BiakBecicak The Boys Who Love Running in Ketapang Borneo

There is a particular honesty to how BiakBecicak came to exist. No grand vision, no brand strategy, no carefully planned launch event. Just five young men in Ketapang, on the Indonesian side of Borneo, lacing up their shoes and hitting the streets because they wanted to become police officers and needed to get fit enough to pass the entrance examination. That is where the story begins, and that grounding in pure, practical motivation gives BiakBecicak a character that is refreshingly direct. Running, for this crew, was never dressed up in anything more complicated than what it actually is: movement, effort, and the company of people doing the same thing beside you.

Five Friends, One Goal, One Island

In November 2017, Dirga, the crew's founder, gathered four friends and started training with a specific target in mind. The physical demands of the police recruitment process in Indonesia are real and rigorous, and running was a central part of preparation. So they ran. They ran through the streets of Ketapang, a port city on the southwestern coast of Borneo, a place flanked by rivers, palm-lined roads, and the kind of equatorial air that makes every kilometre feel earned. The city sits on the edge of the Pawan River and has long been a quiet hub of trade and community life on the island. Running its streets in the early evening, when the heat begins to soften and the light turns golden, is a particular kind of experience that belongs only to this corner of the world.

When Training Became Something Bigger

What happened next was organic and, in retrospect, almost inevitable. Other runners in the neighbourhood saw the group out on the roads and wanted to join. Then more came. The sessions that had started as focused physical preparation began to take on a different energy. There were more voices, more footfalls, more conversations mid-run and after. Dirga and the original group recognised that what they had built was no longer just a training bloc for a single goal. It had become a community. They formalised it, gave it a name, and committed to showing up week after week. Around 100 runners now call BiakBecicak home, a number that grew not through recruitment campaigns but through the oldest mechanism there is: one person telling another person about something worth doing.

A Name That Says Everything

The name BiakBecicak is drawn from the local Malay dialect spoken in West Kalimantan, the Indonesian province that occupies the western portion of Borneo. "Biak" means children or boys. "Becicak" means running. Put them together and you have boys who love running, a translation that is both literal and deeply accurate. There is something unpretentious and joyful in that framing. It does not position the crew as elite, aspirational, or exclusive. It says: these are people who run, and they love it. The name carries a lightness that reflects the crew's personality, rooted in friendship and forward motion rather than performance metrics or competitive hierarchy. For a crew that started because a handful of young men wanted to chase a dream, the name fits perfectly.

Tuesday Evenings at Citimall Ketapang

The crew gathers every Tuesday at 19:30 at Citimall Ketapang, a central and accessible meeting point that has become the reliable anchor of the week for members across the city. The choice of a Tuesday evening run makes sense in the context of daily life in Ketapang: the weekend has passed, the working week is underway, and a mid-week run offers both a physical reset and a social one. Meeting at a well-known landmark means no one gets lost, newcomers can find the group without difficulty, and the gathering has a sense of occasion even before the first steps are taken. The crew sets off into the city streets from there, moving through a town that most of its members have known their whole lives, seeing familiar roads in a new way when covered at pace with people you trust.

Running Through Borneo Together

Ketapang is not a city that typically appears on lists of running destinations, but that is part of what makes BiakBecicak's story worth telling. The crew is not building something against a backdrop of international running culture or urban cool. They are building it in their own city, on their own terms, for their own people. Borneo itself carries a weight of natural drama, dense rainforest, wide rivers, and a landscape that dwarfs most human ambitions. Running through even a small corner of it, as BiakBecicak does every week, connects the crew to something larger than any single training session. Ade, who serves as captain, holds the day-to-day life of the community together, carrying forward the intention that Dirga set in motion years ago.

An Open Invitation on Tuesday Nights

For anyone passing through Ketapang or living in the city who has been looking for a reason to run, the answer is straightforward. Show up at Citimall Ketapang on a Tuesday at 19:30. BiakBecicak will be there, as they have been since 2017, doing what boys who love running do. The crew has grown from five to roughly 100 not because of any formula, but because what they offer is genuine: community built on shared effort, a weekly rhythm that holds, and a name that tells you exactly what they are about before you even take the first step.