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, March 30, 2008

I see it coming

Mar distance: 225 km

Lim Chu Kang Road, 63 km. At Mandai, long lines of cars full of the living pay respects to the dead. Where lines are long, patience is often short. I know someone would try to send me to the other world, despite the melodious chimes of my new Cateye bell. Forewarned, I stop mere cm away from a bad driver. I find a legal trail and keep my eyes peeled for scent-seeking missiles; where I am looks like a place where dogs hang out. I spot one 200 km away. Forewarned, I turn back. One dog, followed by at least two others, scamper out to greet me. I shout at the first one out and pedal away slowly. They do not chase. Just as well, given the "mud-stacle" ahead of me. One the way home, a bendy bus thunders towards me. I brake and my rear wheel skids. The bus turns; there was no chance of it bending me. My mistake. Most of the time, I see things coming. But some people just won't listen and may not even realise there is a cost. And others have to pay.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Dogs and fleas, offroad and mud

To Seletar West Farmway, 38 km. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. Unless dogs have no fleas. It is work, to remove fleas from dogs, so that one can get up without itch. Today, I itch, not from fleas, but mud. I read somewhere about acidic mud. I itch so much, it is as if I have been bitten. I don't want the mud to bite aluminium, so I wash my bicycle. Which is work. The hoses I find are guarded by dogs or padlocks. I remember N's advice to use a water bottle, which works fine as I park next to a sink. Why do I do all this work to go offroad, when there is little hope of finding "legal" trails? Perhaps because if I look hard enough, I will find what I find today: the sight of vegetable patch and butterflies. The sound of gurgling water and silence. The thrill of technical cycling on sticks and stones, on single track, and on a hill with a 5-storey drop inches away. And, of course, cycling on sludge so thick, my 1.95-inch tyres look like 3-inch. I'm in this vicinity today for auld lang syne.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Wrong data

Goldhill Avenue, 44 km. For days, the weather forecast from one news medium says it will rain this afternoon. The forecast from the same source this morning says the same. I go about my life without cycling. But it rains not. It is hot. And so I cycle up hills again, going slow and steady to maintain pedalling form. The weather forecast from another news source says it will be photons that fall from the sky, not rain. It is more right than wrong. It finally rains at night, but I got wetter last night from my sweat when I ran to Whampoa and back. Now, I realise that after years of thinking that the weatherman is wrong, perhaps it's not the data that is wrong, but the data source I've been using. Right data comes from the right source. Surely there is only one meterological source in Singapore, so why is the report of the data different? Right data + wrong source = wrong data = wrong opinion + wrong action. The scary thing is, how often people rely on wrong sources.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

In search of

Goldhill Avenue, 43 km. Last night was my first-ever two-hour run. Today, I seek out hills at Andrew, Olive, Dyson and Mount Pleasant roads. This is an area with much money and woods. Somehow, I don't feel tired cycling up hills today despite yesterday's feat of two hours of feet pounding the road. Mind and body adjust. That is experience. When life is normal, one seeks extremes to gain breakthrough experience, like riding in Laos. When life is extreme, like that of a refugee or fugitive, extreme experience is par for the course. As I ride in the darkness, I wonder if I will come across the shadowy figure of Mas Selamat, who escaped days ago from a detention centre at Whitley Road - a centre which I see not. As I cycle, I see a police Land Rover filled with people in camouflage uniform.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Avoid darkness

Tampines Trail, 37 km. It looks crazy. For my first ride after I wash my bike, I cycle off-road beneath grey clouds. With the intelligence of a clod of earth, I end up in orange muck. With feet ala Donald Duck. And front brakes caked with clay. A deep trench cuts me off - a trench so deep and wide, it can swallow whole both man and bicycle. It's filled with water too. I find a way across, walking gingerly over a little "dam" of earth. All I wanted to do was see whether I should sign up for "Enduro 100" (100 km off-road race). Back on the proper trail, I don't fall since I avoid darkness like a moth, steering clear of where darkness signals pitfalls as clearly as a lighthouse signals. The 100 km route isn't ready. Nor am I. Think I'll just keep training for marathon. It's cleaner too; I don't need the services of jet spray so strong, the jet keeps the user upright as he leans into it to wash a lorry.