Road hazard

Dec distance: 1,070 (includes Taiwan trip, see Jan entry)

Old Upper Thomson Road, 31 km. I use my new cleats with my road pedals and find them rather tight - though I manage to unclip as a van turns and cuts me off at the kerb. I haven't even left the carpark yet! I also test a long-sleeved cycling jersey - the first time I'm wearing one. It is warm now, but up in the mountains up north, I wonder if I'll be snug like a bug in a rug or chattering monkey-like in the cold.

The monkeys are out in force today. A car stops and the troop scampers towards it. What would've happened if I was between the car and the troop? Drivers and their passengers, comfortable in their cars, ignore the "do not feed the monkey signs". Why do people keep feeding the monkeys, blocking the road with their cars and littering the road with food? Perhaps they imagine they are on a DIY safari.

While monkeys are all over the road, they are less of a road hazard - they do keep an eye and ear out for what's coming, calculate speed, distance and direction and get out of the way. Unlike some pedestrians.

To fix the pedals, a little kitchen cleaner, some lube for the pivots and some grease where cleats interface with the pedal should do the trick. I hope. I'll know if hope become reality if I do another road test. But first, there are other things to check and service: rims, brake pads, rear derailleur cables, the all important transmission ... and all that packing!

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?

And the click goes on

Serangoon, 11 km. Click, click, click. With every pedal stroke, the click drives me further round the bend. I grease the seat post. That usually works - but not this time. Then I remove the seat from the seatpost and grease all contact points. I bounce on the seat, no click. So it must be some rotating part. Not the pedal nor crank, since the click continues when I coast and rock from side to side. The wheels then? I squeeze where the spokes cross each other. There are no clicks when I place the bicycle upside down and spin the wheels. The click stops when I cycle uphill. I hold the handlebars down with my bodyweight and turn. Click, click, click.

I cycle to see bikeshop man. I wait about two hours, as he works on an "are they still in production?" Made in India Hercules bicycle. Then on a Lynskey. Finally, it’s my turn. Bikeshop man takes apart my headset, soaks part of it petrol and says “lots of sand”. Not to mention water that flows out. “Ride in heavy rain?” he asks. I pick up a rag and wipe the head tube. He puts everything back but before the job is done, another cyclist shows up. It’s now past 10 pm. Bikeshop man starts giving advice to him and I finish my own job before paying up and cycling off.

Troubleshooting? Use your head (and ears). Isolate and eliminate, what’s left is the problem. This method (use head and ears) works elsewhere in life too.

Cloud with silver lining

Kranji, 59 km. The last time I passed here, it was raining. I didn’t have my camera with me anyway, as I suspected it would rain. Today, I pack my camera to shoot the same place.

As I reach the place, it rains. Shoot, I don’t shoot in the rain. I turn back. Bumpety-bump goes my rear tyre. I dismount and look. It looks ok. I cycle on. Bumpety-bump. I cycle on. When the wheel shudders as I brake, I dismount and do another visual inspection. Hmm, the tyre seems to be undergoing plastic deformation. I cycle towards home gingerly, with downhill speed the same as uphill speed. Just when I think I’ll make it home, “bang”! Not a piddling puncture, but a blasted blowout. I pushed it too far, the tyre shreds and the inner tube blows. Now I push on, literally, about 4 km towards home. I walk on grass to save my shoes.

If it wasn’t raining, I wouldn’t have turned back. My tyre would’ve blown. I’d have been stranded somewhere so remote there are no taxis to hail. And no mobile phone with me either. Just as well it was my rear tyre. If it was the front, I may have lost steering control. So, if you must take risks with your wheels, let it be your rear one.

Perpetual punctures

Oct distance: 992 km

Woodlands, 61 km. The past few days, I patch and replace innner tubes. Pump them up at night, find them flat the next day. Find more holes, patch them, pump them up. Check tyre, find bits of glass and stone, gouge them out. Tubes still go flat, including from where the rubber meets the valve. Must've done this at least six times. I run out of tubes, buy new ones. Bikeshop man says, things aren’t the way they used to be. Inner tubes aren’t latex anymore, they have a shorter lifespan. Perhaps that’s why holes keep appearing when I pump my fat tyres to 50 psi. No point fixing the tubes anymore. Is that what happens to people too? Under pressure, they deflate. You can patch them, but some just go. And tubes have to be the right size for the tyre - unless you’re out of tubes and have to make do. And when you make do, the tubes eventually go.

I stop by my regular mechanic to replace the chain (the other shop has a tool that tells me the chain is so worn, a new chain will skip). Regular bikeshop man says if the chain skips, it’ll be because of the smallest cog; just run the chain for a few months on other cogs. Indeed, the chain skips like a happy school girl out of school on her way to get a new dress.

Bikeshop man might’ve saved my life too. He says my tyre is frayed. Huh? It just looks like a scratch to me. He holds it to the sky and ... light comes through in places. It's as if someone took a sewing machine needle to the tyre. He says, just a bit more pressure and it’ll go boom. Imagine that, if I’m whizzing downhill beside passing traffic.

Lame excuse

Woodlands, 48 km. My foot. It's hurt for about a week. Since last weekend, when I ran 21 km. Having run a half-marathon once a year for three consecutive years, this year's run is the most painful yet. The past years were a breeze. Which is why I signed up for this year's. It's a walk in the park, right? No, because of the "after-effects". Still, it's nice to know that in the last 10 km, I overtook over 1,100 runners. What I don't is, will I be able to cycle today? After all, I'd have to unclip and put my foot down at traffic lights. And would my foot seize up? Still, no lame excuse not to cycle today; I've signed up for a 800 km charity ride next month :o Though my foot tends to hurt with every step (especially the first few steps), cycling isn't that bad. Perhaps it's because most of my weight is on the saddle.

Rather than risk having a sore foot and stranded somewhere, I do a short ride though, at the charity ride briefing, group leader says "no 50 km rides, that's not enough". I chase a roadie today and ride close to my lactate threshold a lot of the time.

Tip: to know whether I'm at lactate threshold, I listen to my breathing. If I gasp like a goldfish out of water, that's supposedly the threshold. I also pedal better, consciously pulling up one leg as the other one pushes down.

The toughest, the highest

Sat 4 Sep - Sun 5 Sep

Kota Tinggi to Kuala Rompin to Kota Tinggi, Johore, Malaysia 361 km.

Different cyclists, same results

Day 1, Sat 4 Sep, Kota Tinggi to Kuala Rompin. The rule is, at the start, start slow. Let those who want to go fast, go. Time and again, the rule has proved to be immmutable - especially if you know the lead cyclists. Full carbon road bicycles vs aluminium mountain bike. I've barely five hours of sleep. And I cycle to the start point.

"But this time it's different," I tell myself. I don't know the lead riders, maybe I can keep up. And I do. For a while. Then, I drop back like a kite with a cut string. I end up cycling alone. The support crew drive by to check on me once in a while, to see if I'm alive or a zombie. To help me save calories, one of them, from sponsor Equinix, even tops up my water bottle and peels bananas for me. From what he tells me, I gather I'm in the 40-50th percentile. I'm fast, but not as fast Father Time, who's fast catching up with me. To keep up with the young triathletes on tri-bikes, I rest less frequently - just a few minutes at water points and I'm off.

This Charity Bike & Blade (the 5th in the series) is mind-numbing. It used to be just to Mersing, with one long stretch of rolling hills. Now, there's those hills, plus those at Endau. It take too much energy to even play songs in my head. So I just aim for the crest of each hill and focus on my form, including my breathing. That's living in the moment. No more music in the head, that's too tiring.

One breath at a time

Day 2, Sun 5 Sep, Kuala Rompin to Kota Tinggi. It rains heavily at night. The road is wet, the rooster tail of water sprays from wheels, whirring and humming. Cycling at 16 km/h at the start to warm up is too slow for me. I do my usual 20 km/h warm up then crank it up to 25 km/h. The roadies catch up. Unlike yesterday, this time, I don’t chase. Until someone in white shorts comes along at 32 km/h. We take turns to draft each other.

As cyclists pass, I see compression leggings, aero-bars, high-end full carbon bicycles. Shorts are in different colours, but we wear identical white Uvex helmets and lilac jerseys - the official colour of St Luke’s Eldercare. There are 98 or so cyclists, we raise about $360,000 for charity, the highest ever.

Unlike in the initial 3 years of Bike n Blade, where there were more people on mountain bikes, the numbers dwindle in the subsequent two years. This year, there are only 2 mountain bikes. My small wheels and small crank churn to keep up. At one point, I end up pulling a peloton along as no one wants to take the lead. I soon end up cycling solo; spent after pulling people along and I can’t keep up thereafter. What a difference a few km/h makes.

Few people stop to eat, except for lunch. This is a high performance crowd, stops are only at support vehicles - especially the 100-Plus truck that comes with ice-box. someone asks if he can have a few cans to put on his burning butt.

This year’s Bike n Blade is toughest. Besides the rolling hills to Mersing, there's the Endau hills. My heart falls when I am at a crest and see a series of rolling hills ahead. As I cycle, I think of Laos - if I can make it up those 1,500m mountains, i can make it here. Near the end, I think of my marathon run. If i can finish that, i can finish this.

I see road kill, grotesque in death. If it’s too mangled, I look away. Otherwise, I identify it - to keep my mind off the ride. There are snakes, cats, dogs. Sometimes, birds peck away at scraps on the road. If the road kill is fresh, I hold my breath. I also see hills, denuded of oil palm, with trails snaking up. How I want to ride there instead of on the road.

I hurry to catch the 3pm bus ride back to Singapore. Bicycles are gingerly placed in luggage compartments or on passenger seats, with cling-wrap or bubble wrap. When we disembark, I choose to cycle home, the same way I start the ride.

Tips: when tired, moaning doesn't make the climbs easier. Instead, focus on form, live in the present - how to pedal, how to breathe. All that's needed is to cycle up this crest, and the next, one at a time. Break time up into 15 minute chunks, with a sip of drink as a treat. Don't have to last hours, just last 15 minutes, and the next, one chunk at a time.