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, June 30, 2007

Happy anniversary

Jun distance travelled: 207 km

To Changi Village, 62 km. In Jun, four years ago, over 40 police cadet corp officers and some volunteers lead school kids on a Charity Cyclethon around Singapore. That was an eventful 120 km ride. There is excitement at tonight's anniversary ride too: one driver cuts across two lanes in front of me to turn left. Another driver shoots out in front of a cyclist, who falls and bleeds after emergency braking. Riding at East Coast (the start point) is scary too: cyclists who wear black and ride with no lights in the night, pedestrians who block the cycling path and roller-bladers who suddenly stop and u-turn against traffic flow. There are no other mishaps as seven of us ride to Changi Village to eat. Much has changed in the intervening years; some are completing national service or have changed jobs. One wins the women's open championship at Adventure Singapore this year; credit for tonight's ride is hers.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Morning glory


To Bukit Timah Road, 48 km. I see some offroad and follow it, not knowing where it goes. Birds flit from the road to the tree branches two storeys up high. Morning glory flowers line part of the way, which ends in a fenced-up, abandoned quarry. I linger a bit. This must have been a busy place a long time ago. There's a bridge (which now leads nowhere) over a railway track. On the way to lunch, something hits my helmet and then my shoulder. There is a stinging pain I see something on it. I reach out in trepidation to brush away what I think is a brown biting thing with many legs but it is gone. It leaves two punctures. It must have hit a nerve. It might've been a falling twig hitting me at around 28 km/h. Blood seeps through my jersey. I lunch with a friend whom I've not met since Oct - someone rebel in character but noble in spirit.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Nightmare scenarios

To Bukit Timah Road, 43 km. I dream I'm rushing around campus as I can't find my exam hall. No one can tell me where to go. The clock is ticking. After a dream like that, I leave dreamland and go cycling. I duck into a side road off Woodlands. It leads to a cemetary. The bottom has fallen off a tomb built into a slope (ground subsidence?). I don't stop to peek in. As I cycle on, I have a premonition: this is dog country. It is. Mad barking breaks out. A cyclist's nightmare: dogs behind and a slope in front. I ride up the pitted, stony road. The dogs stop 50 m away; maybe they have a cold too. The road comes to a dead end. There is an overgrown footpath (snakes?) that doesn't seem to lead anywhere. The sky rumbles. I can't stay here, I can't go forward and the only way out is past the dogs. I peer at the road, note the wind direction then rattle past at 32 km/h. I don't hear or see the dogs. I keep up the pressure in case they're ahead, but the coast is clear. To celebrate, I blast past a pair of long legs on a Conalgo.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Near-death x2

To Turf City, 54 km. For the past two weekends, I've been laying out my cycling togs in the night - and keeping them in the morning. That was all the exercise I got. This weekend is different. I get my bicycle out the door. The excitement today more than makes up for what I've missed. A bus driver and a taxi driver are so excited to see me, they want to embrace me. Near-death #1: a car pulls out from the roadside. The driver is oblivious to what she almost did, not looking at me even after I yell. Near-death #2: I push my bicycle up a 2-storey hill. A black, 1 m long snake slithers beside me, crosses my path then dives into the undergrowth. I make my way past a clump of ferns, with barely 30 cm space between the ferns and a 2-storey roll downhill. Further ahead, the ground is water-logged. Though there's sign of landslip, the ground holds firm beneath me. Which is just as well. Today is my first outing with my new digital camera.