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 27, 2008

Change of challenge

Jul distance: 233 km

Admiralty Road West, 58 km. Some things haven't changed. Attap Valley Road still stinks of garbage. But I see a trail and what a thrilling vista it is. My knobbies scramble on the gravel as the trail twists and turns. Monkeys gape and a squirrel gambols up a tree. I find myself going in the other direction to increase the thrill of going up a steeper slope (instead of coasting down it) and round tighter corners. I realise that a hard ride is fun while a plain vanilla one is boring. Which means hard work can be fun compared to plain sailing ...

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Self-talk, self-torment

Mount Faber, 65 km (10 laps). My worn bicycle shoes still serve me well even though they are falling to bits. I bought a new pair, model "M", reluctantly this month. Reluctant, because I want model "RT" model, which is lighter. I buy M because odd sizes are left and new shipments will arrive in Singapore only in Dec. And it didn't seem likely that shops will carry RT since it is esoteric. But yesterday, I see RT. I don't regret buying M now, because it looks more robust than RT. All that buyer's remorse was unnecessary. Sure, RT looked good in the catalogue but believing it is better is to take as certain what is uncertain. Similarly, what is happening now in my life looks bad but who's to say it'll stay bad? Today, I intend to do 5 laps uphill but end up with 10. It helps that a stranger is at the top smiling and nodding each time I pass. And that's what encouragement does.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Going uphill

Mount Faber, 43 km. After a two-hour pounding last night, my knee hurts. But it's not the running that weighs me down. Still, I get up and cycle up Mount Faber; the highest tarred road for cycling in Singapore. I sit on a roadie's tail but the high rotational mass of my knobby tyres and a heavy heart weighs me down. My heart and lungs struggle. This is bearable because I know it won't last. I throttle back and the pain eases. And that's how one copes: see things in perspective. The pain is there, the road is long. But along the road, there is hope, because of hope in things unseen.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Where to go from here?


Jalan Tapisan, 67 km. I awake in a daze but since I can't possibly stay in bed all day I get up and hit the road. As the day wears on, I decide to take what appears to be the easy way out: instead of Old Lim Chu Kang Road, just take the flat and straight "new" road. But there're unseen hindrances: the pong of chicken crap and a strong headwind. You make your bed, you lie in it. You choose your road, you ride on it.