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, November 27, 2011

Two cups of tea

Nov distance: 318 km

Changi, 58 km. To see how much (or little) I can take, I drink two cups of tea for breakfast and head east to meet some fellow cyclo-tourists and discuss our coming big ride. Things to find out include:
Weather:  temperature is one thing, wind chill is another.  Being out in the cold is no joke
Accommodation: is there room for our bicycles or will they be left to the elements and thieves? Is there running water? A place to handwash laundry? Toilet paper and towels? How many persons to a room? Or would it be snore-fest in a dorm?
Road: the roads may be tarred, but if there's monsoon and landslides, expect off-road conditions on the road. There may be slime and moss in dark tunnels. Which means, road trip with fat tyres?

Monday, November 21, 2011

Monday blues ... not!

Punggol, 45 km

Sunday morning was sunny
Then it turned rainy
I thought I'd cycle at night
But that was not to be

Today I'm on leave
So I don't come to grief
I explore the sea shore
And meander as I please.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Creature comforts

Old Upper Thomson Road, 30 km. Hour after hour, the rain buckets down. The sky stays cloudy and grey. The rain stops, only to start again. Only after night falls does the rainfall stop. If I didn't have a trip up the mountains in winter coming up, I'd stay indoors.

I hustle out the door to cycle after dinner, only to feel hungry a few km later. Round and round the circuit I go, along the road that winds among the trees, cutting a swathe through the moist, post-rain air.

Raindrops glisten on the leaves. I wonder about the monkeys - how do they sleep in the jungle? What do they do when it rains? How do the little furry creatures cope without houses and other creature comforts?

Perhaps they cope because they don't think they can't.

Monday, November 07, 2011

A study in contrasts

File photo
Tuas, 130 km. Once in a long while, my alarm clock works on a weekend morning so I can play. I want to stay in bed but roll out before dawn and cycle north to head south. Though I usually cycle alone, there are 8x that number today.

There are new bicycles (a Wheeler), old bicycles (an Alpinestar), road bikes, mountain bikes and a foldie. The foldie rider, on her third journey with it, folds before the first rest stop. I cycle with her to the nearest train station so she can board the train with her bicycle. Meanwhile, the main body moves on and it takes some doing to find them.

This ride is touted as an 85km+ ride. Some cyclists turn up with backpacks and hydration bladders. One looks at my two water bottles and no bag.

Where we start from to join the ride is different. But it's the same 85 km journey. What we carry with us is so different. And what we make of the ride, what we have in our heads affects where we finish.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Timing

Woodlands, 55 km. I've done this loop so many times, but never at night. The scent of Frangipani flowers fills the night air as I cycle in a car-sparse area. Even the main roads seem bare of cars. It's dinner time, I guess. As I pass the shipyard workmen quarters, the smell of curry wafts through the air. The sun has set, the roads and air have cooled. Same route, different time of day, different experience.

Doing the same thing at a different time can lead to a different result.