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, December 21, 2014

Tampines, for the last time

From the outside, looking in. Destruction awaits, trash as fate
Tampines, 34 km. Once again, dark clouds scud overhead. Rolling thunder portends pouring rain.

Once again, the east is clear. I head east, to Tampines trail. I've raced here three times, so I visit it three times to say goodbye. Outside the main gate, I take a photo as a keepsake.

To me, you're the best place in this country to cycle. You had everything, from Monster Mud Madness to Moonscape to Upper and Lower Hamburger, and Wooded Wonder. Gravel, sand, earth, water, trees, ascends, descends and plains.

14 good years.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Tampines, revisited

Tampines, 40 km. Dark clouds roll overhead. Thunder rolls. The east has bright blue skies and small, puffy white clouds. I go east. To where I used to race. It is boarded up. Closed since 1 Dec, states a sign that asks for understanding. Yeah, right.

Well, as least the sign writer, and whoever approved it, has empathy.

Sunday, December 07, 2014

Goodbye. Again

Tampines, 32 km. I heard it's gone, but I want to see it for myself. When the rain stops, I head out.
The road is still slick from rain and water sprays up. And down. It pours again. I haven't cycled in the rain for so long. I'm resigned to it.

When I reach the Tampines trail, I see it is indeed gone. I was here while it was being upgraded for the inaugural Youth Olympics. The place where I've explored and races several times is flat. It'll become yet another housing estate.

This is the place where I had fun and fear. My worse crash. Bicycle races, joy rides and a cross country race on foot.

Now it is gone. Flattened for flats. Goodbye.

This is a year of goodbyes. Some good, as in good riddance. Some bad, as in sad.