Abandoned

May distance: 456 km

Woodlands, 49 km. Beyond the big stone blocks lies a forest. Birds chirp. Leaves flutter. Shadows wave. A big open space, with walls several stories high. On the ground, some rotting wooden pallets. Bits of balloon, with ribbon trailing behind. What lay here before, a factory? A staircase without railings rises to another open space. Once useful, once noisy with clomping feet, now silent. Whatever value it created, whatever lives worked here, who knows? Whither have they gone? For better or worse? Does it matter?

Bucking with the Broncos

Mandai, 36 km. The road seemed interesting, made entirely of debris. No "protected area" sign. I clamber over a fallen tree with my bicycle, enticed further in. Alas, round the bend, it's a dead end. This time, I slide my bike beneath the tree trunk instead of over it. I'm ready for a boring ride, but I'm surprised. Thrice. #1: back on the road, up ahead are two transporters with two armoured Broncos each. I sprint to catch up and manage to do so only at traffic lights. The leviathans seem to levitate. In their slip stream, at 47 km/h, I give up the ghost. #2: some roadies overtake me. Absolute performance takes over: fat tyres vs slicks, mountain bike vs road bike, aluminium vs carbon. The leap frog begins, I overtake, you overtake, until I break right at a junction. #3: three vehicles overtake me, two of them trucks, challenging "touch me if you can". Woah, I don't know you, please stay more than an arm's length away...

Whither the weather?

Woodlands, 48 km. The biker sits on his bike, then looks up in disbelief. The sun shines, the sky rains. As I look on, I too am confounded. I wait two hours, hooked on the "now cast" to figure out the driest route. When the rain stops, I start. I can't control the weather or what life throws at me, though planning helps. My route plan works; the only water that falls on me is from the road below. Still, nice things can happen unexpectedly. #1: resting pulse rate 60 beats per minute. How did that happen, I resumed running only this week after a five week "injury" break. #2: my wrist, which I hurt on a ride about seven months ago, is much better. The long Batu Pahat ride last week must've helped "massage" it. #3: my tyre patch holds though I'd ripped it off and glued it back on.
PS: on last week's ride, there were three police checkpoints around Skudai. Did that have anything to do with the arrest of Mas Selamat, who was caught in the area last month.

Gone solo

Fri-Sat 1-2 May

Batu Pahat, 323 km.
Day 1: Ride with abandon. There's supposed to be at least eight of us but the organisers abandon their own ride. That doesn't leave me all packed with no where to go, no way. I head for Batu Pahat, my first since Jan 07. A solo roadie passes me and I pass three mountain bikers heading for Kukup. The rolling hills near the end of the ride are tedious but keep the ride more interesting than the boring straight roads enroute. It is hard labour on Labour Day. 161 km is over my limit for a mental-strain free ride. At Batu Pahat, most shops are closed. I thirst. Guardian saves me with provisions. Loud singing from outside troubles me not as I plan a 9.5 hour siesta.

Day 2: Go away to come home. Obstacle #1: breakfast on peanuts (and I don't mean my salary) since Guardian sells no bread. #2: going down four flights of steps with fully-loaded bike. #3: a gate that locks me in the guesthouse. All surmounted. I tax my limited repertoir of songs in my head. I even keep my mind blank but there's too "static". Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" it is. Malaysia is big, unlike tiny Singapore which bulldozes a national icon for motorists to save mere minutes. A dirty drizzle starts. I dodge puddles that may cover subterranean caverns. This is getting old. I'm getting old. I cycle under a cloud. My feet are clammy and wrinkled. That's better than the tortoise in crawl posture in death with a tyre-sized hole in its shell. Or the bloated cat with guts trailing. Or the snake, monitor lizard, chicken and assorted mangled-beyond-recognition road kill. Trucks pass me at unfriendly distances. A lady brazens her way from a minor road to test my reaction. A petrol kiosk owner asks me where I'm from and says I'm crazy. When he finds out I'm solo, he says "even crazier". Indeed. I get home without map or compass. Am I glad to see Singapore.

Gimme a break

Jalan Bahar, 76 km.

A returned Singaporean wants to ride
I get up early and oblige.
Not that I sleep well, bad dreams affect shut-eye.
Dark clouds float on high, so we say goodbye.
How quickly the road turns wet from dry.
At a bus stop I sit and sigh.
Grey reaches far as I see with my eye.
I ride on, with my bed I've a date.
But I soon realise, I'm 'neath the edge of the cloud.
As sudden as it hid, sunshine bursts through the grey cloud.
My drive-train is blown dry.
My tyre holds up too, on the biggest hole I'd ever patched.
Oh what a break, my skin nor my bones don't break.

New route, new loop

Woodlands, 55 km. I hear thunder rumble at dawn, wonder if I get to cycle today, and to back to sleep. When I get up, the sun is up. It is a scorcher. I'm not sure where to go and head north, poking my wheel (and nose) just a bit off the beaten track. And that little bit extra leads me to a familiar road that takes me home. Little things, can mean a lot ...

Grey skies and everything nice

Admiralty Road West, 44 km. Unlike past weekends (burn in morning, rain in afternoon), the morning sky is a cloudy sky. To taunt the clouds, I put on my sunblock and cycle with my camera. I retire my very first pair of bicycle shorts (5.5 years old) and ride with a new pair. When my bum feels good, so does my brain. What comfort; sentimentality and hanging on had gotten in the way of comfort. It (the sky, not the shorts) rains but does not pour. The water does not spray up in a parabola from my wheels. My saddle bag feels dry but it is not. So what if it is plastic, the water gets in somehow and my camera gets damp. But it bothers me not. Because it still works. Back home, I warm up my insides with home-brewed chai, after a messy, foul-tasting first attempt on Fri.

Adversity, adaptability

Admiralty Road West, 59 km. Would you spend a night in a place on Singapore's top 10 most haunted list? Well, hundreds of foreign workers spend every night there, a place formerly known as View Road Hospital. I reckon it was vacated 20 years ago, but now, it buzzes with life. As I wander about the north, I see more of them. Strangers, thrown together by a common desire to make a living. Some chat together, others just gather and sit separately by themselves. I'm your kind, please be kind. Many of them live in container-like structures stacked on high. Across their abode, live the locals in flats stacked on high.

Pushed

Mar distance: 235 km

Lim Chu Kang, 73 km. I see the trees, high as three stories, lie on their sides, pushed over by the invisible wind. The base of their roots, each as wide as a small car, lies vertical. Elsewhere, I see a truck lie on its side, pushed over by invisible forces as it makes too tight a turn perhaps. I feel tired, but I push on. Today's ride (plus yesterday's) is about twice my weekly total. Yesterday, at a "time trial", I push myself so hard, sweat pours off my body and my glasses almost fall off. Age catches up with me. I trash a kid (late teens, I guess, see the look as his mother looks at me) but someone in his twenties walks away with the $1,000 prize. A bad carpenter blames his tools. I blame my clothes; I forgot my socks, wore the wrong jersey (too thick) and thought I didn't need a headband. It takes energy to lose heat.

Do you know where you're going to?

Sengkang, 42 km. The road ahead may look doable and the (intermediate) destination may look attractive. But after a while, that's all there is. A dead end, or you just go round and round. Is that your destination? Where can you go from here? Or the road ahead may be rocky, yet full of promise; when you round the corner, a new vista opens. Over a babbling brook you go, and a trail beckons ahead. Past knee-high mimosa, over waterlogged ground. The cost might turn out to be higher than any potential benefit. I know, because I was there - several times, before you even knew the place existed. Does it make sense for newbies to follow advice from other newbies?