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, July 31, 2005

Time with the master

Jul distance: 962 km

To Upper Thomson Road, 25 km. When there's an intractable problem, I visit the "kung fu" master. My chain and sprockets aren't getting along after my rear derailleur "drowned" during a downpour on my way to Kuala Lumpur. The bikeshop man in Seremban, Malaysia, says my rear d is no longer springy. Kung fu master disagrees. He says the rear d cable has a steep angle in it - poor design of lug position on the frame. He tries to swap the cable positions, oils the cable, fiddles with the barrels and teaches me how to do the same. Other solutions: get a riser bar, or grip shift. It's puzzling why the problem arises only after the drowing. Perhaps a dirty chain has aggravated the problem. Master charges me $3. The man in Seremban had charged me RM3. Which what that what costs $1 in Singapore may cost RM1 in Malaysia - eg food, beverage and groceries.

Friday, July 29, 2005

Limping home

To Changi and Lim Chu Kang, 108 km. Broken bone, broken heart and broken spirit are bad, but broken record is good. Since I'm reasonably fit (having come back a few days ago after riding to Kuala Lumpur) and I have a rather new toy (my little red Tank), I try to break my 6-hour round island (120 km) record. I start cycling furiously at 35 km/h and above. Changi Coast Road is alive with cyclists. "Yes, brother," one calls out to me. My left hamstring hurts. I stop at Kallang to stretch, my first break after cycling two hours. It is too late. The pain gets worse. At the rate I was going halfway through the ride, I could've completed my ride in five hours. After Jurong, I abandon my quest, as my speed drops below 25 km/h - too slow for record breaking. Adjusting saddle height no longer made a difference. And I'd thought that after cycling 400 km to Kuala Lumpur, I'd gotten my seat height just right. I "limp" home, sometimes pedalling with one leg. Still, it's a momentous occasion. My Tank has covered 1,000 km within a month.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Century ride

Tue 19 Jul - Sun 24 Jul
To Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Malaysia, 454 km. There are century rides and there is this ride that takes place after 100 years, to commemorate the founding of National University of Singapore (NUS) in 1905, in what was then Malaya. Hence this Centennial Cycling Event to Universiti Malaya (UM) in Kuala Lumpur by 26 cycling students, staff and alumni, four Red Cross first-aiders and several university officials.

Soaking up the fun
Day 1: Tue 19 Jul, Singapore - Batu Pahat (Johore), 162 km. On every bicycle ride, I've been able to pick up my bag and go. But not today. Where did I put my sunblock? But I needn't have bothered. It rains buckets for hours in Johore, so much so that my sprockets are gunk-free despite wet lube. And I'd waxed my frame too ... We're soaked. It's cold, I'm shivering and our bladders are full (and I don't mean Camelbaks).

Unlike the weather, the Malaysian authorities are warmer. We have a full-scale police escort, complete with six motorbikes and two jeeps, who met us halfway at the Causeway. For the rest of the ride, the police are with us. Though their numbers vary from state to state, their work is the same: to block traffic at junctions and sometimes even oncoming traffic on the other side of the road. While we don't have to brake for traffic, we have to brake uphill and downhill as we travel at the pace of the slowest cyclists. But it's just as well. I've only had 3 hours' sleep. Was it excitement or work stress?

The mouse that roared
Day 2: Wed 20 Jul, Batu Pahat - Melaka (Melaka), 102 km. This ride is my little red Tank's first foray onto foreign soil (its baptism of fire and water). Other machines on the road are road bikes but most of us are on mountain bikes, including an Ellsworth, Element, the ubiquitous Giant, Wheeler and a cranky Montana with a crank that comes off.

The police orchestrate a one-two manoeuvre among us depending on road and traffic conditions; one finger means single file. Besides the police outriders beside us, we seem to have picked up a mouse with a really loud squeak. Someone says the squeak is from my bike. And so it is. I'm in denial; after all, I'm on a newly set-up bike. The squeak is infernal and gets louder. With so many moving parts, where can the darned mouse be? After experiments on the move, the problem seems to get worse when I shift to my big chainring. Further detective work isolates the problem with the rear derailleur as the chain declines to shift down from certain sprockets. The bike gets its first scratches too - it is gouged twice along the chainstays. That's fine when we're riding on the flats (28-30 km/h) but what about the hills? At the hotel, I try to fix the problem.

Animal farm
Day 3: Thu 21 Jul, Melaka-Seremban (Negeri Sembilan), 89 km. With my drive train problem, I give up my position behind the two lead riders CYC and DF (President NUS Cycling Club and Team Manager). It turns out to be more fun at the back - just like in school. We have more room to play at the back: we snap photos and pass sweets around, as the margin of safety is greater than in front, where we're hemmed in front and back. As the pack is afflicted by the "rubber band" effect, I get the chance to do some sprints while another old-timer practices hands-free cycling.

Going uphill, one of the cyclists drifts far behind the pack. I ride alongside, telling him how to shift his gears, then I shoot off downhill at 54 km/h. Further on, the rider takes a swig from his waterbottle and swipes the rider beside. A chain reaction occurs, taking down a total of four riders. A spoke breaks. A close encounter between skin and chain ring results in blood pouring down a shin, splattering over a shoe and soaking up the sock. The drink rider spits out blood. We stop for the Red Cross to patch up the victims. TLZ swings into action, fixing their fallen machines, including removing the broken spoke.

My rear derailleur misbehaves badly; it refuses to come down after shifting. The road gets more hilly; we crawl along at 11 km/h; our slowest yet. It's a funereal pace, with us dressed in black and white, and vans behind us. A traffic cop asks: "All boys? Any girls? Just one? Terrible!" The girl, who's name is "forever young" in Latin, is up in front. She's the carrot, says someone, for us to ride faster. And that would make us donkeys. And joining us at one point was a herd of stampeding cows. Sacred cows they are not; scared cows they are. The rider in front slows down and I jam my brakes, skidding in the process. Good thing the beef veers and runs parallel to us, then turn into an adjoining field.

At Seremban, a relatively large town, I drop by three bikeshops. The third is the most promising, with photos of mountain bikers. He adjusts my rear derailleur but I'm still picky. He removes the cable from the casing, sprays WD40 into the latter and then uses an air hose. Still not good enough. He says my rear d is old and asks if I want a Deore, which is all he has. Sorry, no sale. For his labour, he asks for RM3.

Kamikaze dog
Day 4: Fri 22 Jul, Seremban-Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, 88 km. The talk of the day is of "mother" and "grandmother", as in "the mother of all hills". How bad is bad? Taking no chances, I ask for nasi goreng, tambah nasi" for lunch. This is hungry, back-breaking work as the small of my back aches. I've got my seatpost height right but what else needs changing?

Up ahead, DF pushes a newbie. Literally, with a hand on the latter's back, as both ride upwards. He aint' heavy, he's my brother? I go downhill at 60.3 km/h. What a pity, my 2004 record of 61.0 km/h still stands, but rules are rules: no overtaking the lead rider ... We stop at Semenyih Dam for photos. It is hot. When we wear white, it rains. When we wear dark blue, the sun beats down. It didn't help that some of the vans got lost for almost an hour, which means the sun is high when we ride.

On the flats, we amble along at 22 km/h until the newbie drops out. Then comes the "mother" of the hills along the road from Kuala Langat to Kuala Lumpur. I ride up to snap photos, then tear downhill. I try again to break my speed record. I'm at 55 km/h when a black dog strolls across. I yell at it. We stop again for photos. There is some jeering at the "geisha".

As one group of policemen hand us over to another, we give them three cheers, led as usual by sweeper DC. At Kuala Lumpur, some drivers ignore the traffic police and cut into our path. So we form a "bike bus" and take up an entire lane in what is the start of rush hour, around 4.30 pm. I slip in behind the bike leaders. They "high five" each other as we cycle into the hotel driveway. I ask them how they feel. Overjoyed? Anticlimax? They say they are relieved. It's an anticlimax for me. The mother of all hills has osteoporosis. To think I ate so much and saved calories! The oldest cyclist in the group doesn't think much of it either. But for most of the others, it's probably the ride of their life. As for me, I don't expect to have a police escort for my bike rides on foreign soil ever again.

Intensity with proximity
Day 5: Sat 23 Jul, Kuala Lumpur, non-biking day. At the simple gift exchange ceremony between NUS and UM officials, the loudest cheers are for CYC and DF. The latter somehow picked up some unwelcome bloodsuckers. He reckons the bed bugs were Seremban-bred. We have a bird's eye view of the boy's floorball game, which is a more civilised way of combat. Why shed blood with battle axes and projectiles? Sticks, a plastic ball, rules of engagement, a referee and linesmen would do. When the girl's game begins, I trade the bird's eye view for an eye level perspective. Distance breeds detachment, whereas intensity is heightened with proximity. At eye level, the pace of the game is more evident. We leave before the game is over, for lunch and mall crawling. What does one do on non-biking day? Read bike magazines of course and devour even the advertisements. Yummy. I also visit prison, where someone scrawled "5 star hotel" on the outside.

Heavy metal
Day 6: Sat 24 Jul, Kuala Lumpur-Singapore, 13 km. My room mate and I talk about riding and riders. I do a bit more mall crawling, then board the bus to Singapore. My precious machine is tucked at the back of the bus; everyone else has two seats assigned to their bikes. The bus driver holds his head as metal clashes against metal when we carry our bikes on board. I cycle home after we debus at Adam Road. And thus ends another adventure, again without a scratch or puncture.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Lapping it up

To Old Upper Thomson Road, 39 km. The Padre (who has abandoned his Church of the Knobby Tyres) and some Precision Cycling Team members pass me by, and those are the high points of the ride. Round and round I go, for five boring laps. Perhaps I'm a hypochondriac, but do I imagine a backache and hamstring pain? I follow the example of Mr Millimetre, Lance Armstrong. It seems he tweaks his bicycle mm by mm. And that's what I do to my seat. We'll see how it goes, on the ride to Kuala Lumpur. I've waited one year for this.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Taking it easy

To Mandai and Seletar, 50 km. I ease myself onto my bicycle gingerly, still feeling the strain of a sore throat and food poisoning. The thought of going around in circles at the Old Upper Thomson Road circuit drives me off towards the wide open spaces of Mandai and Seletar "dam". Cycle I must, to see how my saddle position fares. But it's hard to tell unless I'm up against the roadies. My bicycle is a few grams heavier anyway, thanks to grease to stop my seatpost creaking. The Dura Ace grease is courtesy of bikeshop man.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Last among the first


To Changi and Bukit Timah, 112 km. The last training ride for the National University centennial ride. Over 20 of us, comprising undergraduates, staff and alumni, cycle in two groups, with me in the first. As we speed along, a police car pulls us all over. "Ride in single file," say the guys in blue. But for some reason, motorists prefer to pick off single file riders. Which is how some bikers have died. I guess that's why even fish, fowl and other fauna travel in packs. But man's law prevails over the law of nature. As the day wears on, I fizzle out. Overheating (I'm the only one in the dark blue team jersey that soaks up the sun) and lack of sleep mean I bring up the rear now and then during the last legs, despite speeds of over 40 km/h. Though I start well, it counts for not. It ain't how you start, it's how you finish. Rain cuts short the ride. One roadie says road bike brakes work less well when wet compared to mountain bike (MTB) brakes. If this is so, all the more reason I'm glad my new frame is an MTB.
Photo courtesy of Keith N

Saturday, July 09, 2005

"Ride like lightning, crash like thunder"

To Clementi, 35 km. For an hour, Dr P Tan talks non-stop about cycling-related injuries arising from accidents, overuse and environment. A painful and sometimes deadly subject goes down better when it's laugh-a-minute. After the medical talk comes the route briefing for the National University centennial ride to Kuala Lumpur. After a year of training, the journey is about to begin.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Swiftly with the slickies

To Fort Road, 30 km. I make my rare guest appearance at the Wed night rides. There's seven of us, only two familiar faces. It's a mystery of life, how people come and go. Another mystery is how things change so much. Like they guy who once rode a Litespeed and now, a Martini. Everyone is on slicks and one guy on a mountain bike leads the pack with his aerobars. We cycle in the low 30s but when I break for home, I ride over 40 km/h. Number of near misses: 2.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Easy on Easton

To Mt Faber and Kranji, 109 km. Several firsts today. First group ride on my Red Tank and my first century ride on it. First time I do more than one lap up Mt Faber. It's easy on with a racing frame and Easton tubing. After five laps (during which a Malaysian registered bus almost pulverises my as it overtakes), It's almost sacrilege to say so, but I should've dumped my Iron Horse frame a long time ago. With the new frame, a burden has been lifted from me. Swift acceleration, higher speed and gear to spare. Two riders overtake me, but they're half my age. I cycle solo to Kranji to get to know it better, adjust the saddle height and position along the way, then head home.
Photo courtesy of Daniel F