Cycling is like life. Cycling with no goal is meaningless. What meaning is there cycling in circles? Or living aimlessly? Meaning comes from direction and destination. Join me in my life's journey on a mountain bike :)

Blogging since 2003. Thank you for reading :))

Sunday, June 29, 2003

Jun: 660 km

Sun 29 Jun: Prequel to the sequel
To Holland Village, 32 km. Today, I recce solo the route for The Hills Are Alive 2: The Urban Jungle, the sequel to The Hills Are Alive 1. Putting on sunscreen feels strange as I've been cycling at night for months. The hills are fine (many thanks to LSL for showing me these routes). Today, I break my speed record: 86.2 km/h. Hard to believe: computer glitch or just a microsecond at this speed? I'm addicted to speed (not referring to drugs here). I try to draft behind motorbike, bus, car, anything faster than me. But they all accelerate faster than I can. Speed is of the essence - though it's sunny, suddenly I see angry black clouds. It's a race against the wind, which whips the leaves into a malestrom. The leaves dance in the wind, swirling and rolling on the road, then rising to say hello to my eyes. Back home, I almost come to grief. I'm drafting behind a van; suddenly it brakes and swerves left with no signal. I yell but he's oblivious to basic humanity. And I'm oblivious to basic common sense, risking my life for speed. Still, I make it out of the rain in the nick of time: it's a squall, with rain and branches pelting down.

Fri 27 Jun: Misty, spooky road
To Telok Blangah, 42 km. On my way to start point at Adam Rd food centre, I pass the cemetery at Kheam Hock Rd. This time, the street lamps cast an eerie yellow glow on the night mist. The wind rushes past me. It's chilly and spooky. Brrr! Tonight, there's just ten cyclists, with J leading again. Up Telok Blangah and down they sprawl when they reach the top. I sit beside D and he asks if I'm the one who wrote "the article about Iron Horse". He's referring to my website and I wonder how he tumbled onto it. He's a connoisseur of old bikes and restores them. Tonight, he rides a modified high-tensile steel racer. I also meet a rider who's got $1,200 wheelset and $240 saddle. Money can buy happiness ...
Tech note By front d is battle-tested tonight on one of the steepest hills in Singapore. It shifts so well, I couldn't believe it and had to do it again.

Wed 25 Jun: Leading from the middle
To Seletar, 39 km. The "padre" is absent again today. "Where shall we go?" asked the flock. "To Seletar," said I and off we went. Though I was supposed to lead, I ended up in the middle since M said I cycle too fast. G and GKT just streaked ahead of me. G is now the fasted: Canondale on slicks is hard to beat. GKT tells me he likes the place I led him to, but tonight, no free supper for me.
Tech note Tired of pieces coming off my rims onto my brake pads and causing more damage to my rims, I replace the front XTR brake pads with the original eight-year-old no brand brake pads. And they work fine so far. As does the new rear d I bought on 22 Jun :-)
Photo courtesy of GKT
Fri 20 Jun: Danger on the roads!
To Changi, 69 km. For the first time tonight, Gentle Giant joins togoparts' Friday West Night Ride. She agrees with me that the chaps here are different. She likes it too. From Adam Road, we head for Orchard Road enroute to Nicholl Highway. And I discover I've been wrong about the most dangerous roads in Singapore. #1 is still Lornie Road. I thought #2 was East Coast Park, but I was wrong. It's #3, while Orchard Road on Friday night is #2. We have safety in numbers, about a dozen of us, so motorists tend not to molest us. Still, on the roads, danger lurks everywhere. In Ang Mo Kio alone, a pedestrian brushed against me - I saw him and rang my bell twice. He tought it was Tinker Bell asking him to sleep. So he sleepwalks as he crosses the road. Either that, or he's cross-eyed. Whatever it is , I'm cross!

At Changi, I race with some cyclists, playing leap frog on the road as we take turns to overtake each other. So it's true: there are people who clock 35 km/h on knobbies.

Thu 19 Jun: Balik kampung

To Sembawang, 34 km. The "padre" who usually leads his flock of bikers isn't around tonight. Where shall we cycle to? I suggest Sembawang park connector and off we go, with me leading the way. I talk to J, who tells me part of her yoga story. Interesting story from an interesting girl. At Upper Thomson Rd, I break away - I gravitate towards hills (a feature of having a heavy bike; mass attracts mass). Looks like none of them have ever been to Kampong Wak Hassan, which is at one end of the connector. GKT likes it, and treats me to the usual prata supper at Casuarina Rd.

Wed 11 Jun: From 9 to 1
To Changi, 60 km. Tonight, there are nine cyclists - including P and D! Haven't seen P since the Kluang ride. D now rides a racer with some MTB parts including handlebar and crankset. Hmmm, a mutation just like the X-men. We split into two groups, then three, then four. Not really by design. The roadies want to go to Changi. P goes one way and I follow the rest - if P is fast on an MTB, on a racer he'll be like Flash. I think that with the "padre" and R, at least I can see their tail-lights. And that's how we end up in four groups, with me cycling solo down East Coast Park and Changi Coast Road. At Changi, I pass a rider in red. No, it isn't a Man U fan. He nods a greeting to me as we pass like two ships in the night. At 7-Eleven, I treat myself to a Milo freeze and Snickers ice cream (a first time taste for me). I tease Gentle Giant via SMS, and she socks it back to me.
Tech note I modify my new gloves by stuffing some sponge. Seems to work.

Sat 7 Jun: Bittersweet

To Marina South, 54 km. This is the last ride before the actual NPCC Charity Cyclethon next week. There's a briefing today, so I reluctantly forgo a ride to Pengarang with C and CN of the Wednesday night bike gang. The briefing is at the Police Academy. There, I learn how much work has been put into the ride. Really impressive planning and logistics. After the briefing, we put butts to saddles and cycle to National Stadium, then all over the place including Esplanade, Tanjong Rhu and Marina South. I pig out after that, to make up for the hunger all day (should've eaten after last night's ride; I was so hungry I couldn't sleep). One of the girls doesn't join us for dinner; she sits by herself by the bikes - she's too tired to eat. Another girl leaves our table to keep her company. Us guys do what we do - we stuff our faces and talk about cycling. I reluctantly scoot off before the rest leave - this is the third night in a row I've been cycling and I'm tired (I've never before cycled three nights in a row ). Before I go, I snap some photos. Soon, all these will be memories.

Tech note My palms hurt. I bought a pair of branded gloves - but wrong model - they seem to be for road bikes!

Fri 6 Jun: Long and winding road
To Kent Ridge Park, 43 km. This is what a Grand Prix must feel like. We speed down the long and winding road of South Buona Vista, twisting and turning. Suddenly, bike leader J of Togoparts (Friday West Night Ride) shoots past me and shouts "left!". So I turn left, as the roadies I'm tagging behind shoot past the turn. First time I've ever cycled up Kent Ridge Park. Beautiful sight of night lights, plus the incongruous sight of an AMX13 light tank too. The tank was brought into Singapore in 1969. It's more ancient than my bike! Sigh, too bad we don't stop to take in the sights. As we head downhill, I clock over 50 km/h. I misjudge my speed on one of the tight turns. Not sure what happened next, but I find myself standing on the grass patch beside the kerb. My pedal strikes the kerb and the impact dislodges the chain. J asks me a few time if I'm OK. Yeah, my first crash of 2003. Not a scratch on me, since I land feet first. My crank and bottom bracket seem OK too. Well, it's a charmed ride, since I am unmolested along the cemetery of Keam Hock Road (well, I was singing to God) and along Lornie Road on the way home.

Thu 5 Jun: Short and sweet
To Sembawang, 32 km. Tonight is a short ride with the Wednesday night gang (cycling on a Thursday night). The "padre" takes the lead as usual, being the only roadie. We try out Sembawang Ave, a nice, broad and straight road. I scoot off early to catch some sleep and ride with C part of the way as she heads for home.
Tech note My brake pads continue to pick up debris, peeling slivers off my brand new rims. I drop by to see Bikeshop Man, who is having a late night. He declines to sell me any brake pads. Instead, he removes the pads and starts filing them. I do the same for my remaining pads. He declines to take any money. What an honest man.

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Great expectations, great disappointments

To Paya Lebar Airbase, 65 km.

The expectations
Every year, the airbase is a magnet for thousands of riders and roller bladers from East Coast Park and other parks. They come from all corners of Singapore regardless of race, language or collision. This year, the first 300 who complete the 45 km route stand to win five Scott bikes worth $3,000 each. So, if I win a bicycle, can anyone say I've been unfaithful to my old faithful Iron Horse?

I prepare my bicycle for the ride last night and skip a movie with the NPCC chaps. Today 7.30 am, I'm at the bus stop waiting for the NPCC chaps. At 8 am, we give up waiting for those missing in action and cycle to the airbase. What a jam. Because of thermal scanning to catch severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) suspects, we end up shuffling our feet for an hour. By the time I get on my bike, my legs are stiff. And I miss the sight of seeing thousands of bikes around me all raring to go.

As the ride has been in progress for an hour already, I try to overtake every living thing in sight. I succeed most of the time, but some mountain bikers over take me. Hmmph. I try drafting some roadies and if they're too slow, I skip to the next roadie ahead. I hear a strange noise, it gets closer and soon it's behind me. Something wrong with my rear wheel? I look back and see a blader drafting behind me. What a strange sight. A roadie in front, then me on a mountain bike, then the blader. I see another roadie I know and ask him to join our circus. It's great to draft behind a pro - besides breaking the wind, he is an early warning and chooses the best route to avoid all those human land mines strewn all over the place. I even see a blader pushing a pram - the kid is asleep!

The disappointments
I pass the NPCC chaps as I go on my second lap. But I don't get to go on the third and last lap - the marshalls close the route so they can close shop on time. So disappointing. Even if I don't win a bicycle, I want to finish what I start. Also disappointing is the dissolution of the fellowship of the spins. Though we were at the bus stop, the magic is gone. Perhaps because H is abroad much of the time. Gentle Giant has stopped organising rides. M prefers sea sports now. B is working much of the time; I hear he's got a girlfriend too. And LSH rides with togoparts.

The saving grace: the NPCC chaps. Though we ride separately today, I join them for lunch and chat with ZL. She must love her job a lot, because she's been losing sleep the past several weekends for months to prepare for the round island . And she spends much time with the cadets: ride debrief last night (about three hours), then dinner, then the movie. Well, the cadets are truly a nice lot to be with. But this is probably the end of it.

Tech note I consider getting "egg beater" pedals which cost $99-120 depending on where one goes - all because of the race on 20 Jun where I had a hard time playing leap frog on the road. But I hear these pedals need maintenance, and I already have fuss free Power Grips (so far, I've never seen anyone else using them). So I decide to change my rear d instead, because I hear noise when I pedal. And I like my bike to hum along nicely. I end up with (drum roll please) an eight-speed LX rear d (instead of a seven-speed Shimano SIS which costs less than half the price). It escapes me why changing the rear d affects the alignment of the front d; after all, the freewheel hasn't shifted. Bikeshop man spends a lot of time trying to get the gears to shift properly.

Finally, he succeeds (after taking out the bottom bracket and putting it back in). And now (drum roll please), the chain goes up and down each chain ring with only a bit of fuss. As I do a short road test, I notice lots of wires sticking out of one shifter. I go back to the bikeshop; it turns out my front d is hanging by one strand! So I had to change that too.

Sunday, June 15, 2003

Small girl, big spirit

14-15 Jun

I don't think she's going to make it. When she starts this weekend's National Police Cadet Corp / Police round island trip (round island#3 for me) from National Stadium at 6 pm, C wobbles down Nicoll Highway. She pedals and coasts, pedals and coasts - and this is a flat road. Barely minutes after leaving the start point at National Stadium. I race after the other 19 riders in Team Alpha and tell the next cyclist (already several hundred metres away) to slow down. C's friend, J, stays behind to accompany her while I start the first of my "race ahead, wait for the laggards" tactics. When C starts coasting, I tell her to keep pedalling. It's going to be a long, long night.


I expect C to drop out at the first rest point, at West Coast. But she wants to go on. And so she does. She doesn't wail, whine or whimper to me (though I overhear her saying to J in Jurong that she's frustrated). The further she rides, the quieter she becomes. As I cycle from behind her to beside her to ask if she's OK, she just nods slightly, as if to save energy. At the rolling hills of Mandai, she stops to push. If she has problems at Mandai, she'll have problems at Tampines. I manage to persuade her to ride in the safety vehicle to Pasir Ris to resume the ride. At Pasir Ris, C rides towards Changi.

At Changi Coast Road, she stops. She's too tired to dismount. She just stands there. She looks at the road, which stretches ahead with no end in sight. I wonder what she's thinking. It's hard to keep going when the road ahead and the pain seems endless. But she wants to go on. We stop a few more times. I ask her to sit by the roadside. By this time, it's just the two of us on the road; I tell the rest to go on so they can reach the rest point earlier and rest longer. More riders pass us by, including a few Togoparts riders (I recognise them from the Friday East Night Ride).

At East Coast, she's too tired to cycle on the dirt track leading to the park. We push our bikes in the darkness. She's so tired, she stumbles against her pedals again and again. I offer to push her bicycle, and she passes it to me in a flash. She sees me having problems pushing two bikes and turns back to help, tired though she is. I wave her away.

She's only 15. She hardly cycles and even when she does, it's just short rides. And she signs up for this round island ride on a rental bike. And she keeps on going! She'll go far in life (and I don't mean more long distance cycling).

Another rider, T, has multiple attacks of the cramps. Even after a rub down by medics, he has problems. He tries, but rightly recognises his limitations and chooses to abandon the ride totally at Hougang. He didn't train for the ride at all. There are other riders who have cramps - whenever there's a hill to climb. One cyclist went down at the first hill as we went west towards Jurong. I discover these chaps haven't discovered how to use their gears. So I start cycling beside them, trying to see where their chains are on their freewheels and then telling them whether to use the left or right thumb shifters. One guy who doesn't have any problem at all - no cramps, no struggling with heavy backpacks - is a fat kid. He's bubbly from start to finish.

More significant moments about the ride:
  • Fastest moment: from Hougang to the end of Tampines Road. When T chooses to abandon the ride, we wait quite a while for the safety vehicle to pick him up after I used my walkie talkie to call the command post for help. Two groups of cyclists pass us by. When the vehicle arrives, I race after Team Alpha, overtaking the two groups in the process. Heh heh. I love tearing up and down hills like Tampines and Mandai.
  • Slowest moment: Walking with C on the East Coast dirt track - probably around 2-3 km/h. At East Coast Park, we cycle at 10 km/h.
  • Painful moment: watching C agonising at Changi Coast Road. Though I'm with her, she's alone in her pain. Also, my fingers hurt after fixing so many bikes: jammed rear derailleurs and chains that fall off chain rings (these chaps don't know how to switch gears) and adjusting seat heights.
  • Happy moment: watching C come back to life at the end point, at National Stadium around 6 am. There's energy in her movements and she talks again, while some of the other cyclists have collapsed into silence.
  • Grateful moment: to be the one holding onto the walkie talkie. At first, I didn't want it because it adds to the weight I have to carry, and having an earpiece in my ear all night long isn't fun. But hearing what's going on elsewhere during the ride involving 200 cyclists keeps me awake. It's really punishing to cycle soooo slowly - there's a tendency to fall asleep or fall off the bicycle. I'm also grateful I remember most of the route - as the sweeper, I discover that I end up leading from behind when the rest of the riders are nowhere in sight. Also to be grateful for: the bananas, bread and powdered energy drink powder at some of the rest points.
  • Embarrasing moment: trying to fix V-brakes for the first time in my life. One cyclist's brake is hanging on by just one strand. I'm know caliper and cantilever brakes, but brakes without a "c" in it are too high tech for me. Anyway I manage to fix it after some struggle. Also, I feel inadequate at East Coast Park. I hate the place, because people there walk, ride and blade regardless of race, language and collision.
  • Anxious moment: at the end of Mandai, when a fast-changing traffic light cuts Team Alpha into four groups, with me alone in the last group. As group 1 follows bike leader M, stragglers form groups 2 and 3 - all of whom miss a turning. Group 3 is within yelling distance. I yell at them to stop and wait, while I race after group 3. When group 3 reaches the turning point, group 2 has disappeared. I should've removed the bike chains and chained them to the nearest lamp-post. As it turns out, group 2 somehow made their own way to the rest point. Well, that saved me the trouble of reporting they'd been abducted by aliens.
  • Proud moment: no bloodshed. Sure, people had cramps and some fell, but there was no blood. And I lost no bike through mechanical failure. And only one rider (T) dropped out of the ride. Another proud moment was when the bike leader of another group said to her group: "Look how Alpha rides in single file." That discipline didn't happen naturally. I chewed out the team at Kranji after they meandered all over the narrow roads there.
  • Honoured moment: bike leader M tells me, before the ride starts, that she's honoured to ride with me. I wonder why.
  • Ironic moment: riding with the cops. Now and then, a police van (the safety vehicle) would follow behind us. After midnight, a traffic policeman rides with us to block traffic at some junctions. Ooh, see how well behaved the drivers are. Most of them anyway; the policeman yells at one of them. Cops make me nervous (must be a hang-up from my childhood when I was pulled over by a cop while cycling around my home), and here I am cycling in a police event.
  • Unexpected moment: when someone pushed my bicycle over at the start point! Horse's bar end got scratched. Guess it must be hard allow as it wasn't dented. I also didn't expect that this horse rider would get hoarse riding a bike, with all that yelling and pep talks. So, a sweeper = bike mechanic + safety officer + communications officer + disciplinarian + motivator.
Tech note I modify my NPCC-issue 100% cotton t-shirt by doing the usual: cutting off the bottom part so air can flow under the t-shirt. The guys marvel at this sartorial innovation. I tell them the t-shirt shrunk in the wash.