a trial. Faizal was in Morocco in October, and planned to leave his BMW there to fly back to Malaysia. “I already parked it and bought a ticket to fly back to Malaysia. When I got to airport, checked in, got a boarding pass, went to immigration, the officer said, ‘Uh, you come with car?’”

“No, moto…” Faizal replied.

“You have to leave the country with your moto,” the officer replied.

“S**t.”

Faizal jumped back on the bike and rode nearly 3,000km to Madrid so he could fly home from there, in time to enter the qualifier but without any time for practice. He had lost five days scrambling from Casablanca to Madrid.

Thankfully, his more than 15 years of off-road riding experience saw him through.

But winning his place in the GS Trophy was only the start of Faizal’s next challenge. “After I qualified I thought, ‘Wow, this is a big responsibility.’ You have to perform, you know?” he says.

To prepare for the competition, he’s been training like a demon. He’s been riding off-road to hone his skills, and is working hard in the gym and on the treadmill. “I do a lot of squats for my leg strength, and of course cardio. This is an endurance event. You need to be very fit,” he says. He runs twice a day, every day.

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The other aspect of his preparation has been to work on building a rapport with his teammates. To address that, Faizal met Lee and Woratham for a training session at BMW’s Enduro Park in Thailand in January.

There, they ran through drills to work out how to operate as a well-oiled machine. Their first attempt at changing a rear tyre together took more than five minutes, but after some fine-tuning the team cut their time in half.

That’s a huge improvement, but Faizal wants more. “We have to practise more. I think we can do like two minutes, two minutes 20 seconds,” he says.

At least there will be something of a homeground advantage for Team Southeast Asia. This year’s GS Trophy will be held in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand, where 114 R 1200 GS bikes to be used in the competition are already on their way from Munich.

“The big advantage for the Southeast Asia team is that we’re used to the climate here. So for the foreigners who are coming… good luck to them!” says Tommy Lee, grinning.

Then again, competing at home has its pressures, too. And the GS Trophy itself is a tough event that can trip up even the best competitors, says Tomm Wolf. “Two years ago, Team Germany’s members were excellent riders. And in the Trophy, the team screwed up extremely. They did everything wrong. Too much pressure!” he says.

Hopefully, the intense preparation put in by Faizal and team will keep that from happening in Chiang Mai. “We represent Southeast Asia,” says Faizal. “I want the Malaysian flag, the Singaporean flag and Thai flag to fly high.”

Follow Faizal’s journey in the GS Trophy on Instagram at @faizalsukree