Lim Chu Kang, 70 km. The wind blows, the rain pours down. It's so heavy, it floods. I stay snug in my warm bed, away from the cold. In the afternoon, the sun pours down with full force. After a two week break from cycling, I head out.
A roadie with braided hair overtakes me. At a traffic light, she does a track stand. Well, sort of. Not wanting to unclip her pedals, she circles the stop light slowly until it turns green, then she's off. The angry housefly sound of my fat tyres turn into an angry whine. My pedals, with the new free hub, are so light, I surge upslope at 47 km/h. But I can't keep up with her. Her thighs are like pistons of an V8 engine, compared to my puny two stroke engine.
I throttle back. Until two guys overtake me. They say hello and I draft them. "He's done nothing for weeks, just stick to his wheel and he'll pull you along," says one to me about the other. I stick as best I can, like a leaf trailing along a container truck. When I stop for traffic, the duo slow for me.
It's not my legs that give up, it's my air intake. I wave the chatty roadie to overtake me, but he declines. These guys are killing me with their kindness. I say "thanks", he says "no worries" and I and drop back to a more sedate, lung-friendly speed. At a petrol kiosk, I give myself a treat of refrigerated, cold coffee.
And my thoughts at the start of the ride, which stopped when the adrenalin started, come back to me. Going at the same speed when the world moves at a faster rate of change isn't even keeping up. It's regression. What's great for Gen X, might not be good enough for Gen Y.
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