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 :))

Saturday, May 25, 2013

You get what you pay for

May distance: 99 km

Woodlands 49 km. I struggle with my first tablet. It's a lesser-known brand, cheaper than the usual Taiwan brands. I should've paid more. Still, it's usable, just imprecise for precision typing and drag and drop.

Similarly, I "saved" some money on bicycle shorts. But it was false economy. The more expensive ones aren't worse for wear, but the cheaper one is a let down: I wear it less often, but it's worn out compared to the other, expedition-proven one.

I shouldn't let these things get to me. This time last year, an era ended. It was (and still is) painful but, somewhere along 1,441 km of cycetherapy, I figured that things could get better. With hindsight, the end of an era wasn't the end of the world.

So I count my blessings on this ride:
Zero creaks
One smooth transmission
Two drivers yield to my right of way instead of cutting across as they are wont to do
Trees (by the roadside)
Forlorn, begone
Five lanes, I filter safely across

You get what you pay for.
You feel what you think.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Milestone

Woodlands, 50 km. It's been rough, dealing with the impetuous, ill-judged and so in-your-face. Hobson's choice: even if I don't choose, I'm making a choice. As it turned out, things didn't work out. But I'll never know if I did the right thing, because I don't know what would've happened if I didn't choose. I guess, in such situations, heuristics would've helped. But then, even proverbs conflict: "great minds think alike" vs "fools seldom differ".

To get away from it all for a while, I cycle more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. But I'm glad I did. It's not raining, it is cool.

Two cyclists, one of them a roadie, ride against traffic flow and head towards me. A taxi sees me and pulls out anyway. A roadie dressed in black overtakes me and waves. In the night, he can barely be seen. I crank it up and draw beside him and yell: "Your tail light is out!" He replies: "Must be the battery. Flat." He pulls away. I catch up with him at a traffic light. When the light turns green, he waves to me and vanishes into the dark. All he has are tiny, tiny reflectors.

For my insurance, I have a big tail light, two (small) reflectors on my bicycle (and two strips on my helmet) and a gleaming shoulder sash. If only I have such a safety margin elsewhere.

Wishbone Ash's Persephone plays in my head. I realise that when there's a song in my head, I can't think of anything else. It's a kind of meditation, a kind of hush to trouble and fuss.

Oh, the world is 41,000 km round. Today I cross the 60,000 km mark.