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, April 25, 2004

Nicoll no way

Apr distance travelled: 461 km

To Changi, 75 km. It's a sleepy slack Sunday spin at Changi. A roadie slips past me on a Scott, his red t-shirt soaked in sweat all the way to the tail. I sit on his tail, happily adding another 10 km/h to my speed. A motorbike passes us. I use the roadie, now I lose him while trying to draft the motorbike at an additional 10 km/h. I fail, and the roadie slips past me again. We stop at a traffic light. "Good ride," he says. He goes home. I ride past Nicoll Highway, which collapsed on 20 Apr. There's no way through. When it's open, traffic will pass over a brave man entombed in concrete below. In the financial district, another worker sits by the road, eating his lunch with his barehands, with the pavement as his table. At City Hall, I pass a man with a shotgun shooting crows. The gun's roar echoes through the courts, which also mete out death sentences. I stop by at the laughably low Mt Sophia and pretty Mt Emily Park. It's near the Istana and is the only park I've seen with a coat of arms. Here, I snack - my first stop after 63 km on the road.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Just the two of us, reprise

To Punggol, 33 km. What a pathetic turnout, just the two of us again like last week. But I can't help but smile as I cut through the cool night air at Sengkang. The concrete jungle elsewhere is a heatsink, soaking up the heat of the day and spewing it into the night. But Sengkang is so new, with big grass plains and new wide roads with nary, well, barely any traffic. Soon, this will go. We adjourn to Seletar market to chill out. Soon, the market will go too. Development claims another victim, like Col Bar.

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Short breaks, heartbreak

Round island#7, 123 km. The roadies are out in full force at Changi. Some of them draft behind a motorised bicycle. The two roadies I draft behind have really long limbs. The lead cyclist seems to be languidly moving his legs, while the second rider seems to be working his legs and his cranky clanking crank overtime. They u-turn and I'm alone again. While this is my seventh round island, there are several firsts. It's my first in daylight and with contact lenses (using rewetting eyedrops at the start helps). It's my first in 2004, with ant-infested snacks ... and with 1.25" slicks. But I'm still taking almost six hours to complete the ride, with four breaks (actual cycling time: 5 hr 4 min). My breaks are barely 30 minutes in total, so the rest of the time must have been waiting at traffic lights. Why am I so slow? Average speed is 24.2 km/h, max 41.9 km/h. Should I blame the traffic, the heat, or simply old age? I'm so tired, my mind drifts and I almost run a red light. Looks like the guy floating beyond the barbed wire at Kranji, collecting stuff in a box, had more fun.

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Just the two of us

To Sembawang, 35 km. There are only two of us tonight. I have a close call, not with a phone, but with a taxi. Safety tip: be predictable and don't drift from side to side when drafting; we all have blind spots. When we break, we talk about an author who likens life to waiting for a train. I reckon too much emphasis is spent on what is happening in the waiting room. To me, the room is a means to an end. We all have a one-way ticket. Where's that train going?
Tech note What a drag. My drive train is filthy and it adversely affects my speed.

Sunday, April 11, 2004

Mount Awful

Sat-Sun 10-11 Apr
To Mount Ophir, Tangkak, Johore, 117 km. I'm at the cloudline but I don't feel on top of the world, nor am I on cloud nine. So, this is what it means to have your head in the clouds. It is cool and I occasionally see wisps of cloud wafting over the road. This is small consolation as I continue to struggle the 17 km up Mount Awful, which is almost 1300m high.

This is worse than Penang Hill, which has more flat surfaces to rest on. Though I'd been up Penang Hill (over 800m high) with a 7-speed cassette, I find Mount Awful worse even with a 9-speed cassette. I surrender my bike at the designated end-point: lamp post 51. Some intrepid souls venture on to the top of the hill. I walk, and salute WM as he cranks his way up to the peak. Now I know why there was a bike named Alpine Star - it's for higher life forms like him.

Bandage and tears
What goes up must come down. I reposition my bandage on my knee, which fell off on the way uphill. The bandage is for whatever protection it can give my abraded knee; I don't need more souvenir scars after yesterday's high speed crash. I gingerly ride my way down at 20-40 km/h. Though I've done over 60 km/h downhill before, this is not the place for me. On my left is the abyss. On my right is fallen foilage. In the middle are sometimes potholes and gravel. Other riders zoom past me. I tell myself that as an older guy, my bones are more fragile.

I bounce my way downhill on my rigid bike. At some points, I stop and walk to cool my rims. I pass a cyclist who has a blowout. I've heard tales about boiling hydraulics and overheated inner tubes. Not to mention the guy with tears streaming down his face in tandem with blood streaming from his wounds after a bad fall.

The reward after this Sun ride on a sunny day: cold drinks at a fly-infested shed. The flies feast at the bandage of another cyclist. A few of us had shed blood after yesterday's plantation ride, but none of us needed blood transfusions. After my crash, I feel more embarrassment than pain. This reminds me how gravel behaves in a high-speed turn; I only cycle off-road 2-3 times a year and suffer multiple bloody souvenirs on multiple body parts. My helmet saves me; its thickness lifts my face off the gravel. I fall so hard, there are permanent ocher-coloured nicks on my water bottles.

One stunt pays off for me yesterday though - cycling across some narrow planks. I narrowly miss a spectacular crash as my semi-slicks explore the edge of the bridge. Like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I say "cowabunga" too, as some cows in the plantation go berserk on seeing us. "Don't wear red," a biker says helpfully.

A ride worth waiting for
Yesterday, we wait about 45 minutes to cycle into Johore Bahru from Woodlands. Riding with so many cyclists is like cycling in a beehive, thanks to the buzzing of so many knobby tyres. At Johore, we wait again for the truck to take our bicycles to Tangkak. Someone figures the value of the 30+ bikes in the truck can buy half a house in Malaysia, while we make our way separately by bus.

I begin to understand why some people enjoy going off-road. Wide open trails are like wide open roads; perhaps even better, being closer to nature and with almost no traffic. And the speed can be exhilarating too: 25 km/h. I also understand why so many people stick their fingers in their eyes to wear contact lenses and sunglasses. this is my first ride in the Malaysian sun with shades. I understand why sunglasses are called shades; I feel cooler since things look cooler. But I ride downhill with my spectacles; inopportune blurring of lenses may mean I don't live to tell the tale.

My thanks to NH, JC and others who stopped to check on me, and to C for organising the ride.

Friday, April 09, 2004

Full dress rehearsal, into the mist

To Upper Pierce Reservoir, 19 km. Good Friday. As Someone once hung on the cross, pierced for mankind, I ride to the reservoir after the rain. The mist shrouds the road between the trees, even swirling about as cars pass. In place of my slicks and clipless pedals, I have my semi-slicks and power grips. It's heavy going up and down the hills compared to my previous bike setup, but this setup is supposed to be safer as I test my bicycle for my expedition tomorrow.

Saturday, April 03, 2004

Mount, hill, ridge, park

To Mount Faber, Telok Blangah Hill , Kent Ridge, Windsor Park, 59 km. I've been up these hills but never one after another. There's no gnashing of teeth as I go up. But there's crashing of gears, so bad that the irritating clank with each turn of the crank returns. I mess up the approach because I'm on the wrong side of the road. I did get lost and I wonder how I find Blangah Hill from Faber. Telok Blangah Heights should lead to the hill but no, it's Telok Blangah Green. A "green" is a flat place, which people in golf-crazy Singapore should know. On the way there, I am surrounded by a flock of people jaywalking. They are bird-brained, but I shouldn't be rude ... about birds. I wear my contacts, which blur now and then. Puts a whole new meaning to "blind corner" as I roll down the hills. I want to go round island after that, but impending rain ends that thought. Back home, I find a 6cm gash on my chainstay. Poor horse. Must have been the manhandling up the ferry to Kundur .