Smiling speedster

To Lim Chu Kang, 67 km. My legs pump rapidly like pistons. My heart pumps like they would burst. My lungs scream for air. The average speed for this ride, uphill and downhill, is ove 28 km/h. And HCK sails past me, smiling like Mona Lisa and once, even chatting on the phone before sailing away from me. She's a smiling speedster, with a titanium Soul. Her friends call her "slave driver". There's another mountain biker besides me in the group of nine. He looks like a schoolboy. He's fast on his track shoes, fast enough for the roadies to talk about him. He slows down only when he bumps my rear wheel and crashes. This has never happened to me before. His bicycle ends up in the next lane. Fortunately, no car runs over his unusual machine. Or over him. He has a bad case of road rash.